Wilhelm Stapel

Wilhelm Stapel (born October 27, 1882 in Kalbe (Milde) ; † June 1, 1954 in Hamburg ) was a political journalist and head of the Hamburg Circle , a group of thinkers Armin Mohler assigned to the Conservative Revolution . Stapel was a Protestant, nationalist, and avowed anti-Semite .

Life

Wilhelm Stapel was the son of a watchmaker, grew up in Kalbe (Milde) and attended high school in Salzwedel (with one interruption when he was doing an apprenticeship as a bookseller). After graduating from high school, he studied art history, philosophy and economics in Göttingen, Munich and Berlin. In 1911 he was in Göttingen with Edmund Husserl with the art history work The Master of the Salzwedeler High Altar. In addition to an overview of the gothic carved altars in the Altmark, he did his doctorate.

At that time, Stapel was influenced by the writings of Friedrich Naumann and Ferdinand Avenarius , which shaped his initially left-liberal political attitude. During this time he was the political editor of the liberal Stuttgart Observer. In 1911 he took a leading position in the Dürerbund of Ferdinand Avenarius and was brought by him to the editorial office of the magazine Der Kunstwart . A personal rift with Avenarius caused him to resign from this engagement in 1916. From 1917 to 1919, Stapel was the managing director of the Hamburger Volksheim , founded by Walther Classen in 1901 , where mainly folk education events were offered. In one of his speeches on “popular education”, which he gave there in 1917, Stapel developed the theoretical separation of people and state , which was to remain programmatic for his thinking until Adolf Hitler's leadership was recognized. Stapel was also a member and sponsor of the Fichte Society from 1914 .

After the First World War, a political and ideological reorientation took place Stackel to conservative German national, ethnic and anti-Semitic positions. In January 1919, Stapel became editor-in-chief and publisher of the monthly magazine Deutsches Volkstum , which under his direction became one of the leading anti-Semitic organs of the Weimar Republic . Stapel had a decisive influence on the Hamburg "Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt", which was close to the German National Sales Aid Association . His People's Civic Education , published in 1917, was revised in 1942 under the title People. Investigations into nationality and nationality appeared, was already shaped against the "existing Jewish nationality". For Stapel, anti-Semitism was nothing negative, but rather “proof that the people's soul is still healthy and resilient”. His widespread work Antisemitism? In his work he repeatedly quoted Hans FK Günther , especially as a key witness for the view that Germans and Jews are not “ races ” but “peoples (are) who emerged from several races (...)”. Accordingly, for Stapel it is not the term “race” but “ nationality ” that is decisive, and he interpreted the conflict between Jews and Germans primarily as a “mental problem”.

He was one of the first to use the term “symbiosis between Germans and Jews”, which, however, he did not consider to be a desirable condition. “The dispute between Jews and anti-Semites,” said Stapel, will not be understood if one only regards it as a dispute between individuals. It is not a matter of "individual people of this kind with individual people of another kind" cannot get along. Rather, it is a question of a fundamental contrast in character between peoples: “People's instincts, people's dispositions, nationalities collide.” Thus, German anti-Semitism is complemented by Jewish “anti-Germanism”. To state this contrast does not mean a devaluation of Judaism. Stapel warned against “state radical cures”, assessed Zionism positively and recommended maintaining intellectual “distance”.

The anti-Semite Hans Blüher acknowledged Stapel as "one of the few real anti-Semites" in Germany. In 1932, Carl von Ossietzky responded with a polemic on Stapel's collection of articles Antisemitism and Anti-Germanism (1928) and Blüher's The Rise of Israel against Christian Goods (1931), some of which referred to Stapel. Although both Blüher and Stapel explicitly spoke out against a violent solution to the “ Jewish question ”, Ossietzky assumed complicity with the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists: “The gentlemen forget the background of the time and what response they can find. [...] A well-aimed word is enough to get your hands moving. There is a lot of blood in the air during this time. Literary anti-Semitism only provides the immaterial weapons for manslaughter. "

Since 1931, Stapel advocated National Socialism , which he tried to reconcile with a Christian-Protestant basis. After welcomed by stacking takeover of the Nazi regime , he soon became involved in conflicts with the new rulers. As early as the spring of 1933, his position at the Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt was threatened by hostility from Alfred Rosenberg , but Rudolf Hess protected Stack's independence. Stack had never become a member of the NSDAP. In 1936, Walter brought Frank Stapel, whom he knew from the magazine Deutsches Volkstum , into his research department on the Jewish question , which had been established by the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany in 1935 to scientifically underpin anti-Semitism. In this context, Stapel's work The literary supremacy of the Jews from 1918 to 1933 was created in 1937. With regard to anti-Semitism, there were competing currents within National Socialism. The Research Department on the Jewish Question was in direct competition with Alfred Rosenberg's Institute for Research on the Jewish Question . In the SS publication Das Schwarze Korps and in other official newspapers, Stapel was increasingly criticized. After all, the pressure on Stapel was so great that he retired in 1938 as the editor of the German Volkstum . The magazine appeared until it was discontinued in 1941. Stapel was now largely eliminated from journalism. In 1939 he declared his collaboration with the Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life .

Stapel's best-known works included his satirical polemics, which were collected in the volumes literary laundry (1930, illustrated by A. Paul Weber ) and Stapeleien (1939). Stapel also cultivated the peculiarity of “translating into community German”, for example from Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival , the Heliand and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason .

After the end of the war, Stapel's writings (all in the Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt) Antisemitism and Antigermanism (1928), literary laundry (1930), six chapters on Christianity and National Socialism (1931), the Christian statesman (1932), Prussia must be were published in the Soviet occupation zone (1932), The Church of Christ and the State of Hitler (1933), People's Church or Sect? (1934), Christianity seen politically (1937), The literary predominance of the Jews in Germany 1918 to 1933 (1937) and Volk (1942) put on the list of literature to be sorted out. In the German Democratic Republic , this list was followed by his anti-Semitism (1922).

Publications (selection)

• Avenarius book. A picture of the man from his poems and essays. Callwey, Munich 1916.
• The fictions of the Weimar constitution - attempt to distinguish between formal and functional democracy. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1928.
• Anti-Semitism and Anti-Germanism - On the emotional problem of the symbiosis of the German and the Jewish people. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1928.
• Literary laundry. With drawings by A. Paul Weber, Resistance Publishing House Anna Niekisch, Leipzig 1929, from 1930 Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg.
• Six chapters on Christianity and National Socialism , 1931.
• The Christian statesman. A Theology of Nationalism , 1932.
• Prussia must be , Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1932.
• The Church of Christ and the State of Hitler , Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1933.
• The law of our life , Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1939.
• The literary predominance of the Jews in Germany 1918 to 1933. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1937 (= writings of the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany , Vol. 7).
• as editor: Deutsches Volkstum. Monthly for German intellectual life.

As translator

• The Heliand . Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1953.
• Parzival , from Wolfram von Eschenbach , transferred from Wilhelm Stapel. Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 978-3-548-23908-8
• Kant's Critique of Pure Reason translated into community German , 2 volumes, 1919/1921.

Secondary literature

• Heinrich Keßler: Wilhelm Stapel as a political publicist. A contribution to the history of conservative nationalism between the two world wars. Erlangen 1967.
• Helmut Thomke: Politics and Christianity with Wilhelm Stapel. Mainz 1973.
• Jochen Meyer: Rebellion of the landscape against Berlin. Wilhelm Stapel and his magazine “Deutsches Volkstum” Hamburg 1919–1938 . In: Berlin - Province. Literary controversies around 1930 , arr. by Jochen Meyer. In: Marbach-Magazin 35/1985, pp. 6–46.
• Ascan Gossler: Theological nationalism and ethnic anti-Semitism. Wilhelm Stapel and the "conservative revolution" in Hamburg. Hamburg 1997.
  • Ascan Gossler: Journalism and the Conservative Revolution. The “German Volkstum” as an organ of right-wing intellectualism 1918–1933. Lit, Münster 2001.
• Oliver Schmalz: Church policy under the auspices of the people's nomos doctrine. Wilhelm Stapel in the Third Reich. Frankfurt 2004.
• Oliver Schmalz: Stack, Wilhelm. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 25 (2013), pp. 56–57. Online version; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118752758.html#ndbcontent .
• Roland Kurz: National Protestant Thinking in the Weimar Republic. Requirements and manifestations of Protestantism after the First World War in its encounter with people and nation. Gütersloher Verlag-Haus, Gütersloh 2007, ISBN 978-3-579-05779-8 .
• Siegfried Lokatis : Anti-Semitism, popular ideas and the organization of folkish literature with special consideration of Wilhelm Stack, dissertation State examination office for teaching positions in schools, teacher examination work Bochum 1985, OCLC 248042365
• Thomas Vordermayer: The U-turn of Wilhelm Stapel. From the liberal beginnings of a Volkish publicist and their national (social) istic revision after 1918 . In: Heuss-Forum 3/2017.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Stapel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilhelm Stapel's estate in the German Literature Archive in Marbach

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The work was published in two parts in the 38th (1911) and 40th (1913) annual report of the Altmark Association for Fatherland History and Industry .
2. ^ Heide Gerstenberger : The revolutionary conservatism. A contribution to the analysis of liberalism. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, p. 84.
3. ↑ Michael Mayer : NSDAP and anti-Semitism 1919–1933 (PDF; 361 kB).
4. ^ Rudolf Lassahn: Studies on the history of Fichte's impact as a pedagogue. Quelle & Meyer, 1970, p. 20.
5. ↑ Timur Mukazhanoc: A “cosmopolitan country”? Germany's long road to a new immigration policy: new approaches in German migration policy and the attitude of the population. Self-published, Freiburg / Breisgau 2004, p. 144.
6. ^ Wilhelm Stapel: People. Studies of people and people. Hamburg 1942, p. 238.
7. ^ Wilhelm Stapel: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Germanism. 1927, p. 14.
8. ↑ Stapel and Günther, known as "Rassegünther", were active together in a Hamburg branch of the June club , which soon became part of the Hamburg national club . Look there!
9. ↑ In the monthly magazine Deutsches Volkstum (Issue 6, 1927, p. 418) edited by himself .
10. ↑ Salomon Korn: “How German should it be?” In: Die Zeit , No. 24/2003.
11. ^ Wilhelm Stapel: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Germanism. 1927, p. 108: "Nor does it occur to me to consider the Jewish people as a people to be inferior or even to be 'evil'."
12. ^ Wilhelm Stapel: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Germanism. 1927, pp. 107-109.
13. ^ Carl von Ossietzky: Anti-Semites. In: The world stage . July 19, 1932, p. 96 f.
14. ^ Anne Christine Nagel : The Philipps University of Marburg under National Socialism. Documents related to their history. Steiner, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 149.
15. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Graf : Wilhelm Stapel. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon . 9, 1995, Sp. 1165-1200, here Sp. 1176. Not in the online version of the BBKL.
16. ↑ Hans Prolingheuer: We went astray. Cologne 1987, p. 151.
17. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of the literature to be sorted out, letter S. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1946.
18. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out, letter S. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1948.
19. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out, letter S. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1953.
20. ↑ Reprint 2003 in the relevant publishing house for holistic research (other names were also used) of Roland Bohlinger, who had a criminal record for incitement, in: Four writings of the Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neue Deutschland. Viöl 2003, anthology with contributions by Walter Frank , Franz Koch , Stapel, Richard Fester .
21. ↑ Ed. Together with Albrecht Erich Günther . How little discredited Stapel was in 1932 is shown by the fact that the theologian and enemy of NS Karl Barth published here that year. Shortly before the transfer of power to Hitler, he stands next to staunch Nazis like Karl Megerle and Richard Euringer , the Nazi theologian and anti-Semite Paul Althaus , the Lutheran Hans Asmussen , who is loyal to the state under all circumstances .
22. ^ Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1937. First edition of this version.