Black Reichswehr

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The Black Reichswehr was the term used to describe illegal paramilitary formations at the time of the Weimar Republic , which, in breach of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, were funded by the official German Reichswehr and in some cases maintained themselves.

backgrounds

In the Versailles Peace Treaty, the future strength of the German land forces was set at 100,000 men with limited equipment. At the same time, an Inter-Allied Military Control Commission (IMKK) should oversee this disarmament process. The Reichswehr thwarted this regulation of the Versailles Treaty from the start and hid excess stocks of weapons, ammunition and equipment that were still available in considerable quantities after the war. The control over this weapon potential made the Reichswehr, which was largely hostile to the republic, an essential power factor in the not yet consolidated democracy of the Weimar period. In many cases even the IMKK overlooked the illegal machinations of the Reichswehr. The victorious powers hoped that this would strengthen conservative forces in Germany against socialist and communist aspirations, as they had already been expressed in the November Revolution and in further unrest since 1918/1919.

Work of the Black Reichswehr

The Reichswehr supported the illegal organizations not only with money, weapons, ammunition and equipment, but also by providing trainers and providing training facilities.

In a narrower sense, only the so-called work commandos of Major Bruno Buchrucker , which had been illegally belonging to Military District Command III since the fighting of the German Freikorps in Upper Silesia in spring 1921 , were included in the Black Reichswehr.

The Black Reichswehr should both fight the “enemy within” and, together with the Reichswehr, stand ready for a fight against external enemies. From 1923 onwards, the Black Reichswehr was intensively prepared for a war against France (see occupation of the Ruhr ). The Reichswehr generality and Reichswehr Minister Otto Geßler denied the existence of the Black Reichswehr.

It was known that the Black Reichswehr was led by the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Division in Berlin , Lieutenant Colonel Fedor von Bock . Major Buchrucker and Lieutenant Paul Schulz were responsible for the practical organization of the so-called work details . The troops of the Black Reichswehr, which were concentrated in the vicinity of Küstrin, found financial support from the large landowners, in particular from the Brandenburg Homeland League .

Through the Küstriner putsch of October 1, 1923 and through the trials against the so-called " Fememordern ", the public learned of the existence of the Black Reichswehr, whose strength Buchrucker stated for Wehrkreis III (Berlin) alone with 18,000 men.

One of the leaders of the Black Reichswehr in Bavaria was the captain and later SA chief Ernst Röhm .

The continuation of military training in the narrower sense included the popular sports schools, where all military sports groups could practice under supervision. However, from 1925 onwards, university sports were also targeted by the provision of gliders (training to become a fighter pilot is faster if you can already glide) and at technical universities by providing sailboats (training to become a warship commander is faster if you already have a sailing license as a graduate engineer).

Similar associations in the empire

In some cases, similar to the Black Reichswehr:

The purpose of these associations was three-fold:

  1. Circumvention of the restrictions of the Versailles Peace Treaty
  2. Creation of a reserve army
  3. Continuation of military training.

literature

Specialist literature

  • Jun Nakata: Border and State Protection in the Weimar Republic 1918–1933. The secret armament and the German society . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 2002, ISBN 3-7930-9331-X ( individual publications on military history 41; also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1999).
  • Bernhard Sauer: Black Reichswehr and Fememicide. A milieu study on right-wing radicalism in the Weimar Republic . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-936411-06-9 ( Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin - series of documents, texts, materials 50); also: Berlin, TU, Diss., 2003.
  • Alexander Dimitrios: Weimar and the fight against the “right”. A political biography . 4 volumes. Schulz, Ulm 2009, ISBN 978-3-9803191-0-2 .
  • Kurt Bauer : National Socialism. Origins, Beginnings, Rise and Fall. Böhlau / UTB, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-3076-0 . (e.g. BS 99 ff .: books.google.de , Resident Services, Defense Associations, Black Reichswehr ')
  • Arnd Krüger , Frank von Lojewski: Selected aspects of military sports in Lower Saxony during the Weimar period . In: Hans Langenfeld , S. Nielsen (Ed.): Contributions to the sports history of Lower Saxony . Part 2: Weimar Republic . (= Series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History , Volume 12) Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History NISH, Hoya 1998, ISBN 3-932423-02-X , pp. 124–148.

Fiction

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