Ulm Reichswehr Trial

As Ulmer Reichswehr process called historians a court case before the Supreme Court in Leipzig against the officers of the Reichswehr Lieutenant Richard Scheringer , Lt. Hanns Ludin and Lieutenant Hans Friedrich Wendt - all members of the 5th Artillery Regiment in Ulm - from September 23 to October 4 1930 .

The soldiers were accused of conspiring with the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and of having distributed leaflets to call for a national popular uprising in the spirit of the NSDAP.

The indictment was “preparation for high treason ” and was based on a memorandum from the Reich Ministry of the Interior dated September 5, 1930, in which the National Socialists were described as high treasoners. A key point of the proceedings was therefore the question of whether the NSDAP was hostile to the constitution of the Weimar Republic . In this context, Adolf Hitler , the leader of the party, was heard as a witness .

Hitler used the publicity of the trial with the support of his lawyer Hans Frank for propaganda purposes and took the so-called oath of legality on September 25, 1930 : the NSDAP is striving for power by exclusively legal means and wants "the moment we succeed in the state in pour the mold […] that we consider the right one ” .

The court sentenced the three defendants to 18 months of imprisonment .

literature

• Peter Bucher: The Reichwehr Trial. The high treason trial of the Ulm Reichswehr officers 1929/30 , Boldt, Boppard 1967.
• Full text of the decision: Die Justiz, Volume VI (1930/31), pp. 187–223.
• Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml , Hermann Weiß (eds.): Enzyklopädie des Nationalozialismus , dtv, 5th updated and expanded edition, Munich 2007, p. 838 f. ISBN 978-3-423-34408-1 .
• Walter Fellmann: Leipziger Pitaval , military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1978.

swell

1. ↑ Quoted from M. Behnen in Gerhard Taddey (Ed.): Lexikon der deutschen Geschichte . Events, institutions, people. From the beginning to the surrender in 1945. 3rd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-81303-3 , p. 1275.