Walter Stang

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Walter Stang

Walter Stang (born April 14, 1895 in Waldsassen ; † April 14, 1945 on the run) was a German theater scholar , dramaturge , writer, publicist and Reichsamtsleiter (1935) in the Rosenberg office . He was also a member of the Reichstag from 1936 to 1945 .

Live and act

Stang attended a grammar school in Nuremberg and completed his school career with the Abitur . He then studied literature in Munich and German at the University of Erlangen . Stang received his doctorate in Erlangen in 1926 with the dissertation : The worldview in Walter Flex 'drama "Lothar" to the Dr. phil. After that, the ethnically influenced literary historian worked as a critic and writer. In 1929, Stang finally found a permanent position as a dramaturge with the ideologically neutral Munich theater community .

Völkisch-National Socialist character and activity in the office of Rosenberg

Stang took part in the First World War as a soldier from 1915 to 1918 . After the war he joined the Freikorps Epp and the Oberland . In November 1923 he took part in the Hitler putsch . From 1922 until they were banned from publishing, he published the German Academic Voices , the German Press and the Drummers , which were published by the Großdeutschen-Ring-Verlag, which he founded. Between the end of April and May 1924, Stang visited Adolf Hitler several times in the Landsberg Fortress in order to be able to publish Hitler's book Mein Kampf in the Großdeutscher-Ring-Verlag as a serious competitor of the Franz-Eher-Verlag . Ultimately, however, the party-owned Franz-Eher-Verlag won the bid.

Stang, a member of the SA and since the beginning of August 1930 also the NSDAP , took over full-time management of the "Dramaturgical Office" at Barerstraße 15 in Munich in the autumn of the same year in the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (KfdK). Also in 1930, in his position as managing director of the KfdK, Stang published an essay entitled “The new tasks of critics when rebuilding our theater”. This text was already under the sign of a ban on art criticism that was not acceptable to it , although its demands were reprinted years later in the Völkischer Beobachter to justify the Goebbels ban . According to a specialist article published in 1931, the objectives of the dramaturgical office that he headed included in particular:

"To review the German dramatic production of the present as completely as possible, to sort out the works that are to be represented or to be rejected according to our worldview and to set up a German game plan, for the dissemination of which the Kampfbund will work hard."

After the “ seizure of power ” in April 1933, the “Deutsche Bühne eV” was founded, the “only organization for theater visits for the NSDAP”, and Stang was appointed head of this organization. The board of directors included Wilhelm Frick , Hermann Göring , Goebbels, Bernhard Rust and Hans Schemm . Prominent representatives of the association were Baldur von Schirach and Rudolf Hess . The German stage, which gained around 500,000 members in the first few months, saw its primary goal in the fight against a "new theater sabotage", which denoted a lack of subsidies for theaters that were threatened with existence. The dilemma should be overcome by attracting new viewers.

After Rosenberg's office of “ the Führer’s representative for the entire intellectual and ideological education of the NSDAP ” was established in June 1934 , Stang took over the management of the “arts care” department, which included the theater, visual arts and music, from July 1934. He was Alfred Rosenberg's most important employee alongside Gotthard Urban . As head of the “Art Preservation” department, Stang was assigned the “ Cultural Political Archive ”, which in the first few years played a major role in checking people. He was also head of the Institute for Art Research at the University of Bonn and chief editor in Rosenberg's Reich Office for the Promotion of German Literature .

In July 1935, Stang was promoted to Reichsdienstleiter in the Rosenberg office and, after the "Art Care" department became the main office in 1941, on April 20, 1941, to Oberdienstleiter. From 1934, Stang was also Reichsleiter in the National Socialist Cultural Community (formerly KfdK) until this department was absorbed into the organization Kraft durch Freude in June 1937 .

From March 1936, Stang was a full member of the National Socialist Reichstag .

Stang was put into temporary retirement in 1943. At the end of his work in the Rosenberg office, Stang, who was regarded as not very binding and bitter due to failures, was no longer benevolent of many colleagues inside and outside the office. In the spring of 1945, Stang, who was already seriously ill, died while fleeing Berlin during the war.

After the end of the war, Stang's writings Fundamentals of National Socialist Culture (1935) and Weltanschauung und Kunst (1937), both published by the Berlin publishing house Junker and Dünnhaupt, were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Weichmann: The "Erika Mann Case" - A Theater on the Way to the Third Reich , in: Die Gazette , Edition 3, 2004, footnote 20
  2. ↑ a b Database of members of the Reichstag, entry Walter Stang
  3. ↑ a b c d Reinhard Bollmus: The Office Rosenberg and his opponents , p. 32.
  4. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , p. 595.
  5. ↑ Othmar Plöckinger: History of a book. Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" 1922-1945 . 1st edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-57956-7 , p. 36 f., 44 f .
  6. ^ Manfred Weissbecker: Alfred Rosenberg. "The anti-Semitic movement was only a protective measure ..." In: Kurt Pätzold, Manfred Weißbecker (ed.): Steps to the gallows. Life paths before the Nuremberg judgments . Leipzig, 1999, ISBN 3-86189-163-8 , pp. 160 .
  7. ^ Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist . Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89667-148-0 , p. 267 .
  8. ^ Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The "Combat League for German Culture" and the educated bourgeois unease about modernity , p. 58f.
  9. ^ Dietrich Strothmann: National Socialist Literary Policy. A contribution to journalism in the Third Reich . 4th edition. Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-416-00190-7 , pp. 272 (Source: VB No. 340, December 5, 1936).
  10. ↑ Quoted in: Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the educated bourgeois unease about modernity , p. 59.
  11. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Munich 2005, p. 390.
  12. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Munich 2005, p. 326.
  13. ^ Dietrich Strothmann : National Socialist Literary Policy. a contribution to journalism in the Third Reich. 4th edition, Bonn 1985, p. 56.
  14. ↑ Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographisches Lexikon zum Third Reich , 1998, p. 437f.
  15. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
personal data
SURNAME Stang, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German head of staff in the Rosenberg office and politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Waldsassen
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1945