Draft:Nazi Party in Baden

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The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was organised in Baden in 1920.

History

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Early history

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Members of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund formed an affiliate of the Nazi Party in Stuttgart, Württemberg on 8 May 1920, and was recognized on 4 June. Leaders in Stuttgart help expand the party into Baden. The first Baden affiliate was formed in Pforzheim on 28 October. Ernst Ulshöfer, one of the founders of the Stuttgart affiliate, was the leader of the Pforzheim Nazis in 1921.[1] Ulshöfer formed an affiliate in Mannheim on 4 February 1921, and became its leader in May 1922.[2]

178 people joined the Baden party between 13 April and 28 August 1922. Two of these members were female and five were unskilled workers.[3] The party was banned in Baden on 4 July 1922. Several people were convicted for being members of the party in 1923, but their convictions were overturned as the court ruled that the government's order only banned the party and not membership in it. Nazis remained active in Baden by using front organizations.[4] The Nazis had eighteen local affiliates in 1923.[5]

Reformation

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The party was banned following the Beer Hall Putsch.[6] The German Party (Deutsche Partei) was formed by Nazis in 1924, and held its first conference on 20 January while Nazis in southern Baden joined the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (DVFP). Erwin Müller was the first leader of the German Party. Walter Köhler left the German National People's Party (DNVP) and joined the German Party. The German Party became an affiliate of the Nazi Party after it was unbanned in 1925.[7]

The Völkisch organizations in Baden united into the Völkisch Soziale Block for the May 1924 German federal election. Most of the candidates were from the DVFP. The block received 4.8% in the election. 47.9% of its votes came from cities with populations over 10,000.[8] The German Party became affiliated with the National Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFP).[9]

The Völkisch Jugend was formed in January 1924, and later became the Schlageterbund. This later became the Sturmabteilung (SA) in Baden.[10] SA membership was estimated by the Baden police to be at 2,400 in 1930, 5,000 in October 1931,[11] and 10,000 by 1932.[12] Heinrich Himmler ordered the creation of the Baden Schutzstaffel (SS) in March 1929, and placed under the leadership of Otto Heidt.[13] A branch of the Hitler Youth was formed in Baden in 1927.[14]

Robert Heinrich Wagner was imprisoned for his involvement in the Beer Hall Putsch. He returned to Baden in 1924, and joined the Schlageterbund. He met Adolf Hitler in February 1925, and and received permission to form a Nazi affiliate in Baden.[15] Wagner was appointed as the Nazi Gauleiter of Gau Baden, the only person to hold that position, on 25 March 1925, and served until 1945.[16][17] On 15 April, he published a pamphlet calling for the creation of a Nazi Party in Baden. Minister of the Interior Adam Remmele also lifted the ban on the party stating that they were political irrelevant.[18]

Völkisch leaders who opposed Wagner joined the German Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP). Most district leaders of the NSFP rejoined the Nazis except for three in southern Baden. These three joined the DVFP instead.[19] The party grew slowly with 31 local affiliates in 1925, to 40 in 1927. They were poorly organized and Erich Ludendorff only received 513 votes in Baden in the 1925 presidential election[20]

Der Führer was first published on 5 November 1927, and the first issue sold 446 copies. The paper was not financially successful until 1929, and gave advertising space for free.[21]

Philipp Lenard, a Nobel laureate, was a prominent early sympathizer, but did not join the party until 1937.[22]

Rise

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Three Nazis, including Köhler, were elected to the Weinheim city council in 1926.[23] Nazis were elected to local offices in ten communities in 1926.[24]

The majority of the party's support in the 1928 German federal election came from rural Protestant regions in the north of Baden.[25] Hermann Teutsch [de], the leader of the Protestant Christian Social People's Service in Baden, joined the Nazis in June 1931.[26]

The Nazis won six seats in the 1929 state election and Walter Köhler was selected to serve as their delegation chairman.[27] This granted the party members that could not be arrested due to parliamentary immunity.[28]

The party conducted an average of 150 rallies per month from January to June 1930, for the federal election that year. The party's local affiliates grew from 48 in May 1928, to 70 in February 1930, and 200 in August 1930.[29] Wagner froze new membership between 19 November 1930 and 21 January 21 1931, to allow for the assimilation of new members after over 5,000 people joined the party in 1930.[30] Their vote total grew by over 150,000 between the 1929 state and 1930 federal elections.[31] Around 2,000 Nazis were elected in the 1930 local elections.[32]

The party won seven seats in the July 1932 federal election and eleven seats in the March 1933 federal election.[33]

Takeover

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The SDP and Centre coalition government dissolved on 30 November 1932, due to disagreements over a concordat between the Catholic Church and Baden. The Centre and DVP attempted to form a coalition with the Nazis without dissolving the landtag, but the Nazis rejected it and wanted new elections. A Centre and DVP minority government was formed on 10 January 1933.[34]

Wagner was appointed Reichkomissar of Baden on 9 March 1933, replacing the position of president. A new landtag consisting of 30 Nazis, 17 Centre, 8 SPD, and 2 DNVP convened once on 9 June 1933 to give legislative powers to the executive.[35] This enabling act was passed with the support of the Centre, to obtain a two-thirds majority, after Wagner threatened them with reprisal at a meeting on May 16.[36] A law passed on April 7 gave Wagner the power to create a government. He appointed Köhler as president and finance minister and Karl Pflaumer as minister of Interior on May 6.[37] Wagner offered to let the DNVP delegates join the Nazi Party, but Franz Xaver Schwarz vetoed the idea.[38]

Municipal council seats were reallocated based on the March 1933 federal election results. Opposition parties united to elect non-Nazi mayors in some communities, such as Staufen an Leinen, but Nazi mayors were appointed by the Ministry of the Interior. Pflaumer cancelled all upcoming mayoral elections in January 1934.[39] 25% of mayoralties were newly held by Nazis by September 1933.[40]

Daniel Nussbaum, a SDP state delegate, killed a police officer that was attempted to arrest him on 17 March. Wagner had SDP and Communist deputies arrested and left-wing newspapers and organizations shut down. Political prisoners were sent to concentration camps. All non-Nazi political parties were disbanded between 1 June and 5 July, and the landtag was dissolved and elections abolished in October 1933.[41]

Government

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Party membership by year
Year Number Percentage of population Reference
January 1933 ~24,000 [42]
1935 78,301 3.2% [43]
March 1938 168,000 7% [44]
1942 224,719 9.3% [44]

Der Führer was made the official publisher of state and administrative news.[45]

Wagner was critical of the expanding federal power after the Baden Ministry of Justice was absorbed into Reich Ministry of Justice in 1935.[46]

In 1933, Wagner ordered all Jews removed from state and municipal offices. 189 Jewish teachers were removed by 1936, and the remaining 58 were assigned to Jewish students. An official boycott against Jewish businesses was launched on 31 March 1933. On 3 March 1934, a court in Karlsruhe became the first one in Germany to grant a divorce based on Nazi racial policies.[47]

20,617 Jews lived in Baden when the Nazis seized power, but this declined to 6,437 by October 1940.[48] 12% of Baden's Jews emigrated between 1933 and 1935, and its Jewish population declined by one-third between 1933 and 1937.[49] On 22 October 1940, almost all of the remaining Jews in Baden, except for those outside the state at the time or in mixed-marriages, were expelled to France using seven trains. The remaining 820 Jews after this were either deported as well or sent to extermination camps. Property belonging to Jews was seized by the state and synagogues were converted into warehouses.[50]

References

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  1. ^ Grill 1983, p. 56-57.
  2. ^ Grill 1983, p. 60.
  3. ^ Grill 1983, p. 61-62.
  4. ^ Grill 1983, p. 70-73; 97.
  5. ^ Grill 1983, p. 79.
  6. ^ Neidig, Manuel (16 December 2014). "ANFÄNGE UND AUFSTIEG DER NSDAP IN BADEN". Geschichte der Landesministerien in Baden und Württemberg in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Archived from the original on 1 February 2024.
  7. ^ Grill 1983, p. 97-100.
  8. ^ Grill 1983, p. 100-101.
  9. ^ Grill 1983, p. 103-104.
  10. ^ Grill 1983, p. 95.
  11. ^ Grill 1983, p. 210.
  12. ^ Grill 1983, p. 213.
  13. ^ Grill 1983, p. 215.
  14. ^ Grill 1983, p. 216.
  15. ^ Grill 1983, p. 108-110.
  16. ^ Grill 1983, p. 3.
  17. ^ Faris 1975, p. 156.
  18. ^ Grill 1983, p. 110-111.
  19. ^ Grill 1983, p. 111.
  20. ^ Grill 1983, p. 121-123.
  21. ^ Grill 1983, p. 129-130.
  22. ^ Grill 1983, p. 77-78.
  23. ^ Grill 1983, p. 151.
  24. ^ Grill 1983, p. 195.
  25. ^ Grill 1983, p. 165.
  26. ^ Grill 1983, p. 333.
  27. ^ Grill 1983, p. 174.
  28. ^ Grill 1983, p. 178.
  29. ^ Grill 1983, p. 181-182.
  30. ^ Grill 1983, p. 185.
  31. ^ Grill 1983, p. 189.
  32. ^ Grill 1983, p. 196.
  33. ^ Grill 1983, p. 238.
  34. ^ Grill 1983, p. 240-242.
  35. ^ Exner 2016, p. 299.
  36. ^ Grill 1983, p. 254.
  37. ^ Grill 1983, p. 253-254.
  38. ^ Grill 1983, p. 329.
  39. ^ Grill 1983, p. 279-280.
  40. ^ Grill 1983, p. 282.
  41. ^ Grill 1983, p. 252-254.
  42. ^ Grill 1983, p. 418.
  43. ^ Grill 1983, p. 418-419.
  44. ^ a b Grill 1983, p. 419.
  45. ^ Grill 1983, p. 257.
  46. ^ Grill 1983, p. 260.
  47. ^ Grill 1983, p. 348-349.
  48. ^ Grill 1983, p. 354.
  49. ^ Grill 1983, p. 350.
  50. ^ Grill 1983, p. 354-355.

Works cited

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