Robert Paul Oszwald

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Robert Paul Oszwald (born January 11, 1883 in Leipzig ; † probably spring 1945 ) was a German nationalist and National Socialist journalist, historian and political functionary with in-demand skills for German policy on Belgium during the German Empire and National Socialism .

Life

After graduating from high school, Oszwald studied history at the University of Leipzig from 1903 . In 1907 he received his doctorate with a thesis on medieval manorialism . From 1908 to 1910 he was a librarian and assistant at the Leipzig Historical Institute. From 1910 to 1912 he was a teacher at the Leipzig Public Trade School. In 1910 he married a Dutch woman whose name he also used as a pseudonym as Bob Driessen ter Meulen. During this time he also turned to Dutch history . In 1912, Oszwald said he came across the Flemish Movement through his occupation with the Netherlands . He called for the introduction of the Dutch language as the only official language in Flanders and the establishment of a Dutch- speaking university in Ghent . He influenced the German Flemish policy through his study "Nationalitätenkampf der Flamen und Walonen", published in the Prussian Yearbooks in 1914 , possibly even initiating it, because as Reich archivist he had a "key position in the political department of the governor general of occupied Belgium ".

According to Peter Klefisch, Oszwald was the "incarnation of the Flemish policy of the Governor General von Bissing ", which was orientated towards the Volk, but not annexed. According to Herbert van Uffelen , however, this should be viewed "with some skepticism", because Oszwald had actively shaped a Flemish policy that sought "at least an indirect annexation of Belgium by taking over the Flemish movement and by destroying the Belgian state with its help". The fulfillment of Flemish wishes played a subordinate role. From 1917 he worked as a "consultant" in the Political Department of the General Government in Brussels.

After the end of the war, Oszwald tried to find accommodation at the German embassy in The Hague , but they resisted his presence there for fear of being compromised in the Netherlands by the presence of a prominent protagonist of Flemish politics. Between March 1919 and the beginning of 1920 he was busy looking after Flemings who had fled to Germany and who had collaborated with the occupation authorities. From 1920 Oszwald was employed at the Reichsarchiv Potsdam . On behalf of the German defense, he organized activities against the French and Belgian occupation in the Rhineland. He continued to publish on Flanders and founded a. a. the German-Dutch Society , of which he was also the managing director. He founded the German-Dutch Association in Cologne and was one of the initiators of a German-Dutch institute at the University of Cologne, applied for in 1927 and founded in 1931 . In this project he was a leading member of a group known as "the Völkisch", which, however, could not prevail with its concept against a group around the Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer . A memorandum from the Oszwald Group declared "the state unification of the entire Germanic cultural area around the Germanic Mediterranean [the North Sea] under the leadership of mainland Germanism" as a vision for the future and a standard for the institute's activities. Adenauer and the group around him rejected Greater Dutch and Pan-Germanic fantasies and "blood-and-soil" concepts out of consideration for the Dutch interlocutors. Oszwald initially adapted to this "tactically" in order to follow his old line "all the more" after 1933.

The Ministry of the Interior tried to prevent Oszwald's foreign policy activities in order to avoid the impression that government agencies in Germany would continue to pursue a policy aimed at restructuring Belgium. Oszwald dealt with the question of war guilt and collected incriminating material against Belgium. He took the view that the occupation authorities had adhered to Belgian laws in their Flemish policy and merely unselfishly supported the oppressed Flemish people. An essay on “Flanders' intergovernmental position” in May 1929 sparked outraged reactions in the Belgian press, which criticized German interference. Oszwald was not deterred by this or by appeals from the Foreign Office . In 1930 he became a founding member of the Association of Friends of Flames , and in 1933 of the Association of the German West , initiated in May of that year by Robert Ernst , an emigration politician from Alsace .

On May 1, 1933, Oszwald was admitted to the NSDAP (membership number 2,335,888). He joined the SS . He then worked for the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under the name of the German Working Group for the Dutch Culture Group (Danik), later for the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle , first in Berlin, then after the occupation of the Netherlands and Belgium in May 1940 in The Hague . He was entrusted by the OKH with work on national politics in the Netherlands and Belgium. This was preceded by a successful lecture to Heinrich Himmler . The new mandate served to support the occupation policy in the Netherlands and in the other Western European areas, now as a representative of the SS in the General Commissariat e.g. V. and head of the special section on Volkstum at the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands Arthur Seyß-Inquart .

Since the second half of the 1930s, he has been attending seminars on the Thansen estate, run by the nationalist entrepreneur and patron Alfred C. Toepfer . Such stays served the "deepening of the common blood legacy" between Flemings, Dutch and Germans, as he explained in 1941 in the preface to the German edition of a propaganda pamphlet. It came from the Dutch author Jef Hinderdael , who made a "commitment to National Socialist Germany".

He was the editor of the 1937 anthology German-Dutch Symphony . It was a commemorative publication in honor of the Flemish writer and right-wing activist Raf Verhulst , "an ardent admirer of Hitler", who "told his compatriots the truth about the Third Reich". The contributors highlighted on the cover included Oszwald, Franz Fromme , August Borms , Antoon Jacob and the painter Erich Klahn , who contributed a number of illustrations.

Oszwald played an important role in the talks with the leader of the Dutch National Socialists, Anton Mussert , when it came to oblige him to adhere to the National Socialist racial doctrine and to encourage him to advertise the Waffen SS . He campaigned for a coherent "Low German Volkstum ".

Fonts

  • On the Belgian question. The nationality struggle of the Flemish and Walloons. Berlin 1915.
  • The dispute over the Belgian franc-shooter war. A critical examination of the events in the days of August 1914 and the literature published about it up to 1930 using previously unpublished material by Dr. RPOszwald . Gilde-Verlag Cologne, 1st + 2nd edition 1931.
  • as editor: German-Dutch Symphony. Wolfshagen-Scharbeutz 1937 [2. Edition 1944].
  • The population situation in the Rhine, Maas and Scheldt Delta. Berlin 1940.

literature

  • Stephan Laux: Flanders in the mirror of “real folk history”. Robert Paul Oszwald (1883-1945). in: Burkhard Dietz et al. (Hrsg.): Griff nach dem Westen. Vol. 1, Münster 2003, pp. 247-291.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Cultural Imperialism. Charles de Coster's Belgian national epic “La légende d'Ulenspiegel” and its reception in Germany. in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel. Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 27-44, here: p. 35.
  2. ^ Peter Klefisch: The Third Reich and Belgium 1933-1939. , Cologne 1988, p. 209.
  3. ↑ See: Robert Paul Oszwald: Die deutsche Flamenpolitik and the expert opinion of Prof. Bredt from the parliamentary committee of inquiry. In: Historische Zeitschrift Vol. 136, 1927, p. 524, based on: Herbert van Uffelen, Modern Dutch Literature in the German-Speaking Area 1830–1990 , Münster / Hamburg 1993, p. 349.
  4. ↑ Hermann Nohl, 31.
  5. ↑ a b Burkhard Dietz, Helmut Gabel, Ulrich Tiedau (eds.): Griff nach dem Westen. The 'western research' of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area (1919–1960). Vol. 2, Münster 2003, p. 857.
  6. ↑ Marta Baerlecken / Ulrich Tiedau, The German-Dutch Research Institute at the University of Cologne 1931–1945 and the development of the subject of Dutch studies in the early Federal Republic , in: Burkhard Dietz / Helmut Gabel / Ulrich Tiedau (eds.), Griff nach dem Westen. The “Westforschung” of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area (1919–1960), Münster 2003, pp. 852–885, here: pp. 853 f., See also: [1] .
  7. ↑ Michael Fahlbusch : A questionable philanthropist. The subversive activities of the German-Völkisch foundation founder Toepfer in Switzerland , see: PDF , pp. 54, 56.
  8. ↑ Burkhard Dietz / Helmut Gabel / Ulrich Tiedau (eds.): Griff nach dem Westen. The 'Westforschung' of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area (1919-1960) , Vol. 2, Münster 2003, pp. 627, 857.
  9. ↑ Burkhard Dietz / Helmut Gabel / Ulrich Tiedau (eds.), Griff nach dem Westen. The 'Westforschung' of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area (1919–1960), Vol. 2, Münster 2003, p. 627.
  10. ^ Jan Zimmermann, Alfred Toepfers: Westschau. in: Burkhard Dietz / Ulrich Tiedau / Helmut Gabel, reach to the west. The 'western research' of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area (1919–1960). Part II, Münster et al. 2003, pp. 1.063-1090, here: p. 1.068.
  11. ↑ Jef Hinderdael (Vorw. Paul Oszwald), I found to Germany. Letters from a Dutchman, Wolfshagen-Scharbeutz 1941, 2nd edition 1943.
  12. ↑ Detlev Schöttker, Cultural Imperialism. Charles de Coster's Belgian national epic "La légende d'Ulenspiegel" and its reception in Germany, in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel, Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 27–44, here: p. 34.
  13. ^ So Oszwald in the Low German World 1936, quoted in. according to: Claus Schuppenhauer, Eulenspiegel also has time and place. Notes about Erich Klahn and the “Low German Idea”, in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel, Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 13–26, here: p. 22.
  14. ↑ Claus Schuppenhauer, Eulenspiegel also has time and place. Notes about Erich Klahn and the “Low German Idea”, in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel, Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 13–26, here: p. 23.
  15. ↑ Oszwald passim, 10 mentions, especially his commitment to the NS Dietsche movement
personal data
SURNAME Oszwald, Robert Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Driessen ter Meulen, Bob (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist, historian and political functionary
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH 1945