Stennes putsch

The Stennes Putsch was an internal conflict within the National Socialist German Workers' Party in which SA men occupied a building of the NSDAP in Berlin on April 1, 1931 . The " putsch " against Adolf Hitler failed.

course

On April 1, 1931 , several hundred SA men occupied the party building on Hedemannstrasse in Berlin . The aim of this campaign was that of Adolf Hitler 's successor Oberführer a captain employed. To prevent D. Walther Stennes from entering. This led to scuffles with the SS guards deployed on site. In the course of the day Stennes declared Hitler deposed. Behind him, according to Stennes, is the entire East Elbe SA and allegedly also the Gauleiter of Berlin Joseph Goebbels . The number of the party newspaper The Attack , whose editorial offices had also been forcibly occupied, was published by Stennes himself the following day. With the help of the Berlin police, Hitler succeeded in relieving the premises. Although Stennes enjoyed the support of parts of the SA in Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Silesia and Pomerania, there was no real uprising. The “ coup ” had failed; Party expulsions followed for around 500 of the SA men involved.

background

Walther Stennes

Even before the Reichstag election of September 14, 1930 , there were disputes between the party leadership and the Gruppenführer Stennes, who was also responsible for the assault detachments in East Germany. He emphatically demanded that Hitler consider SA leaders on safe list places . After Hitler refused to comply with this demand, storm detachments refused to work in Berlin. Election campaign events of the NSDAP should no longer be protected by the SA. These disputes within the NSDAP were settled, but Stennes continued his criticism of the NSDAP until 1931 - also in public statements. Hitler therefore ordered the dismissal of Stennes, who thereupon founded the " National Socialist Combat Movement of Germany (NSKD)" in April 1931 , which, however, never gained political influence. After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Stennes was temporarily arrested and then emigrated to China with his wife and daughter .

Exclusions from parties

Among the known persons who were expelled from the NSDAP and / or the SA in the course of the "cleansing" of the NSDAP and the SA after the Stennes revolt, were u. a.

Adolf Aich, office manager at Stennes
Josefine von Behr , secretary of the newspaper The attack
Walter Bergmann (born May 4, 1905), department head at Stennes
Walter Caternberg (born October 16, 1903), member of the Stennes staff guard
Erich Döbrich , leader of the SA Standard I (Charlottenburg, Spandau, Moabit)
Friedrich Wilhelm Ehorn (September 28, 1904),
Josef Franke, leader of the "lower news frame" at Stennes
Hans Eitel Friedrich, Adjutant of the Brandenburg Gausturm
Ludwig Gehre , captain a. D., was employed in the "Upper Message Frame" at Stennes
Heinz Grünhagen (born December 9, 1900), SA leader zbV
(Fritz) Rudolf Gundel, SA leader for example at Stennes
Richard Harwardt, member of the Stennes Staff Guard
Hans Hustert , leader of the Berlin SA Storm 5 ("Horst Wessel")
Walter Jahn, Adjutant of the OSAF Deputy East
Herbert Jantzon (born May 20, 1898 in Spandau), staff leader of Walther Stennes
Gustav Kempe (born September 26, 1900 in Wilhelmshaven), leader of the motor storm of OSAF East
Karl Kiefer, editor of the newspaper The Attack
Heinrich Kuhr, storm leader, department leader at Stennes
Bernhard Lichtenberg, storm leader, department leader at Stennes
Charlotte Schultz-Ewerth (born June 11, 1898)
Walther Stennes , OSAF deputy east of the SA
Ernst Werner Techow , editor of the newspaper The Attack
Joseph Veltjens , leader of the Brandenburg Gausturm of the SA
Ernst Wetzel , leader of the Berlin Gausturm of the SA
Melitta Wiedemann , editor of the newspaper The Attack

literature

Andreas Dornheim : Röhm's man for abroad. Politics and murder of the SA agent Georg Bell , Münster 1998, v. a. Pp. 110-112.
Ian Kershaw : Hitler. Vol. 1: 1889-1936, Stuttgart / Munich 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 , pp. 437-452.
Peter Longerich : The brown battalions. History of the SA , Munich 1989, v. a. Pp. 109-111.
Sven Reichardt : Fascist combat alliances. Violence and Community in Italian Squadrism and in the German SA , Cologne 2009, v. a. Pp. 166-173.
Bernhard Sauer: "Goebbels" Rabauken ". On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg ”, in: Uwe Schaper [Hrsg.]: Berlin in history and present. Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives 2006 , Berlin 2006, pp. 107–164.

Web links

Bernhard Sauer : Goebbels »Rabauken«. On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg. (pdf, 6.5 MB) In: Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives , 2006
Institute for Contemporary History: Digital copy of the Witness literature 1147: Witness literature Walther Stennes No. 1 (with extensive material on the Stennes Putsch)

Individual evidence

↑ Peter Longerich: History of the SA, Munich 2003, p. 100ff.
^ Gustav Kempe was a German medic and SA leader. After studying medicine, Kempe lived in Berlin-Neukölln. After the 1929 party congress, he joined the NSDAP and the SA. In the Berlin SA, Kempe quickly found a connection to the then OSAF East Walter Stennes, who accepted him into his staff and at whose instigation he formed the first motor storm of the Berlin SA and led it until 1931 (Motor storm OSAF East). At the same time he headed the IC department (intelligence service) in Stennes' staff. Kempe had a sharp rejection of the Berlin Gauleiter Goebbels, allegedly because of a personal bitterness he felt that Goebbels had once contacted the Berlin Gauleitung and offered himself and his vehicle to Goebbels' personal disposal to ask, had rejected. Out of insanity about this, he is said to have sought proximity to Stennes and to have confronted Goebbels with personal hatred. Because of the generosity with which he entertained SA men in his house, he was at times extremely popular in the Berlin SA. Rejection of the political line of the party leadership of the NSDAP, which was not revolutionary enough for him, and personal antipathy against Goebbels, Kempe should say a lot against the Reich leadership of the NSDAP in 1930 and in spring 1931 and from spring 1931 also against the Supreme SA leadership under Ernst Röhm in Munich and even "rushed" against Hitler as Supreme SA leader. His political goal is to achieve a split of the SA from the NSDAP. Kempe was also suspected of providing the social democratic evening paper Tempo with confidential information about the inner workings of the Berlin NSDAP during the "fight time" and of having written or at least arranged for critical articles in this newspaper. Since 1930 Kempe is said to have even called for acts of violence against Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and other political leaders of the NSDAP, which he called "operetta diva", "full-eaten pig", in the course of the growing differences between the Nazi leadership and the SA. "Morphineist or" apprentice trader "is supposed to have been considered. It can be proven that he beat General Litzman publicly in Friedrichstrasse while his men" cannibalized "the car of SS doctor Leonardo Conti and left it as unusable scaffolding. Through his" agitation " He contributed significantly to the generation of the revolt mood in the Berlin SA, which eventually led to the Stennes revolt. The storm leader Franz Knospe later even called him the "real originator of the Stennes affair." In April 1931 Kempe participated with his motor storm active in the Stennes revolt, so that he was expelled from the NSDAP and the SA He is supposed to be during the critical days have again called for violence against political leaders of the NSDAP. From 1931 to 1933, according to the testimonies of various Berlin SA leaders, he is said to have been in strong opposition to the Nazi movement. In the mid-1930s he moved to Ortelsburg in East Prussia as a district doctor.

[1] Peter Longerich: History of the SA, Munich 2003, p. 100ff.

[2] Gustav Kempe was a German medic and SA leader. After studying medicine, Kempe lived in Berlin-Neukölln. After the 1929 party congress, he joined the NSDAP and the SA. In the Berlin SA, Kempe quickly found a connection to the then OSAF East Walter Stennes, who accepted him into his staff and at whose instigation he formed the first motor storm of the Berlin SA and led it until 1931 (Motor storm OSAF East). At the same time he headed the IC department (intelligence service) in Stennes' staff. Kempe had a sharp rejection of the Berlin Gauleiter Goebbels, allegedly because of a personal bitterness he felt that Goebbels had once contacted the Berlin Gauleitung and offered himself and his vehicle to Goebbels' personal disposal to ask, had rejected. Out of insanity about this, he is said to have sought proximity to Stennes and to have confronted Goebbels with personal hatred. Because of the generosity with which he entertained SA men in his house, he was at times extremely popular in the Berlin SA. Rejection of the political line of the party leadership of the NSDAP, which was not revolutionary enough for him, and personal antipathy against Goebbels, Kempe should say a lot against the Reich leadership of the NSDAP in 1930 and in spring 1931 and from spring 1931 also against the Supreme SA leadership under Ernst Röhm in Munich and even "rushed" against Hitler as Supreme SA leader. His political goal is to achieve a split of the SA from the NSDAP. Kempe was also suspected of providing the social democratic evening paper Tempo with confidential information about the inner workings of the Berlin NSDAP during the "fight time" and of having written or at least arranged for critical articles in this newspaper. Since 1930 Kempe is said to have even called for acts of violence against Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and other political leaders of the NSDAP, which he called "operetta diva", "full-eaten pig", in the course of the growing differences between the Nazi leadership and the SA. "Morphineist or" apprentice trader "is supposed to have been considered. It can be proven that he beat General Litzman publicly in Friedrichstrasse while his men" cannibalized "the car of SS doctor Leonardo Conti and left it as unusable scaffolding. Through his" agitation " He contributed significantly to the generation of the revolt mood in the Berlin SA, which eventually led to the Stennes revolt. The storm leader Franz Knospe later even called him the "real originator of the Stennes affair." In April 1931 Kempe participated with his motor storm active in the Stennes revolt, so that he was expelled from the NSDAP and the SA He is supposed to be during the critical days have again called for violence against political leaders of the NSDAP. From 1931 to 1933, according to the testimonies of various Berlin SA leaders, he is said to have been in strong opposition to the Nazi movement. In the mid-1930s he moved to Ortelsburg in East Prussia as a district doctor.