Theodor Duesterberg
Theodor Duesterberg (born October 19, 1875 in Darmstadt , † November 4, 1950 in Hameln ) was a top functionary in the Weimar Republic and long-time chairman of the German national paramilitary steel helmets .
Life
Theodor Duesterberg was the son of General Doctor Georg Duesterberg and his wife Elis, née Collmann. In 1893 he joined the Prussian army after training at the cadet institutes in Potsdam and Groß-Lichterfelde . 1900/01 he was a member of the East Asian expeditionary corps sent to China for the Boxer Rebellion . Two years later, Duesterberg was made an officer .
During the First World War , Duesterberg worked in the War Ministry as head of the Allied Armies department and was eventually promoted to lieutenant colonel.
In protest against the Versailles peace treaty, he resigned in 1919, attended history lectures at Berlin University and decided to become politically active. In the same year he joined the German National People's Party (DNVP) and was appointed party secretary in Halle (Saale) in October. He left the party in 1923 after several disagreements with the party leadership and now joined the monarchist- nationalist military association Stahlhelm. Duesterberg quickly made a career here, in the year of his accession he became leader of the Central Germany Association he had built up and one year later one of the two federal leaders alongside Franz Seldte .
In 1929, the Stahlhelm initiated a referendum against the Young Plan together with the DNVP and the NSDAP . Two years later, Duesterberg advocated the collaboration of the Stahlhelm with DNVP, NSDAP and other anti-republican groups of the extreme right in the rather fragile Harzburg Front and in society for the study of fascism . In the Reich presidential election in 1932 Duesterberg was nominated by the DNVP as a candidate, but, perhaps influenced by the discrediting by the NSDAP as a “ quarter Jew ”, it did poorly with 6.8% of the votes in the first ballot and withdrew his candidacy for Reich President . Despite the campaign, he was offered a post in the hastily formed Hitler cabinet as Minister of Labor in 1933 , which Franz Seldte then took. Due to the synchronization of the steel helmet, Duesterberg gave up the chairmanship there.
During the Röhm affair in 1934 Duesterberg was briefly imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp . After his release, things became quiet around him. It is known that he sought contact with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , but never became a member of the resistance .
In 1949 he published the work Der Stahlhelm und Hitler , in which he defended his political activities and emphasized his distance from National Socialism.
Fonts
- The Stahlhelm and Hitler. With a foreword by Wolfgang Müller. Wolfenbütteler Verlagsanstalt, Wolfenbüttel and Hanover 1949.
literature
- Wolfgang Sauer: Duesterberg, Theodor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 176 ( digitized version ).
- Theodor Duesterberg , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 44/1950 of October 23, 1950, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
Web links
- Literature by and about Theodor Duesterberg in the catalog of the German National Library
- Gabriel Eikenberg: Theodor Duesterberg. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
- Newspaper article about Theodor Duesterberg in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- Theodor Duesterberg in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinrich Brüning : Memoirs 1918-1934 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH, Stuttgart, 1970, p. 467.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Duesterberg, Theodor |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Top functionary in the Weimar Republic; Chairman of the Stahlhelmbund |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 19, 1875 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
DATE OF DEATH | November 4th 1950 |
Place of death | Hamelin |