The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

"Science," the Greek word for knowledge, when appended to the word "political," creates what seems like an oxymoron. For who could claim to know politics? More complicated than any game, most people who play it become addicts and die without understanding what they were addicted to. The rest of us suffer under their malpractice as our "leaders." A truer case of the blind leading the blind could not be found. Plumb the depths of confusion here.

Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

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Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER 4: The international radical right's Aufbau (reconstruction)

Karl Schlogel, a German expert on White emigres, has noted that Munich ascended to the dynamic crux of volkisch German-White emigre collaboration after the Kapp Putsch collapsed in Berlin in March 1920. [1] Leading German and White emigre participants in the Kapp Putsch fled East Elbian Germany for Bavaria, where they quickly reorganized and found new means to further complementary right-wing German/White emigre interests. Former German and White emigre Kapp Putsch conspirators in Bavaria sent a mission under Max von Scheubner-Richter to establish clandestine military and economic relations with General Piotr Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces, which were based on the Crimean Peninsula in the Ukraine. To foster the common struggle against Bolshevism, Vrangel's regime pledged to deliver large amounts of agricultural goods in return for military personnel and supplies from right-wing Bavarian circles.

The cooperation between German and White emigre rightists based in Bavaria and Vrangel proved short-lived because of the Red Army's surprisingly rapid victory over Vrangel's forces. Nonetheless, this brief German-White emigre/White connection spurred the formation of Aufbau, a conspiratorial volkisch German/White emigre organization that opposed the Entente, the Weimar Republic, Jewry, and Bolshevism. Aufbau sought to overthrow the Bolshevik regime and to set Grand Prince Kirill Romanov at the head of a pro-German Russian monarchy.
Following the low point of right-wing fortunes in Germany that had been reached with the Kapp Putsch's failure, Aufbau demonstrated its resilience by rejuvenating the volkisch German/White emigre radical right on German soil in the course of late 1920 and the first half of 1921.

Aufbau maintained close ties with the National Socialist Party from the beginning. The German Max Amann served both as Aufbau's second secretary and as secretary of the National Socialist Party. Four Baltic German Aufbau colleagues from the same Riga fraternity in the Russian Empire played leading roles in the National Socialist Party: Aufbau's first secretary (and de faacto leader) Scheubner-Richter, Aufbau's deputy director Arno Schickedanz, and two collaborators with Hitler's early mentor Dietrich Eckart, Alfred Rosenberg and Otto von Kursell. Prominent White emigre members of Aufbau who did not belong to the NSDAP but who nevertheless served its cause included Aufbau's vice president Vladimir Biskupskii, the Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, who led Aufbau's Ukrainian section, and the close trio of Fedor Vinberg, Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, and Sergei Taboritskii. Scheubner-Richter also introduced Hitler to General Erich von Ludendorff in the context of Aufbau, thereby beginning a political collaboration that led to the disastrous Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923.

THE BAVARIAN-CRIMEAN CONNECTION

While the Kapp Putsch failed ignominiously in East Elbian Germany, it succeeded in overthrowing the socialist government in Bavaria. As a result of the Kapp Pursch, a new right-wing regime was installed in Bavaria under Minister President Gustav Ritter von Kahr and Bavarian Police Chief Ernst Pohner. [2] The National Socialist Party headquartered in Munich in which Hitler played a key role (he only established dictatorial control over the Party in July 1921) began its dramatic rise in rightist German affairs in the favorable new political climate in Bavaria. [3] White emigre Aufbau member and prominent National Socialist Alfred Rosenberg later credited Pohner, a staunch opponent of the November 1918 Revolution in Germany, with holding a "protective hand" over the National Socialist Party. [4]

In addition to protecting the fledgling National Socialist movement, the new right-wing Bavarian government offered a haven for German nationalist revolutionary officers connected with the Kapp Putsch. Prussian officers implicated in the Kapp Putsch received a warm welcome in Bavaria. General Erich von Ludendorff established cordial relations with police Chief Pohner after fleeing Berlin for Bavaria. [5] Ludendorff's Kapp Putsch comrades Colonel Karl Bauer, Captain Waldemar Pabst, and Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, the last of whom had led the troops for the failed coup in Berlin, likewise received police protection in Munich and surrounding areas. [bIn general, Bavarian police officers and armed supporters guarded failed conservative revolutionaries from the north.[/b] [6] From exile in Sweden, Wolfgang Kapp approved of the move of so many of his former co-conspirators southwards. He noted in a letter to General Ludendorff: "At least in Bavaria there is a bourgeois government in power. The people have come to the correct conclusions from the March Undertaking." [7]

In general, the German Kapp Putsch conspirators who relocated from Prussia to Bavaria favored a monarchical state system. In an April 1921 booklet, "Germany's Future: Tasks and Goals," Captain Ehrhardt presented views that accorded with prevalent volkisch sympathy for monarchy as an institution, as opposed to its practice under the last, weak Kaiser. Ehrhardt stressed, "We declare our support for monarchy with pride as the constitution that is in principle the most suitable for us." He further called for the German people to unite with a common will. He noted, "We are a people, but still not a nation ... We are a people inwardly, among ourselves," but not a "nation outwardly, as a unified power ... We are a people, united in everything except for the will, and since we do not have a united will, we are not a nation. But this is just what we must become." [8] Ehrhardt thus argued that the inherently powerful German people lacked correspondingly forceful leadership to lead it to greatness.

Like many volkisch German officers such as Ehrhardt implicated in the Kapp Putsch, several leading White emigres who had supported the Kapp Putsch moved to Munich in the spring of 1920. The Kapp Putsch conspirators Scheubner-Richter, Fedor Vinberg, and Piotr Shabelskii-Bork fled Berlin for the Bavarian capital in March 1920. German governmental authorities promptly banned Vinberg's Berlin newspaper Prizyv (The Call) in the wake of the Kapp Putsch. Vinberg left behind considerable debts from the venture. [9] Once in Munich, Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, and Shabelskii-Bork collaborated with other White emigres who had already established residency in Munich, including the former Rubonia Fraternity colleagues Rosenberg, Arno Schickedanz, and Otto von Kursell. [10]

In the spirit of The Call, Vinberg and Shabelskii-Bork edited a newspaper in Munich, Luch Sveta (A Ray of Light). [11] A Ray of Light argued that Jews and Freemasons sought to destroy Christianity and to take over the world. The White emigre colleagues wrote their paper from the point of view that no room remained for passive bystanders in the struggle against these forces of evil. [12] Vinberg and Shabelskii-Bork, eventually joined by their colleague Sergei Taboritskii, were extremely destitute in Munich. They only possessed some disposable income immediately after finishing a work for publication. Even then, however, they soon fell back into a state of poverty. [13]

White emigres who wished to reside in Munich under the Kahr government required the references of two members of the existing Russian refugee community there. The Munich Police under Pohner thus guarded against leftist Russian expatriates. Munich's White emigre community, which peaked at 1,105 in 1921, contained virtually no Constitutional Democrats, Social Revolutionaries, or Mensheviks. Munich's White emigre population thus differed markedly from Berlin's more leftist Russian refugee community. Nobles, high-level bureaucrats, and leading officers, who were right-wing by virtue of their background, dominated Munich's White emigre landscape. Many members of Munich's White emigre population had belonged to the radical right Black Hundred movement in Imperial Russia. The White exiles in Munich had greater contact with volkisch German circles than those Russian refugees who lived in Berlin. [14]

Some prominent White emigres managed to stay in Berlin after the Kapp Putsch, but Munich, as the rising center of right-wing activity in Germany, held increasing attraction for them. Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, the former leader of the Western Volunteer Army in the 1919 Latvian Intervention, kept a low profile in Berlin under constant surveillance. He also traveled regularly to Munich to collaborate with radical right colleagues there. [15] General Vladimir Biskupskii, who had cooperated with German occupying forces in the Ukraine in 1918, had served as the political representative of Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army, and had supported the Kapp Putsch, managed to maintain his primary residence in Berlin. He worked diligently behind the scenes to organize paramilitary forces dedicated to reestablishing monarchical regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. [16] He developed contacts with all leading pro-German, anti-Bolshevik White emigre groups in Germany. He spent increasing amounts of time in Bavaria, where he coordinated his activities with rightist German and White emigre circles there. [17]

General Biskupskii increasingly overshadowed his rival Colonel Bermondt-Avalov. After the Kapp Putsch, Bermondt-Avalov steadily lost authority and trust in leading White emigre circles. [18] German agents who shadowed him soon wrote of him derisively as an insignificant braggart. In one report, they asserted that Bermondt-Avalov's "most viable" option for increasing his support was marrying "a rich American," as he did undeniably possess a way with the ladies. [19]

A new destabilizing Russian emigre personage emerged in right-wing Munich society in early 1920. Despite his chronic duplicity and his collaboration with Bolshevik authorities, the former Black Hundred publicist Mikhail Kommissarov managed to gain a position of trust in rightist German and White emigre cliques in Bavaria. He eventually played an important role in the formation of Aufbau, which furthered anti-Entente, anti-Weimar Republic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Bolshevik collaboration between volkisch Germans and White emigres. Kommissarov wormed his way into conspiratorial rightist Munich circles as part of a convoluted career of intrigue and deceit in which he operated as a double agent.

Kommissarov had a dubious past. After losing his post in the Okhrana (Tsarist Secret Police) in Saint Petersburg because he had printed illegal pamphlets that encouraged anti-Semitic pogroms during the Revolution of 1905, he had managed to regain his position. He had demonstrated his lack of gratitude to his superior by starting an affair with his wife and then absconding with secret funds. He had subsequently used his drinking friendship with the court mystic Rasputin (whom the Black Hundred leader Vladimir Purishkevich subsequently shot) to acquire the Tsar's favor. Kommissarov had managed to become the mayor of Rostov/Don for three weeks before being removed for gross mismanagement and embezzlement. After disappearing from the landscape for a while, he had resurfaced in Kiev under German occupation in 1918. There he had offered to serve Hetman Pavel Skoropadskii. The Ukrainian leader had understandably replied that he could do without Kommissarov's assistance. [20]

Many Whites correctly suspected Kommissarov of collaborating with Bolshevik leaders. He had traveled through Bolshevik-controlled territory to the Terek Cossacks during the summer of 1919 with no problems, which had proved highly suspicious. He had been elected to the Krug, or leadership circle, of the Terek Cossacks. He had then traveled as an envoy to General Anton Denikin's Southern Army, a White force based in the Ukraine that was engaged in fighting the Bolsheviks with Entente support. Denikin had ordered Kommissarov's arrest as a Soviet agent. According to the French military intelligence agency the Second Section, after being rebuffed from Denikin's forces, Kommissarov had assisted the chief of the Chrezvychainaia Komissia po Borbe s Kontr-revolutsiei (Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with Counter-revolution, the Cheka) in Petrograd. [21]

In April 1920, Kommissarov began working for the intelligence agency that his old protector in the Tsarist Secret Police, General Kurlov, had recently established in Berlin to provide anti-Bolshevik information to White emigres in Germany. Despite the mistrust that he had engendered among rightist circles in the past, Kommissarov used his considerable intellectual gifts and social adroitness to find his way quickly into high society wherever he went. He began circulating in right-wing monarchical circles in Munich. He worked especially diligently to gain General Ludendorff's favor. At the same time, however, he initiated contact with Bolshevik representatives in Germany and provided them with information on anti-Soviet activities in Germany. [22]

As one of his many lies, Kommissarov claimed to serve as the authorized representative of General Piotr Vrangel, a man of noble Estonian/Baltic German ancestry who had taken control of the weakening Southern Russian Armed Forces from General Denikin in April 1920. [23] On the basis of this spurious authority, Kommissarov began collaborating with White emigres who sought to wrest the Ukraine from Bolshevik rule. In particular, he teamed up with the extreme anti-Semitic right-wing monarchists and Germanophiles Boris Pelikan and Konstantin Scheglovitov.

Kommissarov's Ukrainian associates possessed solid right-wing credentials. Pelikan and Scheglovitov had belonged to the far right Monarchical Bloc in Kiev in 1918 under German occupation. [24] Pelikan, an extremely wealthy individual, had played a prominent role in the Black Hundred movement in Imperial Russia, and he had served as the mayor of Odessa with its large Jewish population. [25] Like Kommissarov, he belonged to the Southern Section of the monarchical Soiuz vernych (Union of the Faithful) under the overall leadership of the former Union of the Russian People faction leader Nikolai Markov II. [26] Scheglovitov had served as the Minister of Justice in Imperial Russia, and he subsequently engaged in shady business deals and acquired large sums of money from rightist organizations in the Ukraine. [27] In 1920, Pelikan and Scheglovitov led a Munich-based grouping that struggled for an independent Ukraine. [28]

Kommissarov, Pelikan, and Scheglovitov helped to form a commercial organization dedicated to fostering trade between rightist elements in Bavaria and General Vrangel's forces on the Crimean Peninsula. [29] A German named Wagner, a former aide de camp in the German Army High Command, officially led this venture. Wagner used his influence in the house of Wagner and Furter to foster the Society for Ukrainian-Bavarian Import and Export. This organization possessed 300,000 marks in venture capital from right-wing firms, most notably from the Munchner-Augsburger Maschinenfabrik (Munich-Augsburg Machine Factory). The Society for Ukrainian-Bavarian Import and Export proposed providing civilian industrial goods, war materials, and German officers for General Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces in return for Crimean agricultural goods. [30]

Germans and White emigres associated with the Society for Ukrainian-Bavarian Import and Export held May 1920 consultations in Munich and nearby Regensburg. German consultants at these talks included General Ludendorff, his advisor and Kapp Putsch co-conspirator Colonel Bauer, the aforementioned Wagner, and Major Josef Bischoff, the former commander of the Iron Division in the 1919 Latvian Intervention. Bischoff closely followed Ukrainian matters, and he had established a secret anti-Bolshevik propaganda center in Odessa. Kommissarov, Pelikan, and General Biskupskii represented the Russian (more properly Ukrainian) side of the talks. The Baltic Germans Scheubner-Richter and Rosenberg mediated between the German and Russian conspirators. [31]

The German and White emigre plotters adopted Colonel Bauer's program, which called for uniting all those who had fought against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War under the slogan: "The end justifies the means." The Protocols of the Elders of Zion had leading Jews use this motto as well, further suggesting the influence of the fabrication on the views of members of the radical right. The conspirators schemed to annul the Paris Peace Treaties concluded after World War I and to overthrow the Bolshevik regime through an alliance of nationalist Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Turks. The plotters sought to reestablish monarchies in Central and Eastern Europe, after which an alliance between Germany, Russia, and Hungary would be declared and Poland would be partitioned once again. The rightist participants at these May conferences in Bavaria decided to send a White mission to General Vrangel's forces in the Crimea to specify the terms of mutual assistance. [32]


Although General Vrangel received material assistance from the Entente, most importantly from France, the German and White emigre conspirators based in Bavaria had reason to count on his sympathy with their cause. While he would subsequently lean increasingly towards the Entente, at this time, Vrangel wished to cooperate with a monarchical Germany to bring about what he regarded as Russia's renewal. Those who knew Vrangel personally verified that he held staunchly monarchical and pro-German views. His occasional Entente-friendly remarks, Vrangel's associates claimed, arose because of his dependence on French material aid. [33] Vrangel relied on French support largely since the primarily socialist German government had refused to recognize his delegation in order to appease the Soviet regime. Though they aided him, French authorities distrusted Vrangel. [34]

To maintain good relations with both the Entente and Jewish residents in the Crimea, General Vrangel curbed anti-Semitic agitation among his forces. [35] Some men under his command nevertheless campaigned vehemently against Jews, most notably Gregor Schwartz-Bostunich, who ultimately rose in the ranks of Heinrich Himmler's SS. [36] Schwartz-Bostunich had been born in Kiev to a Baltic German father and a mother with the maiden name Bostunich whose own mother had come from the Bavarian nobility. He had received degrees in law and theology in Kiev in 1908. He had traveled from Imperial Germany to the Russian Empire after the outbreak of World War I before acting as what he later described in an SS report as an "agitator and army speaker" for General Vrangel. [37] In the Crimea, Schwartz-Bostunich preached fanatically against Bolsheviks, Freemasons, and Jews. His inflammatory actions led the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, to issue a death warrant for him. The prominent National Socialist and Aufbau leader Scheubner-Richter later employed Schwartz-Bostunich as a speaker on behalf of the NSDAP and sent him to hold talks throughout Germany. [38]

Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko also worked as a prominent anti-Semitic agitator under Vrangel's White regime on the Crimean Peninsula. Nemirovich-Danchenko had been born in Saint Petersburg in 1889, he had received his law degree as the top student of his class in 1910, and he had worked in the State Council under the Tsar. He had published his first article on the land question in 1917. [39] He became the press chief of Vrangel's regime. [40] Nemirovich-Danchenko managed to disseminate a significant amount of anti-Semitic propaganda in a largely clandestine manner during his service under General Vrangel. [41] Like Schwartz-Bostunich, Nemirovich-Danchenko went on to collaborate with Scheubner-Richter in Aufbau.

Nemirovich-Danchenko became increasingly disappointed with General Vrangel's leadership in the Crimea during the Russian Civil War. While he had hoped to exercise wide-ranging autonomy as Vrangel's press chief, in fact, Vrangel greatly restrained his activities. In September 1920, for example, the first edition of the planned weekly Russkaia Pravda (Russian Truth) appeared with two anti-Semitic articles based on the assessments of various philosophers and writers. Vrangel immediately banned the newspaper. According to Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vrangel did so because of pressure from the Crimea's Jewish population. Nemirovich-Danchenko strongly protested Vrangel's decision, but to no avail. [42]

The clandestine mission to General Vrangel's regime in which Nemirovich-Danchenko played a leading role, which had been decided upon during the rightist German/White emigre conferences in May 1920, left Munich under Scheubner-Richter's leadership in the middle of June 1920. [43] Other members of the delegation included the double agent Kommissarov, the former important Black Hundred member Pelikan, the economically well-connected German Wagner, and some Hungarian and Austrian representatives. The deputation traveled down the Danube River, first stopping in Austria's capital Vienna and then continuing on to the Hungarian capital Budapest. [44]

Scheubner-Richter's delegation benefited from advance support work in Budapest. The officers Bauer and Biskupskii had earlier left Munich for Budapest to coordinate the mission's activities with the de facto Hungarian leader Admiral Nicholas Horthy. Horthy acted as the regent for the Habsburg Dynasty, which the Hungarian parliament had pledged to return to Hungary (some day) in a May 1920 resolution. [45] General Ludendorff and the former Latvian Intervention mastermind General Count Rudiger von der Goltz, who resided in Budapest under a false name, had also conducted negotiations with members of Horthy's government on behalf of Scheubner-Richter's delegation to General Vrangel.

Scheubner-Richter's mission achieved considerable success in the Hungarian capital. The delegates to the Crimea under Scheubner-Richter's guidance emphasized the pronounced military component of their undertaking as well as the economic one. Admiral Horthy supported the deputation and its goals of German-White collaboration. Horthy's approval moved Scheubner-Richter to express his profound thanks. General Berzewicsky, the chief of the Hungarian Armed Forces, asserted that he had 70,000 soldiers at his disposal to further the German/White emigre plans to abolish the Paris Peace Treaties. [46]

After its successful layover in Budapest, Scheubner-Richter's mission arrived in the Yugoslavian capital Belgrade in the middle of July 1920. Troubles began there because of Kommissarov's deceit. Scheubner-Richter held talks with members of the local White emigre delegation in Belgrade. [47] Meanwhile, the swindler Kommissarov absconded. Soon afterwards, perhaps on the way to the next stopover in Varna, Bulgaria, the delegation members Wagner and Pelikan realized that Kommissarov had deceived them. [48] Kommissarov had received 115,000 marks for arranging the journey to the Crimea on the false basis of representing General Vrangel in Germany. [49] The Ukrainian nationalist Pelikan later wrote Kommissarov never to show himself in his sight again. In August 1920, Vrangel ordered that Kommissarov never be allowed to gain passage to the Crimea. [50] Kommissarov went on to join the Soviet cause openly as an agent in Bulgaria in March 1921. His reports led to the arrest of numerous White emigre officers throughout the Balkans. [51]

Despite Kommissarov's duplicity, the international right-wing mission under Scheubner-Richter's leadership managed to evade Bolshevik agents to arrive to a warm welcome in Sevastopol, the site of Vrangel's headquarters on the Crimean Peninsula, in July 1920. [52] The presence of Scheubner-Richter's delegation had to be kept as a diplomatic secret since French authorities in the Crimea had threatened to cut off Vrangel's supplies if he collaborated with Germans. [53] Scheubner-Richter ascertained the views of Vrangel's officers and soldiers. He presented himself as a Russian and engaged in numerous conversations with members of Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces. He concluded that whereas Vrangel's government contained a significant number of Constitutional Democrats, commonly known as "Kadets," who supported the French, Vrangel's armed forces primarily consisted of rightists who openly sympathized with Germany. Vrangel's soldiers and officers jeered at the French Military Mission whenever it appeared. [54]

The Entente proved very unpopular on the Crimean Peninsula. Scheubner-Richter later described the lasting resentments of the Crimean population against the French largely since French troops had fled pell-mell from Bolshevik forces and had abandoned White formations in nearby Odessa to grisly Bolshevik retribution earlier in the Russian Civil War. [55] Vrangel's press chief Nemirovich-Danchenko later noted in his memoirs (which Aufbau published in April 1923) that the residents of the Crimea had harbored considerable anti-English and anti-French sentiments. Inhabitants of the Crimea had blamed the English and French not only for halfheartedly resisting Bolshevik forces, but also for using their power to maintain unfair currency exchange rates. Nemirovich-Danchenko remarked that when word had circulated in Sevastopol that a delegation from Germany had evaded French intelligence agents to arrive in the city, Sevastopol society had greeted the news with "poorly concealed exultation." [56]

Scheubner-Richter's delegation achieved considerable successes in Sevastopol. Despite French anti-German countermeasures in the Crimea, Scheubner-Richter's colleague Wagner established a branch of the house of Wagner and Furter in General Vrangel's capital. [57] Scheubner-Richter, for his part, held extensive talks with Vrangel that progressed well. [58] Significant numbers of German technicians and traders subsequently traveled to the Crimea in accord with Scheubner-Richter's designs. [59] By the end of July 1920, Vrangel's approximately 75,000 soldiers included a sizeable number of White and German officers sent from Scheubner-Richter's associates in Bavaria. [60] The French Military Mission in Poland noted with dismay that Vrangel's officer entourage strongly approved of the growing Bavarian-Ukrainian cooperation under Scheubner-Richter's direction. [61]

Despite their increasing collaboration with Vrangel, Scheubner-Richter's financial backers in Bavaria distrusted the White general as too pro-French, largely because of his concessions to the French in including Constitutional Democrats in his government. In order to placate critics in right-wing Bavarian financial circles, Vrangel added far rightists to his regime. Most notably, he gave a post to the former Black Hundred writer Ivan Rodionov. [62] Rodionov was a Ukrainian Cossack who had published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in The Sentinel, the official newspaper of General Piotr Krasnov's Great Don Host. [63] Rodionov later had his anti-Bolshevik work, "Victims of Insanity," serialized in the National Socialist newspaper the Volkischer Beobachter (Volkisch Observer) beginning in October 1923. [64] By including far rightists in his government and stressing that he had first gone to the German government for help in fighting the Bolsheviks, Vrangel stiffened the wavering support of leading White emigres and Bavarian industrialists by early October 1920. [65]

Another large German-Russian monarchical consultation with key players from the Kapp Putsch took place in Bavaria in early October 1920. The participants discussed fostering closer ties between right-wing Germans and White emigres based in Germany and Vrangel's regime. The Generals Ludendorff, Goltz of Latvian Intervention fame, and Max Hoffmann, who had negotiated with Soviet Foreign Minister Lev Trotskii in Brest-Litovsk but had subsequently turned against the Bolsheviks, represented the German side of the discussions. Latvian Intervention commander Colonel Bermondt-Avalov and General Biskupskii, the latter of whom actually did not possess a mandate to represent General Vrangel as he claimed, represented Russian interests. [66] General Goltz proposed sending 50,000 armed Germans, overwhelmingly officers, to Vrangel's forces in the Crimea via Hungary. [67] Goltz's former collaborator in the Latvian Intervention, Major Bischoff, subsequently recruited German and Austrian officers and soldiers for Vrangel's forces from his new base in Austria. [68]

French military personnel in Hungary noted the effects of increased collaboration between former Kapp Putsch conspirators and General Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces. French authorities soon rook action to stop this anti-French cooperation. A French military report from October 1920 complained that large numbers of German officers in possession of valid Russian passports were traveling to Vrangel's forces via Hungary to fulfill the agreement for closer military and economic collaboration that Scheubner-Richter and Vrangel had reached the previous July. Such German officers followed the directives of General Goltz in particular. Goltz operated on the margins of the German government to penetrate Vrangel's army with the goal of overthrowing Bolshevism and creating a right-wing Russian, more properly Ukrainian, state that would cooperate with a nationalist Germany. [69]

In light of the increasing threat that growing right-wing German-White collaboration posed to France's interests, French police in the Crimea supervising Vrangel's forces arrested Scheubner-Richter and the members of his delegation in the middle of October 1920. French authorities released the members of the mission after much wrangling and bribery, but the delegation could not leave the peninsula immediately because of a lack of transportation facilities. The mission remained under strict French police surveillance until it left the Crimea for Germany later in October 1920. [70]

AUFBAU'S GENESIS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Upon his return to Munich from his dangerous mission to General Vrangel's forces in the Crimea in late October 1920, Scheubner-Richter, who was widely regarded as an authority on Russian matters among volkisch German circles, set about organizing Aufbau. [71] This conspiratorial organization developed into the center of cooperation between volkisch Germans, notably including Hitler and General Ludendorff, and pro-German White emigres. Despite Aufbau's crucial influence on the genesis and growth of National Socialism, historians have neglected to subject the secretive association to a thorough analysis. [72]

According to Aufbau's statutes, the organization fostered the "national interests of Germany and the Russian area of reconstruction." Aufbau sought the "promotion of an energetic national economic policy with regard to the Eastern states, especially those states that have formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire, for the reconstruction of the economic life of these states or the Russian Empire." [73] The imprecise language of Aufbau's statutes sidestepped the crucial issue of whether the Russian Empire was to be reconstructed as a unified whole, or whether the Ukraine and the Baltic regions, for instance, were to be granted autonomy. This lack of clarity was most likely intended to render the organization palatable both to Great Russians and to minorities, most notably Ukrainians and Baltic Germans who came from the margins of the former Russian Empire.

Aufbau closely controlled its membership, which tended to be wealthy, and the organization carried out its activities in a strictly conspiratorial manner. Aufbau sought fiercely determined anti-Bolshevik Germans and White emigres, notably Russians, Ukrainians, and Baltic Germans, as ordinary members. Interested people of other nationalities could join as extraordinary members if they could demonstrate their commitment to furthering Aufbau's goals of far right German-Russian collaboration. Ordinary members had to pay 100,000 marks upon admission into the association and 20,000 marks in annual dues, whereas extraordinary members had to disburse 10,000 marks to enter the organization and had to contribute 50,000 marks annually. Aufbau's leaders carefully checked the background of prospective associates and could accept or reject applicants without offering any explanation for their decision. Aufbau's organizational work was carried out in complete secrecy. [74]

The former Tsarist general Aleksandr von Lampe observed the genesis of Aufbau. As a moderate monarchist, a sympathizer with the Entente, and a man who disapproved of what he termed Fedor Vinberg's "hysterical cries," Lampe regarded the decidedly pro-German Aufbau suspiciously. [75] He noted in his extensive Russian diary that Aufbau professed the official goal of establishing waterway trading and industrial relations with southern Russia (the Ukraine) after the overthrow of Soviet power. He also wrote of Aufbau's unofficial goals, most notably to bring about the rapprochement of right-wing German and White emigre circles to reestablish monarchical regimes in Germany and Russia and to defeat "Jewish dominance." [76]

Hitler developed close ties with Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau early on. In the course of November 1920, Hitler met Scheubner-Richter through the agency of Rosenberg. This meeting initiated an intense period of collaboration between the volkisch leaders, both of whom came from outside Germany's borders. [77] Hitler demonstrated his agreement with Aufbau's anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic views in a November 19, 1920 speech. He argued that the Soviet Union was an agrarian state, but it could not even feed its own people "as long as the Bolsheviks govern under Jewish rule." He stressed that the Jews were in control in Moscow, Vienna, and Berlin, and he argued, '''There can be no talk of reconstruction" because of the fact that the Jews, as servants of international capital, "sell us Germans." [78] Scheubner-Richter heard Hitler speak publicly for the first time a few days later, on November 22, 1920, [79] Impressed with the experience, he joined the National Socialist Party soon after. [80] From this time on, the fortunes of Aufbau and the National Socialist movement become ever more closely entwined.

While alliance with Hitler's National Socialists furthered Aufbau's cause, Scheubner-Richter had to overcome a serious setback during his early direction of the conspiratorial right-wing organization. During the initial period of Aufbau's anti-Bolshevik activities, he placed significant hopes on General Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces. He counted on the complete fulfillment of the agreement that he had concluded with Vrangel for close military and economic cooperation. Expectations of sizeable support from Vrangel's forces in the Crimea nevertheless disappeared early on. The Red Army routed Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces in the course of late November 1920. Vrangel's men evacuated the Crimea in order to escape death or incarceration at the hands of the victorious Bolshevik forces. [81] After his defeat, Vrangel stressed that he had fought against the "fundamental causes of the destruction that threatens the entire world." [82]

In a November 1921 article in the Volkisch Observer, "Jewish Bolshevism," Aufbau member and National Socialist ideologue Rosenberg asserted: "Vrangel was left in the lurch by the French, just as Iudenich was by England." As we have seen, the English fleet had stopped covering General Nikolai Iudenich's advance on Petrograd in 1919 in order to fire on Colonel Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army. Rosenberg claimed that in the span of seven months, Vrangel's forces had only received three shipments of antiquated French military supplies. In return, the French had taken great amounts of grain. He also complained that the '''French' military mission" to Vrangel was composed of seven Jews and only three Gentiles. He concluded, "The Russian generals were supported only as long as they did not have dominance over the Red Army, just long enough to be able to pursue the process of tearing the Russian people to pieces with the greatest success." [83] Rosenberg's hatred of the Entente found great resonance in volkisch German and White emigre circles.

After Vrangel's anti-Bolshevik undertaking in the Crimea collapsed, Scheubner-Richter had to concentrate on using volkisch Germans and White emigres centered in Bavaria to build Aufbau into a powerful conspiratorial organization. He regarded White emigres in Germany from whom he drew support as "pro-German and pro-culture." [84] Through Aufbau, he sought to undermine socialists in Germany and the Bolshevik regime, both of which he regarded as under the control of Jews. He acted as the de facto leader of Aufbau, though officially he only held the post of first secretary of the organization. He could devote himself completely to directing right-wing German and White emigre elements for conspiratorial undertakings, for he possessed considerable personal wealth that he had acquired through his marriage into the German nobility.

Scheubner-Richter won over Baron Theodor von Cramer-Klett to serve as Aufbau's official president. Cramer-Klett was a fantastically wealthy individual with vast industrial enterprises and agricultural lands who possessed many connections to high places in Germany and abroad. [85] He proved Aufbau's most important German financial contributor. He placed large sums of money at the organization's disposal in return for future concessions in a planned independent nationalist Ukrainian state. He received particularly large funds for Aufbau from the German company Mannesmann. Cramer-Klett was allied with General Ludendorff through marriage. Moreover, he maintained a dose friendship with Prince Ruprecht von Wittelsbach of Bavaria, whom Scheubner-Richter initially envisioned as the future German Kaiser. [86]

While Cramer-Klett officially led Aufbau by virtue of his wealth and connections, General Biskupskii served as Scheubner-Richter's truly indispensable collaborator in the association. [87] Biskupskii held the post of vice president. He brought valuable military and financial clout to the organization. He used his proud martial bearing and his elegant military costumes to ingratiate himself in the higher echelons of Bavarian society. His considerable intellect, adroitness, versatility, and language abilities allowed him to secure a leading role in the White emigre community in Munich. He also used his social skills to establish relations between Aufbau and leading aristocrats, landowners, industrialists, and military officers in Bavaria. [88] Biskupskii gradually developed a dose relationship with Hitler himself. [89]

At the time of Aufbau's foundation in late 1920, Biskupskii led the Pan-Russian People's Military League, which sought to establish a popular federal monarchy on the territory of the former Russian Empire. Each segment of the confederation, such as the Ukraine and the Baltic region, was to enjoy substantial autonomy, initially under dictatorial military leaders. The organization used the mottos: "Federal monarchy," "The land to the people as property," "Power to the Tsar," and "Tsar and people." Biskupskii thus did not pursue purely "reactionary" political goals. He promised peripheral peoples substantial autonomy in a new Russian confederation. Moreover, realizing the popularity of Bolshevik land reforms among the peasants, he sought to win support for a new Russian monarchy by pledging to respect peasant land ownership.

Although the German Foreign Office consistently collaborated with the Bolshevik regime, a Foreign Office report from early November 1920 asserted that Biskupskii was

the right personality to lead the intended [anti-Bolshevik military] action to a fortunate solution. B[iskupskii] is clever, energetic, adroit, without political prejudices, and has a name that is in no way politically handicapped. For this last reason, B[iskupskii] also will not run into resistance on principle among any Russian group. A special advantage of General B[iskupskii]'s is the correct recognition of the ideas that always take root in the consciousness of the Russian people. At that time, Lenin also only attained victory since he correctly assessed the people's psyche at the given moment. [90]


Scheubner-Richter sought to transfer the German Foreign Office's positive assessment of Biskupskii personally into material support for Aufbau's anti-Bolshevik cause. He submitted a report to the Foreign Office in December 1920 which suggested that, while the agency's representatives officially had to deal with the Soviet Union, they should secretly support the White emigre activities that Aufbau coordinated. [91] The Foreign Office did not support Aufbau's endeavors, however. Instead, it maintained its fundamentally pro-Soviet stance. Scheubner-Richter became increasingly irate at the Foreign Office's close relations with Soviet leadership. [92]

While Aufbau failed to gain the support it desired from the German Foreign Office, the organization did attain considerable prestige by winning over General Ludendorff, who had been Germany's most valuable military strategist during World War I and a driving force behind the Kapp Putsch. Biskupskii established a close relationship with Ludendorff and helped to gain him for Aufbau's cause. [93] Scheubner-Richter had long enjoyed Ludendorff's patronage, and he also played an important role in winning the general for Aufbau. [94] Ludendorff found Aufbau with its marked anti-Bolshevism and bold solutions to the "Eastern question" appealing. Scheubner-Richter introduced Ludendorff to Hitler in the framework of Aufbau in March 1921. Aufbau's de facto leader thereby initiated a political collaboration that culminated in the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923. [95]

Ludendorff contributed significantly to Hitler's militaristic Weltanschauung. In 1921, the general released a book, Kriegsfohrung und Politik (War Leadership and Politics). In this work, he claimed along the lines of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: "The supreme government of the Jewish people was working hand in hand with France and England. Perhaps it was leading them both." He further stressed that peace was only a period of preparation for war. War brought "front-line socialism" that stabilized a warrior community whose energies were directed outwards. [96] Hitler later claimed that Ludendorff's book "clearly pointed out where it was practical to search [for the mistakes of the past and the possibilities for the future] in Germany." [97]
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:09 am

Part 2 of 2

Another important collaborator in Aufbau was Arno Schickedanz, Scheubner-Richter's former Rubonia Fraternity brother in Riga, a veteran of the 1919 Latvian Intervention, and an enthusiastic National Socialist. [98] Schickedanz served as Aufbau's deputy director and also acted as Vice President Biskupskii's secretary. [99] Scheubner-Richter, Biskupskii, and Schickedanz ran Aufbau's daily affairs as a triumvirate. They alone had desks in Aufbau's main office. [100] Schickedanz also helped Scheubner-Richter to publish the organization's official weekly, which was originally titled Aufbau: Zeitschrift fur wirtschafts-politische Fragen Ost-Europas (Reconstruction: Journal for Economic-Political Questions of Eastern Europe). Scheubner-Richter soon renamed the newspaper Wirtschafts-politische Aufbau-Korrespondenz uber Ostfragen und ihre Bedeutung for Deutschland (Economic-Political Reconstruction Correspondence on Eastern Questions and Their Significance for Germany). [101] Many Aufbau Correspondence editions were subsequently preserved in the NSDAP Archives. [102]

In addition to Schickedanz, Aufbau and Hitler's NSDAP shared several other common members. Hitler's close colleague from World War I, National Socialist Party Secretary Max Amann, also served as Aufbau's second secretary. [103] Amann worked in tandem with Scheubner-Richter to handle Aufbau's financial and organizational affairs. [104] Moreover, Scheubner-Richter and Schickedanz's Rubonia Fraternity colleagues Rosenberg and Otto von Kursell, who both collaborated with Hitler's early mentor Dietrich Eckart, served as prominent members of both Aufbau and the National Socialist Party. [105] In addition to participating in Aufbau's activities, Rosenberg acted as the primary National Socialist ideologue after Hitler himself.

Kursell worked closely with Scheubner-Richter in Aufbau, much as he had earlier collaborated with him during the German occupation of the Baltic region. In the early 1930s, Kursell stressed that while he had not officially joined the National Socialist Party until 1922, he had begun working in the vanguard of the movement in 1919 through his cooperation with Scheubner-Richter, Eckart, and Rosenberg. [106] Kursell also served as the vice president of the Munich branch of the Baltenverband {Baltic League). [107] The Baltic League's Munich subdivision originally had roughly forty-five members, but it achieved a membership of 530 by 1923. [108] The Baltic League possessed approximately 2,200 members nationally in 1920. [109] Baltic League leadership regarded Bolshevism as the "tyranny of a small clique consisting mostly of Jewish elements that wishes to prepare a springboard from which to extend its rule over Europe." [110] Kursell regarded Aufbau as a suitable tool for struggle against what he regarded as the Jewish Bolshevik threat.

While the virulently anti-Bolshevik Aufbau vaguely promoted the return of the monarchy to a future Russian confederation, the association strongly represented nationalist Ukrainian interests. As the Bolsheviks consolidated their power in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, the most important Ukrainian emigre community arose in Germany. [111] Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, who had collaborated with German armed forces during their occupation of the Ukraine during World War I, joined Aufbau in 1921 after coming to Munich from Berlin. [112] He led the Ukrainian faction of Aufbau, and he worked to expand his military league dedicated to Ukrainian independence, the Ukrainian Cossack Organization, [113] He even held detailed negotiations with rightist officers in Bavaria in March 1921. [114] Moreover, Nemirovich-Danchenko, General Piotr Vrangel's former press chief on the Crimean Peninsula, joined Aufbau, where he acted as an expert on Ukrainian affairs. [115]

Other prominent White emigre Aufbau members included the comrades Colonel Vinberg, Lieutenant Shabelskii-Bork, and Lieutenant Taboritskii. These exiles had collaborated on the far right newspaper The Call in Berlin, had transferred The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Ludwig Muller von Hausen for translation into German in 1919, and had supported the Kapp Putsch in 1920. Vinberg served as a leading Aufbau ideologue. He ultimately engaged in lengthy theoretical discussions with Hitler himself. [116] Vinberg's close colleagues Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii became infamous for their attempted assassination of the exiled Russian Constitutional Democratic leader Pavel Miliukov. This Aufbau-led assassination attempt formed one of a string of acts of political terrorism that rocked the early Weimar Republic.

Some White emigre Aufbau members possessed valuable American connections. Colonel Boris Brazol resided in New York, where he played a leading role in the Russkoe natsionalnoe obschestvo (Russian National Society). [117] This organization supported Grand Prince Kirill Romanov's candidacy for Tsar. [118] As we shall see, Aufbau increasingly backed Kirill for Tsar. Brazol also worked on the staff of the American industrialist and politician Henry Ford's anti-Semitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. In particular, Brazol provided information on the "Jewish question." [119] Scheubner-Richter praised Brazol as "one of the leading personalities in the Russian emigre circles of America." [120] Brazol also spent much time in Munich, though he was not officially registered there. He collaborated with Scheubner-Richter and furthered Aufbau's cause by writing anti-Semitic literature. [121]

At least two other White emigre Aufbau members possessed important American ties. General Biskupskii's cousin Vladimir Keppen received a $500,000 fortune from a parent in America, and he put much of this money at Aufbau's disposal. [122] General Konstantin Sakharov also possessed connections with America. After making a name for himself as an extraordinarily capable Tsarist officer, he had served as the chief of the General Staff of General Aleksandr Kolchak's White army in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. [123] From Siberia, he had maintained relations with the German General Staff. [124] After the Bolsheviks had captured and executed General Kolchak, Sakharov had led the remains of the latter's White army over Lake Baikal into the Russian Far East. [125] Sakharov had tried to travel to Europe as a representative of the White cause, but the Entente had refused to allow him entry because of his pro-German views. He had left for America instead. [126] He arrived in Munich from America in 1921 and immediately joined Aufbau. "[127]

Two influential Germans played important roles in Aufbau. Ludendorff's political advisor and Kapp Putsch co-conspirator Colonel Bauer joined Aufbau along with the general. [128] Dr. A. Glaser, a Reichstag (Parliament) member, served as Aufbau's second vice president. In 1919 and 1920, before Aufbau's establishment, he had edited a right-wing newspaper: Aufbau, Bayerischer Zeitungskorrespondenz fur nationalen und wirtschaftlichen Wiederaufbau (Reconstruction, Bavarian Newspaper Correspondence for National and Economic Reconstruction).

Available records do not indicate whether Hitler's mentor Eckart officially belonged to Aufbau, but it is clear that he worked closely with the Aufbau members Rosenberg and Kursell, and he knew of me organization's activities. As we have seen, Eckart collaborated directly with Rosenberg and Kursell in the framework of the volkisch newspaper Auf gut deutsch (In Plain German). An article in the November 1920 edition of In Plain German indicates that Eckart cultivated close relations with Scheubner-Richter as well.

In his essay '''Jewry uber alles'" ("'Jewry above Everything"'), Eckart related a long discussion that he had held with a "friend" who had recently returned from the Crimean Peninsula, where he had led a "certain mission" under the "greatest difficulties." Eckart noted mat General Vrangel's forces had still not collapsed at the time mat he had spoken with his "friend." His comrade had told him mat me English and French officers in the Crimea were almost all Jews, whereas Vrangel's officers and the majority of his soldiers were "full of indignation" at the Jews. [129] This article demonstrates that Eckart and Scheubner-Richter held detailed political conversations of an anti-Semitic nature at an early date.

Other figures in Aufbau cannot be identified with certainty since the organization's leadership sought to keep its membership secret. [130] Moreover, documentation is lacking. The State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order file dedicated specifically to Aufbau that could shed light on Aufbau's membership is most likely held under wraps in Moscow at me Sluzhba vneshnoi razvetki (Foreign Intelligence Service), a successor organization to the Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (State Security Committee, KGB). If so, this valuable document is inaccessible to historians and will remain so indefinitely.

Aufbau's fortunes improved in the spring of 1921, when the organization gained many valuable new members. In late April 1921, Scheubner-Richter attended a general meeting of the Deutsch-Russische Gesellschaft (German-Russian Society). This organization sought to achieve "cultural understanding" between Germany, including German Austria, and the "coming Russia." Scheubner-Richter stressed that the association should become part of Aufbau. The German-Russian Society renamed itself Erneuerung: neue deutsch-russische Gesellschaft (Renewal: New German-Russian Society). [131] It officially became a subsection of Aufbau on May 1, 1921. [132] Renewal's statutes stressed that all nationalist Germans and Russians could join the organization. All leading pro-German White emigre monarchists in Munich joined Renewal, bringing its total membership in May to approximately 150 members. [133] Renewal eventually advertised in the pages of the National Socialist newspaper the Volkisch Observer. [134]

In the context of Renewal, Scheubner-Richter gained a valuable connection with Grand Prince Kirill Romanov, a claimant to the Tsarist throne for Aufbau. Kirill displayed marked pro-German sympathies. His mother was the Duchess of Mecklenburg, and he had grown up in constant contact with German teachers and relatives. [135] His wife, Grand Princess Viktoria Romanov, was the daughter of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England. [136] Viktoria was a strong-willed and energetic woman who overshadowed her somewhat staid husband. [137] Scheubner-Richter arranged for her to serve as Renewal's honorary president. [138] Renewal's parent organization Aufbau increasingly benefited from financial assistance and prestige emanating from its association with the Russian throne claimants Kirill and Viktoria. In return, Aufbau supported Kirill's bid to become Tsar.

CONCLUSION

After the Kapp Putsch collapsed in Berlin in March 1920, Munich rose to become the new hub of volkisch German-White emigre alliance. Former nationalist German and White emigre Kapp Putsch conspirators, notably General Erich von Ludendorff, his advisor Colonel Karl Bauer, Max von Scheubner-Richter, and Vladimir Biskupskii, did not waste time in setting up fresh intrigues from their new base in Bavaria. With the backing of Bavarian industrialists, they sent a mission under Scheubner-Richter to the Crimea to establish economic and military relations with General Piotr Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces, which were based there. Scheubner-Richter's delegation gained the desired terms of mutual support, but this alliance proved brief, as the Red Army soon overran the Crimean Peninsula. Nonetheless, this short-lived German-White emigre/White connection inspired the creation of Aufbau, a secretive organization based in Munich that sought to collect volkisch Germans and White emigres for joint action against the Weimar Republic and Bolshevik Russia.

With Aufbau's consolidation as a powerful conspiratorial force composed of volkisch Germans and White emigres who backed the Tsarist candidate Grand Prince Kirill Romanov in the first half of 1921, far right German-White emigre collaboration recovered from the low point that it had reached with the embarrassing failure of the Kapp Putsch. Aufbau's rise to prominence in far right Bavarian politics marked the resurgence of the combined German/White emigre radical right in Germany, with Bavaria instead of East-Elbian Prussia serving as the center of volkisch German-White emigre partnership.

Aufbau supported Hitler's National Socialist Party from the beginning. Several of Aufbau's members belonged to the NSDAP, including four colleagues from the Rubonia Fraternity in Riga in Imperial Russia: Scheubner-Richter, Alfred Rosenberg, Arno Schickedanz, and Otto von Kursell. Other Aufbau White emigres supported rhe National Socialist Party though they did not belong to it, including Biskupskii, Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, Fedor Vinberg, Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, Sergei Taboritskii, and Konstantin Sakharov. The German Max Amann served both as Aufbau's second secretary and as National Socialist Party secretary. Scheubner-Richter also brought the volkisch leaders Hitler and Ludendorff together in the framework of Aufbau, thereby starting a political alliance that was to have fateful consequences for the National Socialist Party, as Hitler and Ludendorff led a doomed putsch against the Weimar Republic along with Scheubner-Richter in November 1923.

Under the direction of Scheubner-Richter, a prominent National Socialist, Aufbau was poised to exert ever-increasing influence over the domestic and foreign policies of Hitler's fledgling National Socialist Party as of 1921. Aufbau guided a common National Socialist/White emigre crusade against the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union. As we shall see, while Aufbau convinced Hitler of the necessity for an alliance of nationalist Germans and Russians, the conspiratorial organization could not overcome internecine struggle among White emigres in Germany to forge a united German/White emigre anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik front.

_______________

Notes:

1 Karl Schlogel, Der grosse Exodus: Die Russische Emigration und ihre Zentren 1917 bis 1941 (Munich:  C. H. Beck, 1994), 251.
 
2 Heinrich Class, Wider den Strom, vol. 2, BAK, Kleine Erwerbung 499, 737.
 
3 Werner Maser, Der Sturm auf die Republik: Fruhgeschichte der NSDAP (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,  1973), 280.
 
4 Alfred Rosenberg, Memoirs, KR, BAB, NS 8, number 20, 25, 27.
 
5 Class, Wider den Strom, vol. 2, BAK, Kleine Erwerbung 499, 738.
 
6 RKUoO report from September 14, 1921, BAS, 1507, number 568, 26, 27.
 
7 Letter from Wolfgang Kapp to Erich von Ludendorff from September 25, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur  92, number 839, 6.
 
8 Hermann Ehrhardt, Deutschlands Zukunft: Aufgaben und Ziele (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1921),  BHSAM, Sammlung Personen, number 3678, 1, 34, 36.
 
9 Letter from Ludwig von Knorring to the RKUoO from December 28, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond  772, opis 2, delo 179, 69.
 
10 Robert Williams, Culture in Exile: Russian Emigres in Germany, 1881-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University  Press, 1972), 98, 165; PDM report to the SSMI from March 30, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number  71624, fiche 3, 78; Fedor Vinberg's March 30, 1922 testimony, BHSAM, BSMl 22, number 71624,  fiche 4, 4.
 
11 Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, "Uber Mein Leben," March 1926, GSAPKB, Repositur 84a, number 14953,  110.
 
12 Baue, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 1900-1945: Deutsch-russische Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert  (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 204, 205.
 
13 Josefine Trausenecker's testimony included in a PDM report to the BSMI from March 30, 1922,  BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 4, 13.
 
14 Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offentlichkeit," Bayern und Osteuropa: Aus der  Geschichte der Beziehungen Bayerns, Frankens und Schwabem mit Russfand der Ukraine, und Weiss-russland, ed. Hermann Beyer-Thoma (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000), 462, 463, 471; Henri  Rollin, L'Apocalypse de notre temps: Les dessous de la prapagande allemande d'apres des documents inedits  (Paris: Gallimard, 1939), 168.
 
15 MMFP report from October 12, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1703, opis 1, delo 350, reel 3, 277.
 
16 Rafael Ganelin, "Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii natsional-sotsializm," Natsionalnaia  pravaia prezhde i teper, Istorika-sotsiologicheskie ocherki, chast I: Rossiia i russkoe zarubezhe (Saint  Petersburg: Institut Sotsiologii rossiiskoi akademii nauk, 1992), 140.
 
17 AA report from November 4, 1920, PAM, 83578, 2.
 
18 RKuoO report from September 9, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 20.
 
19 LGPO report to the RKUoO from September 9, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3,  delo 71, 8.
 
20 LGPO report to the RKUoO from August 8, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539,  17, 19, 20.
 
21 DB reports from June 13, 1922 and October 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel  3, 240; reel 2, 200.
 
22 RKUoO report from June 17, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 21V; LGPO report  to the RKUoO from August 8, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 20.
 
23 RKUoO reports from January 29, 1923 and April 27, 1928, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo  539,34; opis 1, delo 108, 25; LGPO report to the RKUoO from August 8, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK),  fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 20.
 
24 LGPO report to the RKUoO from November 28, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo  96, 48.
 
25 LGPO report from October 27, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 4, 303; RKUoO  report from January 29, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 34.
 
26 DB report from December 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 2, 140; [FZO]  report from October 15, 1920, MMFP, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 198, opis 2, delo 1031, reel 2, 73.
 
27 DB report from July 17, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 1255, reel 3, 220; RKUoO  report from June 17, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 21V.
 
28 DB reports from July 17 and 21, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 1255, reel 3, 220; opis  2, delo 2575, reel 4, 341.
 
29 RKUoO report from January 29, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 34; DB report  from September 15, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 953, reel 3, 245.
 
30 DB report from September 6, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 3, 253, 254.
 
31 DB reports from September 9, 1920 and March 8, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 1, 99; opis 1, delo 953, reel 2, 117; LGPO report from December 11, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77,  title 1810, number 6, 48.
 
32 LGPO report from December 11, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 6, 48; DB report  from September 9, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel I, 99.
 
33 LGPO reports from August 20 and October 18, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur77, title 1810, number 4,  111, 330, 331.
 
34 DDVL report to the AA from October 31, 1920, PAM, 83379, 112 ob; Aleksandr von Lampe, Dnevnik  (Diary), Berlin, August 4, 1920, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 3, 899.
 
35 Georgii Nemirovjch-Danchenko, V Krymu pri Vrangele: Fakty i itogi (Berlin: Oldenburg, 1922), 41.
 
36 Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP (SS-Oberstunnbannfuhrer und SS-Sturmbannfuhrer):  Stand vom 1. Oktober 1944 (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1944), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1372, opis 5,  delo 89, 6.
 
37 Gregor Schwartz-Bostunich, SS-Personalakten, SS-OStubaf, IZG, Fa 74, 1.
 
38 Michael Hagemeister, "Das Leben des Gregor Schwartz-Bostunich, Teil 2,” Russische Emigration in  Deutschland 1918 bis 1941: Leben im europaischen Burgerkrieg, ed. Karl Schlogel (Berlin: Akademie,  1995), 209; Schwartz-Bostunich, SS-Personalakten, SS-OStubaf, IZG, Fa 74, 1, 2.
 
39 SG report from August 1, 1939, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond I, opis 14, delo 3242, 2; letter from  Nemirovich-Danchenko to Count Iurii Pavlovich from February 7, 1928, RSHA, RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 500, opis 1, delo 452, 28.
 
40 Nemirovich-Danchenko, V Krymu pri Vrangele, 32.
 
41 Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), 107.
 
42 Nemirovich-Danchenko, V Krymu pri Vrangele, 33, 41, 42.
 
43 DB report from July 17, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 1255, reel 3, 220.
 
44 DB reports from September 9 and October 10, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 1, 21, 99.
 
45 LGPO report from December 11, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 6, 48.
 
46 DB reports from September 9 and October 10, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel I, 21, 99; Otto von Kursell, "Dr. Ing. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter zum Gedachtnis," ed.  Henrik Fischer (Munich, 1969), 20.
 
47 DB reports from July 21 and September 30, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel  4, 336, 341.
 
48 DB report from October 10, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 1, 21.
 
49 RKUoO report from January 29, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 34.
 
50 DB reports from August 25, 1920 and October 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 1, 26; reel 2, 200, 201.
 
51 RKUoO report from January 29, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 539, 35.
 
52 DB report from January 10, 1924, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 332.
 
53 Nemirovich-Danchenko, V Krymu pri Vrangele, 81.
 
54 AA report from December 15, 1920, PAAA, 83379, 256.
 
55 Max von Scheubner-Richter, "Im Eilmarsch zum Abgrund!" Wirtschafts-politische Aufbau-Korrespondenz  uber Ostfragen und ihre Bedeutung fur Deutschland, July 26, 1922, 4.
 
56 "In der Krim bei Wrangel,” Aufbau-Korrespondenz, April 19, 1923, 4; Nemirovich-Danchenko, V  Krymu pri Vrangele, 79, 80.
 
57 DB report from September 6, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 3, 254.
 
58 Nemirovich-Danchenko, V Krymu pri Vrangele, 81.
 
59 DDVL report to the AA from October 31, 1920, PAAA, 83379, 112 ob.
 
60 LGPO report from August 1, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 4, 66.
 
61 MMFP report from September 24, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1703, opis 1, delo 440, reel 2, 88.
 
62 LGPO report from October 8, 1920, GSAPK, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 4, 240.
 
63 Ganelin, "Beloe dvizhenie i 'Protokoly sionskikh mudretsov,'" Natsionalnaia pravaia, 127; ATsVO  report from August 1921, GAAF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 39, 4.
 
64 Ivan Rodionov, "Opfer des Wahnsinns,” Volkischer Beobachter, October 2-November 9, 1923.
 
65 LGPO report from October 10, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77. title 1810, number 4, 261.
 
66 MMFP report from October 12, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1703, opis 1, delo 350, reel 3, 277;  DB report to the EMMF from November 18, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 3, 269.
 
67 MMFH report to the DB from October 25, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 198, opis 17, delo 203,  reel 2, 160.
 
68 DDVL report to the AA from October 31, 1920, PAAA, 83379, 112 ob.
 
69 MMFH reports to the DB from October 30 and November I, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 198,  opis 17, delo 203, reel 3, 173, 185.
 
70 LGPO report from October 27, 1920, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1810, number 4, 303, 304.
 
71 Scheubner-Richter, ''Abriss des Lebens- und Bildungsganges von Dr. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter,"  sent to Walther Nicolai in April 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 1414, opis 1, delo 21, 231;  DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 156, 157.
 
72 Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 253.
 
73 ''Auszug aus den Satzungen," Aufbau: Zeitschrift fur wirtschafts-politische Fragen Ost-Europas, Number  2/3, August 1921, RKUoO, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 498.
 
74 DB reports from November 11, 1922 and July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876,  reel 4, 367, 368, 378.
 
75 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, August 26, 1920, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 3, reel 1, 921;  MMFT report to the DB from December 24, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 2, 131.
 
76 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, June 5, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 11, reel 3, 4851/190.
 
77 Paul Leverkuhn, Posten auf ewiger Witche: Am dem abenteurreichen Leben des Max von Scheubner-Richter (Essen: Essener Verlagsansralt, 1938), 191.
 
78 Adolf Hitler, speech on November 19, 1920 as reported by the PDM, BSAM, POM, number 6698,  256.
 
79 Leverkuhn, Posten auf ewiger Witche, 191.
 
80 Williams, Culture in Exile, 167.
 
81 Bruno Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis 1919-1923: Munchen als Zentrum der mitteleuropaischen Gegen-  revolution zwischen Revolution und Hitler-Putsch (Munich: Stadtarchiv MUnchen, 1978), 401.
 
82 W. Dawatz, Funf Sturmjahre mit General Wrangel, trans. Georg von Leuchtenberg (Berlin: Verlag  fur Kulturpolitik, 1927), iii.
 
83 Rosenberg, "Der judische Bolschewismus," Volkischer Beobachter, November 26, 1921, 1, 2.
 
84 Max von Scheubner-Richter, "Dem Bolschewismus entgegen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, September  9, 1921, 1.
 
85 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876. reel 4, 366; Max Hildebert Boehm, "Baltische Einflusse auf die Anfange des Nationalsozialismus," Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums, 1967, 59; Baue, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 258.
 
86 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 366; Karsten Bruggemann, "Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (1884-1923) - der 'Fuhrer der Fuhrers'?" Deutschbalten, Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich, ed. Michael Garleff (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2001), 129; Boehm, "Baltische Einflusse," 60.
 
87 DB reports from November 11, 1922 and July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis, delo 386, reel 2, 157; delo 876, reel 4, 367.
 
88 DB report from November 4, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 371; report from Stuttgart [Baron von Delingshausen?] to the RKUoO from July 11, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 222.
 
89 Ganelin, "Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii national-sotsializm," 143.
 
90 AA report from November 4, 1920, PAAA, 83578, 3-5.
 
91 AA report from December 15, 1920, PAAA, 83379, 256.
 
92 Scheubner-Richter, “Zum funften Jahrestag der Revolution," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, November 9,  1923, 1.
 
93 DB reports from November 4 and 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 371;  delo 386, reel 2, 157.
 
94 Boehm, "Baltische Einflusse," 59, 60.
 
95 Nicolai's commentary on his article "Ludendorff” from April 9, 1921, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 19, 125, 126.
 
96 Quoted from Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and  the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion " (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 134.
 
97 Quoted from Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis, 8.
 
98 RKUoO report from April 25, 1924, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 772, opis 3, delo 81a, 55.
 
99 Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 259; RKUo0 report from April 25, 1924, (TsKhIDK),fond  772, opis 3, delo 81a, 55.
 
100 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 369.
 
101 Leverkuhn, Posten auf ewiger Wache, 185.
 
102 Aufbau-Korrespondenz editions are preserved in the NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number 1263.
 
103 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 367.
 
104 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo  96, 62.
 
105 Nicolai's commentary on his article "Ludendorff" from April 9, 1921, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 19, 125.
 
106 Wolfgang Frank, "Professor Otto v. Kursell: Wie ich den Fuhrer zeichnete," Hamburger Illustrierte,  March 6, 1934, BHSAM, Sammlung Personen, number 7440, 12.
 
107 Protocol of a Baltenverband leadership meeting on March 24, 1920, BAB, 8012, number 4, 284.
 
108 Membership list of the Baltenverband from October 1921, BAB, 8012, number 9, 53; letter from  the Baltenverband Gau Munchen to the Baltenverband headquarters in Berlin from October 25,  1923, BAB, 8012, number 11, 88.
 
109 Protocol of a Gau Neubrandenburg Baltenverband meeting on October 4, 1920, BAB, 8012, number 7, 59.
 
110 Speech of Landrat A. v. Oettingen at a Baltenverband meeting on October 15, 1920, BAB, 8012,  number 2, 128.
 
111 RKUoO report from December 4, 1925, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 101, 2.
 
112 PDM report to the RKUoO from September 14, 1926, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo  101, 22.
 
113 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 366; Horbaniuk,  "Zur ukrainischen Fuhrerfrage," 1926, RKUoO, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 105b, 5.
 
114 RKUoO report from July 20, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 151.
 
115 DB report from May 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 954, reel 1, 55.
 
116 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 160.
 
117 Letter from Muller to the Gestapo from July 12, 1938, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 500, opis 1, delo 677, 1.
 
118 ROVS report from 1925, GARF, fond 5826, opis 1, delo 123, 301.
 
119 James and Suzanne Pool, Hitler’s Wegbereiter zur Macht, trans. Hans Thomas (New York: The Dial Press, 1978), 105.
 
120 Scheubner-Richter, "Furst Lwow, der Expremier-als Defraudant," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, October 27, 1921,4.
 
121 Letter from Muller to Heinrich Himmler from August 29, 1938, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 500, opis 1, delo 677, 3.
 
122 Vladimir Biskupskii's subpoena from March 11, 1930, APA, BAB, NS 43, number 35, 129; DB report from June 18, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 3, 233.
 
123 RMI report to the AA from June 9, 1931, PAAA, 31665, 136; letter from Wagner, Federal Chancellor of the Steel Helmet, to Duesterberg from January 20, 1931, BAB, 72, number 261, 24.
 
124 SG report from March 11, 1924, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1, opis 18, delo 2381, 2.
 
125 HSKPA report to the APA/AO from November 22, 1937, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1358, opis 2, delo 643, 125.
 
126 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, November 17, 18, 1922, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 9, reel 2, 3343.
 
127 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 157.
 
128 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 163.
 
129 Dietrich Eckart, "'Jewry uber alles,'" Aufgut deutsch: Wochenschrift fur Ordnung und Recht, November 26, 1920.
 
130 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 367.
 
131 Article from the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten from May 10, 1921, RMI, BAB, 1501, number 14139,  9.
 
132 Schlogel, Katharina Kucher, Bernhard Suchy, and Gregor Thurn, Chronik russischen Lebens in  Deutschland 1918-1941 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), 23.
 
133 Letter from Knorring to the RKUoO from October 18, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 196; article from the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten from May 10,1921, RMI, BAS, 1501,  number 14139, 9.
 
134 "Erneuerung," Volkischer Beobachter, May 4, 1923, 4.
 
135 Pool, Hitler’s Wegbereiter zur Macht, 60.
 
136 Report from Stuttgart [Baron von Delingshausen?] to the RKUoO from July 11, 1923, RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 222; Pool, Hitler’s Wegbereiter zur Macht, 60.
 
137 Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Ludendorff from February 18, 1922, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 14.14, opis 1, delo 20, 171.
 
138 Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offentlichkeit," 472.
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Sat Feb 02, 2019 2:46 am

Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER 5: "German-Russia above everything"

In his memoirs, the influential volkisch leader and former Aufbau member General Erich von Ludendorff complained bitterly that it had proven impossible to combine all White monarchical crosscurrents in Germany into one stream. [1] Ludendorff's assessment of the situation had merit. While Aufbau convinced Hitler of the complementary nature of German and Russian anti-Entente, anti-Weimar Republic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-Semitic interests, the conspiratorial organization could not consolidate all White emigres in Germany (and beyond) under its leadership to form a common front against the Weimar Republic and "Jewish Bolshevism." White emigres seemed united at the May-June 1921 Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria that Aufbau had organized, but appearances proved deceiving.

In an increasingly acrimonious power struggle, Aufbau and Nikolai Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council, which had been established at the Bad Reichenhall Congress, offered divergent visions of how to overthrow Bolshevism in the course of 1921-1923. Aufbau fostered National Socialist-White emigre collaboration to place Grand Prince Kirill Romanov at the head of a Russian monarchy that would be allied with autonomous Ukrainian and Baltic states. Markov II's Council opposed Aufbau's pro-German designs for reorganizing the East. Despite operating from Berlin, the Council increasingly vehemently backed the Tsarist candidacy of Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, Kirill's cousin, who lived in Paris and had close ties with the French government. The Supreme Monarchical Council counted on French military assistance in its schemes to topple the Bolshevik regime. The Council favored a Great Russian solution, meaning that the Ukraine and the Baltic region would be subsumed under Russia as they had been in the Russian Empire.

No White emigre-backed invasion of the Soviet Union materialized in the early 1920s, largely because of the jealous rivalries among White emigres in Germany and Europe as a whole. In the end, Aufbau's increasingly bitter struggle against Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council sapped the energy of Germany's White emigre community. Aufbau even contemplated a hazardous tactical alliance with the Red Army to thwart French-led designs to invade the Soviet Union with the support of White emigres who backed Nikolai Nikolaevich for Tsar. This desperate contingency plan demonstrated the fragile nature of the apparent White unity that had been established in 1921 at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall. White emigre discord provided a valuable respite to the still unstable Bolshevik regime.

Hitler's National Socialist Party came down clearly on Aufbau's side in internecine White emigre struggle. Hitler allied himself with Kirill's candidacy for the Tsarist throne in return for Kirill's considerable financial support of the NSDAP. The key Aufbau ideologues Max von Scheubner-Richter, Alfred Rosenberg, Fedor Vinberg, and their volkisch colleague Dietrich Eckart, Hitler's early mentor, provided a theoretical basis for National Socialist-White emigre collaboration against Bolshevism and Jewry in league with Kirill. They emphasized the complementary nature of the Germans and Russians, generally not differentiating between Russians and Ukrainians. They further argued that Jewry consistently undermined the German and Russian peoples. In his early political career, Hitler repeatedly urged nationalist Germans and Russians to cooperate to overthrow what he perceived as "Jewish Bolshevism."

AUFBAU'S CALL FOR A NATIONALIST GERMAN-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE

In the early 1920s, the Aufbau ideologues Rosenberg, Scheubner-Richter, and Vinberg convinced Hitler's mentor Eckart and Hitler himself that nationalist Germans and Russians needed to cooperate to overcome alleged Jewish preponderance in the world. They presented a view of history in which Imperial Germany and the Russian Empire should never have gone to war against each other, but rather should have allied with each other against Britain and France. They argued that insidious Jewish conspirators had pitted the two powerful empires against each other in order to weaken them both, thereby setting the stage for an international Jewish dictatorship. Aufbau's views of the complementary anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic interests of nationalist Germans and Russians (in the broad sense of the term) engendered a surprisingly pro-Russian attitude in Hitler's early ideological views.

While historians often regard the National Socialist ideologue Rosenberg, one of Hitler's early mentors, as thoroughly anti-Russian in his outlook, the Baltic German expressed decidedly pro-Russian sentiments in his early writings. In an April 1919 article in Eckart's newspaper Auf gut deutsch (In Plain German), "Russian and German," Rosenberg drew a favorable parallel between Russians and Germans as found in the attitudes of their "great men" towards the "Jewish question." He mentioned the Russian authors Lev Tolstoi and Fedor Dostoevskii as well as the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte as opponents of the alleged Jewish exploitation of others. He noted another similarity between the German and Russian peoples in that "Jewish bands" had caused both to face the "broken structure of their state and culture." [2]

Rosenberg again compared Russians and Germans favorably in his 1920 work Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten (The Trail of the Jew through the Ages). He alleged a Jewish "hatred" of all non-Jews, but particularly of the "Russian and German" peoples. He stressed that the Germans had investigated "the inner secret of mankind" more than any other people and therefore constituted "the spiritual antithesis of the Jew." The "Russian soul," for its part, possessed "tones closely related to the German one that, it is true, almost never bring themselves to a synthesis. but stand no less contrasting opposite the tendency of the Jew." [3] Rosenberg's first book thus conceived a basic correspondence between the exalted spiritual natures of the German and Russian peoples as opposed to alleged Jewish shallowness.

In a February 1921 article in Eckart's newspaper In Plain German, Rosenberg wrote in a similarly pro-Russian manner. He urged national Russia to draw from the "old Slavic force that is related to the Germanic one." He asserted: "Right now chaos and force are struggling on the Russian plains from the Gulf of Finland to the mountains of the Caucasus. The future will depend on this decision." Here Rosenberg placed the internal fight against Bolshevism in the very center of world events. Then he offered a highly favorable comparison between Germans and Russians. He claimed, "By nature, through their eternal searching for the light (Faust and the Karamazovs) ... Russians and Germans are the noblest peoples of Europe; ... they will be dependent on each other not only politically, but culturally as well." [4] In his early political career, Rosenberg placed the spiritual and cultural capabilities of Russians only slightly below those of Germans, and he called for nationalist German-Russian collaboration. Rosenberg strongly advocated German-Russian cooperation against international Jewry. In a January 1921 article in In Plain German, he presented a view of history in which Zionist leaders in Imperial Russia had helped to overthrow the Tsar "just at the moment when he thought of making peace with Germany." Rosenberg argued that sinister Jews in league with Freemasons had sown discord between the German and Russian peoples in order to have them "bleed each other to death," thereby clearing the way for an international "Jewish dictatorship." Rosenberg believed that popular knowledge of these Jewish machinations would lead to the creation of a "German-Russian national (that is, anti-Jewish) united block. At this moment Jewry with allied Freemasonry will stand powerless opposite us. This day must and will come.'" In the spirit of Aufbau, Rosenberg envisioned nationalist German-Russian might overcoming the twin evils of Jewry and Freemasonry.

Borrowing from Rosenberg, his highly valued collaborator in In Plain German, Eckart supported nationalist German-Russian cooperation. In a March 1919 article in In Plain German, "Russian Voices," which both he and Rosenberg wrote, Eckart argued, "German politics hardly has another choice than to enter an alliance with a new Russia after the elimination of the Bolshevik regime." [6] In an In Plain German article from February 1920 that warned of the Bolshevik peril, Eckart emphasized: "That Germany and Russia are dependent upon each other is not open to any doubt." He stressed that Germans had to seek connections with the "Russian people" and not with its "current Jewish regime." If Germans worked with this "current Jewish regime" in Russia, then the "lightning inundation of our native country with the entire Bolshevik chaos" would follow. [7] Eckart thus distinguished between nefarious Jewish Bolshevik leaders and the oppressed Russian people, the latter of whom were the natural allies of the Germans.

Eckart's friend Scheubner-Richter, Aufbau's mastermind and ultimately Hitler's closest advisor, advocated nationalist German-Russian partnership in the pages of his Aufbau-Korrespondenz (Aufbau Correspondence). In a July 1922 article, he presented a view of history in which the German and Russian Empires had had complementary interests. He claimed that the empires had possessed "no serious conflict" before World War I. Both states had "soared high above" all other countries and had proved "respected, envied, and, because of their strength, hated." [8] In a later essay, he alleged a plot of the "international Jewish press" working for "Jewish-international Marxism" to pit the two "mutually complementary" states against each other, despite the fact that they had been "naturally dependent upon each other." [9] Scheubner-Richter thus presented Germans and Russians as the primary victims of international Jewish machinations.

Scheubner-Richter remained true to his vision of a nationalist German-Russian alliance to the end, as seen in the last lead editorial that he wrote for Aufbau Correspondence, "On the Fifth Anniversary of the Revolution." This article was released on November 9, 1923, the day that he was fatally shot while marching at Hitler's side in the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. In his essay, Scheubner-Richter stressed that Aufbau had always operated on the principle: "The national Germany and the national Russia must find a common path for the future, and ... it is therefore necessary that the volkisch circles of both countries already meet today." [10] Hitler's close collaborator and political advisor thus tirelessly stressed the fundamentally complementary interests of nationalist Germans and Russians up until his death.

Scheubner-Richter's fervently religious Aufbau colleague Vinberg similarly believed in the necessity of nationalist German-Russian collaboration. In March 1922, Vinberg truthfully assured the Munich Police that his "entire literary activities, pamphlets, books, and other writings, culminated in the intention to bring monarchical Russia closer to the Germany of the time, especially to bring the economic and political relations of both countries in line." [1] Like Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg offered a view of history in which the German and Russian Empires had not possessed serious differences with each other. In his 1922 work translated into German as Der Kreuzesweg Russlands (Russias Via Dolorosa), he portrayed the German-Russian conflict on the Eastern Front in World War I as the result of a "Jewish-Masonic policy" directed towards the "carving up and destruction of Russia and Germany."

In another passage in Russia's Via Dolorosa, Vinberg asserted that for "true harmony," the Deutschlandlied (German national anthem) needed "two choirs." those of "two united and allied peoples. the German and the Russian." The song should therefore have its refrain changed from "Germany above everything. above everything in the world" to "Germany-Russia above everything, above everything in the world." He stressed, "Under the chord of this song, both of these peoples will fulfill their true purpose" of engendering "peace on earth, as the Christian Church intends." [12] Vinberg, one of Hitler's close ideological advisors, thus singled out Germans and Russians as chosen peoples destined to bring about the world's salvation. [13]

Aufbau's emphasis on the complementary nature of nationalist Germans and Russians (in the broad sense of the term) in opposition to Jewry strongly influenced Hitler's early views. While he later developed more derogatory views towards Russians, in his notes for an August 192I oration, Hitler placed Russians on the same basic level as Germans. He wrote of "creative working" people with the note, 'Aryans, Germans, Russians." [14] He also expressed a harmonious view of pre-World War I German-Russian relations along the lines of Aufbau thought. He asserted in another August 1921 speech:

The war turned out especially tragic for two countries: Germany and Russia. Instead of entering into a natural alliance with one another, both states concluded sham alliances to their detriment. Thus, Germany had to bleed for an incompetent Austria-Hungary, and Russia had to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Entente. [15]


In a similar vein, Hitler asserted in an April 1923 oration that the German and Russian peoples had originally been "friendly towards each other." Moreover, "not the German had a reason" for Imperial Germany's 1914 mobilization against the Russian Empire, "but the Jew." He asserted, "Liberalism, our press, the stock market, and Freemasonry" together represented nothing but "instrument[s] of the Jews" that they had used to stir "hatred of the Russian people among the German people." The Jews had schemed in this manner since they had realized that while they were already "absolute rulers in the other states," there remained

antitheses in only two more states: in Germany and Russia. They knew that as long as a monarch was in existence, the state would not be entirely at the mercy of the parliamentary economy. Thus the Jews became revolutionaries at the moment in which they knew that the revolution would bring the rise of their own power. [16]


Hitler's allegation of a Jewish Dolchstoss (stab in the back) against nationalist Germans and Russians appeared on the front page of a May 1923 edition of Aufbau Correspondence. [17] This prominent location proved a fitting place for his anti-Semitic assertion, given that Aufbau leadership had influenced Hitler's early ideas on the complementary nature of nationalist Germans and Russians in opposition to international Jewry.

In the spirit of Aufbau, Hitler frequently called for nationalist Germans to ally themselves with like-minded Russians against the Jews. In July 1920, even before Aufbau's inception, he stressed, "Our deliverance will never come from the West. We must seek friendship with national, anti-Semitic Russia. Not with the Soviet [one] ... The Jew rules there."" In an August 1921 speech, he stressed that the Germans must give "no support to the Jewish usurpers, in order to help the Russian people finally to freedom."'9 In an April 1922 oration, he called on the "Russian people to shake off their tormentors," meaning the Jews, after which the Germans could get closer to the Russians. [20] While he ordered brutal policies towards Russians during World War II, in his early career, Hitler upheld the fundamental Aufbau goal of securing the cooperation of nationalist Germans and Russians against the alleged international Jewish peril.

Hitler continued to view Germans and Russians as the primary victims of international Jewish plotters after 1923. In his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf, he expressed a view of history in which insidious Jewish conspirators had pitted Germans and Russians against each other. He warned of "the Jew's" drive to dominate Europe. As part of this scheme, the Jew "methodically agitates for world war" with the aim of "the destruction of inwardly anti-Semitic. Russia as well as the destruction of the German Empire, which in administration and the army still offered resistance to the Jew." Hitler lamented the partial success of "this Jewish battle aim," noting that both "Tsarism and Kaiserism in Germany were done away with." [21] Even in the late 1920s, Hitler upheld the basic Aufbau philosophy that the Jews concentrated their nefarious actions against two complementary peoples, the Germans and the Russians.

AUFBAU'S ATTEMPT TO UNITE ALL WHITE EMIGRES IN CONCERT WITH HITLER

Aufbau proved less successful in combining all White emigres in Germany (and beyond) under its aegis than in convincing Hitler of the need for German-Russian collaboration against international Jewry. While it never tired of trying, Aufbau could not unite all of Europe's White emigres under its banner. Despite early cooperation, as witnessed at the May-June 1921 Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, Aufbau and Nikolai Markov II's Union of the Faithful drifted further and further apart. Both factions grew increasingly vindictive, and Aufbau even contemplated a perilous tactical alliance with the Red Army to oppose Markov II's pro-French designs to invade Bolshevik Russia. White emigres in 1921-1923 offered a powerful example of the disastrous consequences of engaging in infighting instead of uniting for a common cause.

In the early 1920s, Markov II, the former leader of a faction of the fur right Union of the Russian People in Imperial Russia and the current head of the pro-monarchical Union of the Faithful, wished to unite all White emigres under his leadership. Unlike the solidly pro-German members of Aufbau, Markov II had displayed marked pro-Entente tendencies in the recent past. During the German-White Latvian Intervention under Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov in 1919, he had backed General Nikolai Iudenich in Estonia, who had relied on English support. Markov II had regarded Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army with extreme suspicion. He had even claimed that Germany always secretly worked to help the Bolsheviks, intending the Latvian Intervention to dissipate White offensive power so that General Iudenich could not capture Petrograd. [22]

Despite his pro-Entente leanings and his suspicion that the Germans supported Bolshevism, in May 1920, Markov II left Estonia for Berlin to lead the Union of the Faithful from there. He traveled with Fedor Evaldt, who had earlier served as the military commander of Kiev under Pavel Skoropadskii's Hetmanate in the Ukraine in 1918. [23] Once in Berlin, Markov II and Evaldt joined up with Union of the Faithful members already established in the German capital, most notably Nikolai Talberg, a Baltic German who had served Skoropadskii as the head of the Kiev Police Department.  [24] From Berlin, Markov II, Evaldt, and Talberg led the Union of the Faithful, commonly referred to as the "Markov Group," as a strictly disciplined conspiratorial organization dedicated to restoring the monarchy to Russia. [25] The Union of the Faithful established numerous agents among the peasantry and in the Red Army in the Soviet Union. The Union especially made its presence felt in the Red Army's officer corps. [26]

Markov II wished to hold a general congress to work out a common program for all leading White emigre monarchical groups in the spring of 1921. Markov II's Union of the Faithful desired to lead the White movement as a whole, but it did not possess the financial means for a grandiose conference, nor could such a meeting be held in Berlin, the seat of the mistrustful primarily socialist German government. [27] The Union of the Faithful soon received substantial assistance from Aufbau. In the spring of 1921, the prospects for White emigre unity appeared bright, as the Union of the Faithful and Aufbau were able to collaborate effectively with each other to advance the White emigre cause.

While the two groups would become fierce enemies, Aufbau supported the Union of the Faithful early on. Aufbau's de facto leader Scheubner-Richter received word of Markov II's desire for a large-scale monarchical White emigre congress, perhaps through General Vladimir Biskupskii, who, in addition to acting as Aufbau's vice president, often aided Markov II's Union of the Faithful in Berlin early on." Scheubner-Richter developed the idea of holding a general White emigre monarchical congress in the picturesque (and remote) Bavarian alpine resort town of Bad Reichenhall." He toiled throughout May 1921 as the key practical organizer of the planned monarchical congress. Moreover, he channeled the majority of the means for the undertaking, roughly 12,000 marks. [30]

Some of Scheubner-Richter's colleagues in Aufbau gave considerable financial assistance to the organization of the monarchical emigre congress in Bad Reichenhall. Baron Theodor von Cramer-Klett, Aufbau's official president, raised funds from Bavarian industrialists and contributed substantial money of his own." As always, Biskupskii proved Scheubner-Richter's invaluable partner. He used his entree into wealthy Bavarian circles to raise significant funds for the White emigre congress. [32] Max Amann, the secretary of the NSDAP and Aufbau's second secretary, collaborated with Scheubner-Richter to raise funds for the congress from right-wing Bavarian circles. [33]

While Aufbau in general and Scheubner-Richter in particular laid the groundwork for the White emigre assembly in Bad Reichenhall, Markov II, Evaldt, and Talberg of the Union of the Faithful ran the Organizational Committee that invited the Congress participants. [34] Latvian Intervention leader Colonel Bermondt-Avalov, who had aroused Markov II's distrust in rhe past, pointedly did not receive an invitation. [35] Markov II also excluded those emigres who opposed the Great Russian stance of his Organizational Committee, most notably the Ukrainian Cossack separatist and Aufbau member Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa. [36]

A total of 106 White emigres from Europe, Mrica, Asia, and North America representing 24 different organizations attended the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, which lasted from May 29 to June 5, 1921. [37] The members of the Congress had come from the upper strata of Imperial Russia. Congress participants had predominantly served as officers and high-ranking governmental officials. [38] The majority of the Congress members had been active in the Black Hundred movement, having belonged to Aleksandr Dubrovin's Union of the Russian People, Vladimir Purishkevich's Michael the Archangel Russian People's Union, or both. [39]

Several prominent members of Aufbau attended the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, including the organization's guiding figure Scheubner-Richter, Vice President Biskupskii, Vinberg, a strident anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic ideologue, Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko, General Piotr Vrangel's former press chief in the Crimea who served as an authority on Ukrainian matters, Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, the carrier of The Protocols o[ the Elders o[Zion from the Ukraine to Germany, and General Konstantin Sakharov. a representative from America. [40]

The Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall displayed a pronounced religious aura. Archbishop Eulogius, who had earlier served in the second Imperial Russian Duma (Parliament) from the Lublin region as a Black Hundred representative, and who had long belonged to the Markov Group, led an Orthodox Christian ceremony that climaxed with a solemn group prayer to bless the proceedings. [41] Eulogius subsequently led the Congress' Religious Committee. [42]

Markov II, the head of the Organizational Committee, gave a welcoming address to the assembled White emigres at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall. He assured the Congress participants that after so much suffering, their time had come. He noted that mainly because of financial difficulties, it had not been possible to hold a large-scale monarchical congress earlier. He thanked Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau for providing the funding for the Congress.

After Markov II's speech, Scheubner-Richter gave a rousing address to the Congress participants in German and then in Russian. He welcomed the delegates on behalf of Aufbau and other "German, national, and monarchical circles." He expressed his particular satisfaction that "Russian national circles from all regions of the world" had gathered on "Bavarian soil." He lamented the "unfortunate" war between the Russian and German peoples. He argued that both peoples had not possessed any serious conflicting interests with each other, and he noted that the war had led to the "fall of the two most powerful empires." He stressed that Germany and Russia could only rise to greatness again through "joint reconstruction work." He gained thunderous applause at the end of his speech for his assertion that the Congress would serve as the "cornerstone of the reconstruction of a great and powerful Russia." [43]

While Scheubner-Richter acted as an organizer and crowd-pleaser at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, Markov II displayed himself as a forceful leader. He denounced the Treaty of Versailles in a fiery speech, claiming that it had "betrayed and sold Russia." [44] He concluded to loud applause: "Russia does not recognize the Treaty of Versailles. We must give back to the Russian people what the Russian Tsars accumulated over the centuries." [45] The Congress members decided to create a governing body, the Supreme Monarchical Council, which was to be located in Berlin under Markov II's leadership. [46] Markov II's close colleague Talberg was elected to serve as the Supreme Monarchical Council's secretary as well as the leader of the Council's intelligence service. [47]

Markov II gained another victory at the Congress by having his Cossack colleague General Piotr Krasnov charged with coordinating White emigre military forces in Germany. [48] Krasnov, the former leader of the pro-German Great Don Host just outside of the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, currently played a leading role in the Military Section of Markov II's Union of the Faithful. [49] He was to lead White forces against the Bolsheviks after internal revolts in the Soviet Union had sufficiently weakened Soviet rule. [50] The general was best known for his popular 1921 novel, From the Double-Headed Eagle to the Red Banner. In this work, the protagonist discovers the "terrible secret" of the Bolshevik Revolution, namely that the Jews had eradicated the best of the Russian Gentiles."

At the Congress, members of Markov II's Union of the Faithful were officially slated for the leading White emigre political roles, whereas Aufbau members largely had to content themselves with important ideological functions. Shabelskii-Bork served as the secretary of the Propaganda Committee. while his comrade Vinberg acted as an assistant to it. [52] Nemirovich-Danchenko appealed for German-Russian collaboration. He argued that the war between the German and Russian Empires had been mutual suicide, and he stressed that Germans and Russians had to collaborate to overthrow the Bolsheviks. [53] He subsequently wrote of the efforts of himself and other Congress members to free the future Russia from the "capitalist yoke." [54] He thus believed in a conspiratorial alliance between finance capitalism and Bolshevism, a popular White emigre theme that became part of National Socialist ideology.

After the conclusion of the anti-Bolshevik Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, Scheubner-Richter wrote an article about the proceedings in his weekly newspaper, Aufbau: Zeitschrift for wirtschafts-politische Fragen Ost-Europas (Reconstruction: Journal for Economic-Political Questions of Eastern Europe). He included a thinly veiled anti-Semitic argument in his essay, and he expressed an exaggerated view of fundamental political agreement among the Congress participants. He asserted that the Russian people viewed "God's scourge in the rule of the racial foreigners," meaning the Jews, and saw "their deliverance only in the return of the rule of the church and the Tsar." [55]

In fact, the question of the Tsarist succession had not been clarified at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall. While the majority of the Congress participants recognized Grand Prince Kirill Romanov's official right to the throne on the basis of the rules of heredity, many Congress members disapproved of Kirill personally. Kirill had sullied his reputation among Russian far rightists by paying homage to Aleksandr Kerenskii's Provisional Government in March 1917 before the Tsar had abdicated. [56] As we shall see, the question of who possessed the legitimate right to ascend the Russian throne turned into an acute source of discord between White emigre factions.

In addition to papering over political differences at the Congress in his Aufbau article, Scheubner-Richter stressed the harmony of interests between White emigres and right-wing Germans. He praised Bavaria for demonstrating, "There are broad circles in Germany that reject the Moscow pseudo-Russiandom and are gladly willing to help with the reconstruction of a national Russian state." He extolled the Congress' anti-Entente tone. He noted of the Treaty of Versailles, "National Russiandom sees in it an ignominious act of violence and a disgrace for humanity." He further argued that the firm resolution of the Congress participants to reestablish the monarchy in Russia possessed the "greatest importance" for "those German national circles who see the basis of the economic and cultural rebirth of Germany in a firm state authority independent of parliamentary whims." [57] Scheubner-Richter thus sounded a clarion call for right-wing German and White emigre collaboration.

In organizing the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, Scheubner-Richter gained an impressive triumph for Aufbau. The Congress lent White emigres the appearance of cohesion and unity. The proceedings were generally hailed as a great success that had spurred the Russian monarchical movement worldwide. [58] While the Markov Group had left the Congress with the official leadership of the White emigre community in Germany, Aufbau under Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii had gained a great deal of prestige by holding the Congress in Bavaria, the organization's own sphere of influence. The French military intelligence agency the Second Section even wrote of a "union" of the Bavarian and White emigre monarchical right in the wake of the Bad Reichenhall Congress. [59]

The Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall appeared to demonstrate White emigre unity and determination to drive the Bolsheviks from power in league with right-wing German allies. In reality, however, serious differences had been glossed over regarding the means of toppling Bolshevik Russia. Relations between Aufbau under Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii and the Supreme Monarchical Council under Markov II grew increasingly strained in the course of 1921-1923. [60] While both Aufbau and the Supreme Monarchical Council wished to overthrow the Bolshevik regime, they disagreed significantly on how to do so, where the new borders in the East should be drawn, and who should rule after the defeat of Bolshevism.

In the course of the summer of 1921, serious differences became evident between Aufbau and the Supreme Monarchical Council, notably regarding the Ukrainian question. Several members of Markov II's Union of the Faithful with Great Russian views reproached General Biskupskii with relying excessively on Ukrainian emigre circles and with establishing a Ukrainian officer league in opposition to the existing Russian one. [61] Markov II and some of his Union allies began openly disparaging Biskupskii, and the Union forbade its members from serving in any military formations associated with him. [62] A State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order report written shortly after the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall noted that White emigres held widely differing views of Biskupskii. Some hoped that he would unite White emigres, whereas others regarded him as a "political pest."

Drawing upon Union of the Faithful sources, the State Commissioner report asserted that Biskupskii constantly set up damaging intrigues and demonstrated "unreliability," as he was only led by "personal motives." The report admitted, "Energy. cunning. and a certain cleverness cannot be denied him." Nonetheless, "Boundless ambition, vanity, and egoism comprise the greatest part of his nature." The report concluded:

Although one cannot directly prove him to favor the Entente, it is nevertheless conspicuous that for all of his activity and energy, he has not achieved anything positive for Russian-German cooperation, and that everywhere he is involved, intrigues and grousings begin that have a destructive and subversive effect. [63]


Biskupskii had powerful enemies, and he was not able to unite all White emigres in Germany and the rest of Europe under his leadership.

In the course of internecine White emigre struggle, Biskupskii scored a coup against the increasingly hostile Markov Group. He won over Evaldt, an important member of Markov II's Union of the Faithful, to Aufbau. Evaldt left Berlin for Munich in September 1921. [64] He also established a residence in Bad Reichenhall, where he received considerable funding from Bavarian monarchists. [65] He rose quickly in Aufbau's hierarchy, reaching the post of assessor. [66] Aufbau leadership rewarded Evaldt for his de facto defection, though officially he continued to belong to the Union of the Faithful, by placing him at the head of the Russisches Komitee fur Fluchtlingsfursorge in Bayern (Russian Committee for Refugee Welfare in Bavaria). [67]

The Bavarian government under Minister President Gustav Ritter von Kahr allowed Evaldt's Refugee Committee to decide which Russian emigres could settle in Bavaria and which ones would be expelled from the existing refugee community. [68] Biskupskii collaborated with Evaldt to determine which politically undesirable Russian exiles were to be barred entrance to Bavaria. In addition to Bolsheviks, socialists and liberals, even moderate monarchists were refused admittance. [69] Scheubner-Richter, who enjoyed friendly relations with the Bavarian Chief of Police Ernst Pohner, also played a leading role in Evaldt's refugee organization. He worked behind the scenes to coordinate the Committee's activities with those of Aufbau. [70]

Strengthened by Evaldt's defection to Aufbau, Scheubner-Richter traveled to Budapest in early October 1921 to raise support for an autonomous Ukraine. He met with the right-wing Hungarian Minister President Gyula Gombos as well as Aleksandr von Lampe, the former Tsarist general who represented the Russkii obshii-voinskii soiuz (Russian Universal Military Union, or ROVS). General Piotr Vrangel, who had lost to the Red Army on the Crimean Peninsula during the Russian Civil War, led ROVS. [71] Unlike Aufbau, ROVS favored the pro-French Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, who lived in Paris, over Kirill for Tsar. [72]

At the talks in Budapest, Scheubner-Richter expressed marked pro-Ukrainian views. He argued that Germany's renewal could only take place after a Russian nationalist rebirth, but he stressed that the Ukraine represented the most vital Russian region for the struggle against Bolshevism. He advocated uniting all anti-Bolsheviks there. He emphasized the need for wide-ranging Ukrainian autonomy, noting that the Russian Empire could not be reconstituted in its old form in any case. To sweeten the prospect of an independent Ukraine, he stressed that the industrial and financial circles he represented were prepared to guarantee German capital and technology for a variety of projects throughout the former Russian Empire after the overthrow of the Bolsheviks.

General Lampe did not swallow the bait. He placed more faith in French support. He brusquely rejected Scheubner-Richter's proposals as excessively pro-Ukrainian. The failed talks between Scheubuer-Richter and Lampe in Budapest led to a clean break between the two men in particular and Aufbau and ROVS in general. Scheubner-Richter subsequently kept the Aufbau member General Ludendorff away from General Lampe and ROVS. [73] At the end of October 1921, Scheubner-Richter staged an ostentatious refounding of Aufbau with revised statutes. [74] He allotted a role in the limelight to Ludendorff at the ceremony to signal that the volkisch general stood firmly in the Aufbau camp. [75]

After Aufbau's re-founding, the organization strongly supported Kirill's claim to the Tsarist throne in opposition to Markov II's increasingly pro-French Supreme Monarchical Council. In February 1922, the Aufbau leaders Scheubner-Richter, Biskupskii, and Ludendorff urged Kirill to move from the French Riviera to Bavaria so thar he could act in the center of his German base of support. Kirill and his wife Viktoria discussed this relocation with German officials. [76] Anticipating Kirill's arrival in Germany, General Ludendorff worked to establish an intelligence service for Kirill and his allies under Walmer Nicolai in early April 1922. Nicolai had served Ludendorff as the head of the German Army High Command Intelligence Service during World War I. Ludendorff asked Nicolai to use his considerable experience and connections to establish a reliable pro-Kirill intelligence agency for me struggle against Bolshevism. [77] This bureau was to replace the more modest agency that General Kurlov and Lieutenant Iurii Kartsov had earlier established to support the legitimist movement behind Kirill. [78]

Nicolai was eminently qualified to lead such an intelligence service. In addition to possessing impressive intelligence credentials from World War I, he enjoyed considerable influence in contemporary right-wing German circles. In February 1921, he had taken over the leadership of the Kartell nationaler Zeirungen im Reich (Cartel of National Newspapers in the State). The Cartel propagated nationalist policies, notably rejecting me provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, which had truncated Germany, severely limited its armed forces, and subjected it to immense reparations. [79] Nicolai met with Scheubner-Richter and Ludendorff in me middle of April 1922 to discuss matters in greater detail. He agreed to establish an anti-Bolshevik intelligence agency so that Ludendorff and his allies, including Scheubner-Richter, Kirill, and Hitler, would have a reliable source of information on events in the Soviet Union. The money for the intelligence service, code-named Project S, came from Kirill. Nicolai began sending regular reports to Scheubner-Richter in the first half of July 1922. [80] Scheubner-Richter expressed satisfaction with Aufbau's intelligence information in an October 1922 edition of Aufbau Correspondence. He noted that agents were sending reports from Vienna, Budapest, the Balkans, Kiev, and "other" cities in the Soviet Union. [81] In addition to using information from Project S for Aufbau's purposes, Scheubner-Richter passed intelligence on to Hitler's National Socialist Party, to which he belonged and with which Aufbau was ever increasingly allied. [82]

In addition to establishing a pro-Kirill intelligence bureau, Aufbau increased its military and economic ties with Hungary and strengthened me pro-Kirill movement mere in the spring and summer of 1922. In April 1922, the Aufbau leaders Scheubner-Richter, Biskupskii, and Ludendorff journeyed to Budapest to arrange for the transfer of Cossacks from Poland to Hungary to supplement White forces mere. [83] In May 1922, Ludendorff and Biskupskii formed a German-Southern Russian, i.e. Ukrainian, trade organization within Aufbau, the Eugen Hoffmann & Co. Aussenhandels-Aktiengesellschaft (Eugen Hoffmann & Co. Foreign Trade Joint-Stock Company). Before the (anticipated) overthrow of Bolshevik rule in the Ukraine, this association concentrated on business matters in Eastern Europe, most importantly in Hungary.

The venture capital for this company, six million paper marks, had come from German and White emigre sources. German backers had provided four million marks, and Biskupskii had raised two million marks from White emigre sources. He had secured one million marks from Grand Duchess Viktoria Romanov and the other million from his cousin, the wealthy Aufbau member Vladimir Keppen who had inherited a fortune from American relatives. The Eugen Hoffmann & Co. Foreign Trade Joint-Stock Company speculated in Hungarian wool production in particular under the premise of tremendous profits. [84] Aufbau's strong economic ties with Hungary helped to unite far rightists in both Germany and Hungary.

In late June 1922, Scheubner-Richter, Biskupskii, and Poltavets-Ostranitsa, the leader of Aufbau's Ukrainian faction, traveled to Budapest. Whatever secret agenda they may have followed regarding German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau's assassination, their open goal consisted of planning a pro-Kirill White emigre congress in Budapest along the lines of the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall. The uproar caused by Aufbau's suspected involvement in Rathenau's murder, however, persuaded Scheubner-Richter and his colleagues to break off the negotiations in favor of a more suitable time and place. [85]

Despite the truncated nature of the talks in Budapest that Aufbau leaders participated in, the Aufbau contingent did manage to hold detailed discussions with Prince Mirza Kazem Bek, the president of the Russian Monarchical Club, which represented Hungary's approximately 3,500 White emigres. Kazem Bek had long cultivated close ties with Aufbau. [86] Kazem Bek agreed to create an organization along the lines of Aufbau in Budapest that would serve as a Hungarian-Russian society. Scheubner-Richter announced that Aufbau would organize an economic representation in Hungary under the leadership of von Krause, a White emigre. Scheubner-Richter also spoke of negotiating with the Hungarian Agricultural Ministry to regulate trade in livestock and grain between Hungary and Bavaria. [87]

During his trip to Hungary, Scheubner-Richter placed great hopes on the power of Kirill and his supporters to undermine Soviet rule. In a July 1922 interview with the German Embassy in Budapest, he claimed that the Soviet regime would collapse in the near future because of three factors. First, the heir to the Tsarist throne would soon be announced, by which he meant Kirill. Second, the Tsarist claimant would win the farmers of the Soviet Union over to his side by proclaiming that he would respect Bolshevik land reforms and pardon those who had served in the Red Army. Third, an "anti-Jewish movement" would break out "in elementary force" that would "end Soviet rule with one blow." [88] Scheubner-Richter clearly possessed an overly optimistic view of the situation, as the Soviet Union did not collapse in 1922.

Whereas Aufbau operated in Germany and Hungary to gain support for Kirill as the future Tsar who would unite all White emigres, Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council favored Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich's candidacy and increasingly adopted a pro-French policy. After initial reservations, Markov II called for a White army under General Vrangel to invade the Soviet Union with French support through Poland and Romania in the summer of 1922. [89] After this White army had toppled the Bolsheviks, Nikolai Nikolaevich was to become the Tsar of the restored Russian Empire in its old borders. Acting on the advice of the Matkov Group, Nikolai Nikolaevich arrived in Munich, the centet of Kirill's support, in late July 1922. Largely to coordinate its activities with Nikolai Nikolaevich, Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council resolved to relocate from Berlin to Munich. [90]

In the face of the Supreme Monarchical Council's support of Nikolai Nikolaevich, Aufbau launched a pro-Kirill offensive. Kirill had learned that Nikolai Nikolaevich planned to promulgate a declaration to the Russian people. Urged on by his energetic wife, Viktoria, the honorary president of the Aufbau subsection Renewal, Kirill forestalled Nikolai Nikolaevich by releasing manifestos on August 8, 1922. [91] Aufbau printed Kirill's appeals, in which the Tsarist candidate proclaimed himself the legitimate head of all Russian monarchical forces both inside and outside the Soviet Union. [92]

Scheubner-Richter dedicated the entire August 16, 1922 edition of Aufbau Correspondence to Kirill's declarations to the "Russian people" and the "Russian army." Scheubner-Richter translated these appeals into German for the first time. In his opening commentary on Kirill's manifestos, he claimed that neither "imported parliamentarism" nor "Asiatic, Jewish Bolshevism" could establish firm roots in Russia, for monarchy was the "volkisch more well-founded" system. He thus advocated a well-run monarchy for Russia. This idea did not contradict volkisch thought, which had rejected Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern II as a weak leader, but had approved of a powerful monarchy as a system.

Scheubner-Richter further stressed in his article on Kirill's declarations that the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall had represented the "first start" towards the "collection of Russian patriots," and now Kirill's appeals, coming from the «legitimate nearest heir to the Tsar's throne," represented the "second fanfare" towards this goal. He enthused: "The entire Russian patriotic movement finally has a leader." He concluded, "From a national German standpoint, we can ... only hope that the coming to the fore of Grand Prince Kirill will be successful" so that "the future will grant us a national Russia that will workhand in hand with a national Germany to heal the wounds that the World War and the Revolution dealt." [93] Scheubner-Richter again expressed his firm conviction that the German and Russian peoples needed to' collaborate closely with each other in order to regain greatness.

Aufbau had firmly backed Kirill's claim to the Russian throne. After Scheubner-Richter printed Kirill's manifestos, some White emigres gave his newspaper Aufbau Correspondence the moniker of the "organ of the Kirill-supporters." [94] Baron Ludwig von Knorring, a noble Baltic German proponent of a moderate constitutional monarchy for Russia who led the White emigre community in Baden-Baden, noted to German authorities in October 1922 that with Aufbau's printing and distributing of Kirill's declarations in German, Munich had to be regarded as the center of White emigre monarchical agitation in Germany. [95]

Aufbau under Scheubner-Richter's guidance used Kirill's declarations to undermine Soviet authority. Aufbau smuggled Kirill's manifestos into the Soviet Union. This subversive action elicited a memorandum from Feliks Dzerzhinskii, the head of the Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, NKVD), which stressed that Soviet censorship of foreign mail was doing a poor job, as evidenced by the widespread presence of Kirill's declarations in the Soviet Union. [96]

Largely because of the urgings of Aufbau leadership, the increasingly important couple Kirill and Viktoria Romanov moved to Bavaria in August 1922. They divided their time between a Munich hotel and the northern Bavarian city of Coburg, where they possessed an estate. Scheubner-Richter regularly held talks with Kirill and Viktoria, who possessed considerable financial means. Kirill had 50 million francs for the raising of White forces as of August, and he was hoping for more money from American sources, presumably most importantly from the right-wing politician and industrialist Henry Ford. Viktoria, as the daughter of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg, who was related to the English royal family, also possessed significant financial resources in the form of English money. She financially supported many of Kirill's backers from her own funds, which included money that she acquired by selling parts of her extensive jewelry collection. [97]

Aufbau's vice president, Biskupskii, played the leading role in the circle around Kirill and Viktoria. He channeled General Ludendorff's energies into furthering Kirill's cause. [98] Biskupskii greatly influenced Viktoria, who had a far more dynamic personality than her somewhat drab husband. [99] Biskupskii acted as her closest advisor. [100] Viktoria ardently supported the dashing general. She granted him considerable funding for his activities in Aufbau in 1922, and she continually praised Aufbau to her husband. w, Biskupskii later engendered a great deal of antipathy in the German White emigre community when it became known that he had long been having an affair with Viktoria and mainly owed his leading role in Kirill's shadow government to his lover's recommendations. [102]
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

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General Biskupskii's colleagues Generals Piotr Glasenap and Konstantin Sakharov also supported Kirill's claim to the Russian throne. They intensified their collaboration with Kirill in August 1922, a month after Viktoria had given 100,000 francs to Glasenap via Sakharov for anti-Bolshevik activities. [103] Sakharov acted as a key intermediary between Kirill and General Ludendorff. [104] Sakharov also directed intelligence operations on Kirill's behalf. Every month, the White emigre Aufbau member sent questionnaires to Kirill's representatives in diverse European cities. The forms dealt with such topics as the general economic and political conditions in the countries in which Kirill's agents were stationed as well as the activities of local Bolshevik organizations and the private lives of their members. [105]

Hitler's National Socialist Party supported Kirill and his backers in the dispute over who should become the next Tsar. A September 1921 edition of the National Socialist newspaper the Volkischer Beobachter (Volkisch Observer) noted unanimous support for Kirill's claim to the throne among the Don Cossack exile community. [106] After Kirill's proclamations to the "Russian people" and the "Russian army" that Aufbau had translated into German in August 1922, Aufbau leadership under Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii cooperated increasingly closely with Hitler's NSDAP. [107] Biskupskii viewed Hitler as an admirable "strong man," and he developed close ties with him. [108] Biskupskii began to transfer large sums of money that he received from Kirill and Viktoria to Hitler in 1922. [109]

The first major National Socialist expedition, a trip to Coburg to participate in a German Day on October 14 and '5,1922, suggests the increasing convergence of Aufbau and National Socialist policies behind the legitimist movement around Kirill. [110] Hitler and his mentors Eckart and the Aufbau ideologue Rosenberg, among others, arrived in Coburg, the seat of Kirill's shadow government, with 800 members of the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (Storm Section, SA). In addition to fighting against leftists in pitched street battles, members of the National Socialist contingent distributed copies of Eckart and Rosenberg's In Plain German with caricatures of leftist, primarily Jewish leaders drawn by the Aufbau member Otto von Kursell. Members of the Coburg expedition received a Coburg Medal that National Socialists ultimately prized only less than an award for participating in the November 1923 Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. [111]

In the second half of 1922, around the time of the Coburg action, Aufbau continued to strengthen the pro-Kirill movement in Hungary. Aufbau's Vice President Biskupskii and his colleague Evaldt, the head of the Russian Committee for Refugee Welfare in Bavaria, won Prince D. P. Golitsyn, rhe representative of the Supreme Monarchical Council in Hungary, over to Kirill's cause. [112] Golitsyn had led the original Black Hundred organization in Imperial Russia, the Russian Assembly. [113] Aufbau also improved its ties with Prince Mikhail Volkonskii, another former leading member of the Russian Assembly who currently led the Russian Delegation in Hungary. Volkonskii possessed the power to decide which Russian exiles could reside in Hungary. [114] He edited the newspaper Rossiia (Russia) in Budapest, a paper that was dedicated to Kirill, the "guardian of the throne." Volkonskii received funding for this newspaper from Kirill and the Hungarian leader Admiral Nicholas Horthy, who also strongly supported Kirill's bid to become Tsar. [115]

While Aufbau succeeded in strengthening the pro-Kirill movement in Hungary in the second part of 1922, it could not unite all White emigres in Germany (and beyond) behind Kirill. Instead, the White emigre community remained deeply divided. On the one side, Aufbau-led White emigres backed Kirill for Tsar and collaborated closely with volkisch Germans, most importantly National Socialists, to establish successor Russian, Ukrainian, and Baltic states. [116] As we shall see in the next chapter, these entities were to be organized along National Socialist lines. On the other side, the Supreme Monarchical Council supported Nikolai Nikolaevich for Tsar of a Russian state in its pre-World War I borders, and they increasingly viewed France as their patron. [117]

As the president of the Russian Committee for Refugee Welfare in Bavaria, Evaldt, with the behind-the-scenes direction of Scheubner-Richter, primarily used loyalty to Kirill in deciding who was to be allowed into or expelled from Munich's White emigre community. [118] The Munich Police closely cooperated with the pro-KirilI legitimists to keep pro-French elements out of Bavaria. [119] While in Bavaria in 1922, Markov II and his followers in the pro-French majority faction of the Supreme Monarchical Council kept a relatively low profile. They recognized that they were in a perilous position because of the determination of the Munich Police to remove the residency permits of anti-German foreigners. [120]

White emigre backers of both Kirm and Nikolai Nikolaevich tried to win converts to their cause. Markov II tried to convert the established members of the Bavarian White emigre community under the direction of Aufbau to the side of Nikolai Nikolaevich, but without success. [121] Boris Brazel, an Aufbau member and the White emigre contact man with the right-wing American industrialist and politician Henry Ford, sought to convince Markov II to back Kirill, but likewise to no avail.

In November 1922, relations snapped between Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council and the White emigres who backed Kirill under Aufbau's direction. [122] A second White monarchical congress shattered any semblance of White emigre unity that had been presented at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall in the late spring of 1921. This second assembly met in Paris from November 16 to November 23, 1922 under the direction of the Supreme Monarchical Council. Sevenry delegates representing 125 organizations attended the proceedings. [123] The Munich White emigre community under Aufbau's leadership rejected the authority of the increasingly pro-French Supreme Monarchical Council. [124] Aufbau members rejected the guidelines set down at the Paris Congress, and they openly broke with what pretensions of obedience to the Supreme Monarchical Council that they had maintained. Other Russian monarchical emigre communities followed their example, notably those in Prague, Budapest, and Belgrade. [125] White emigre disunity had reached critical dimensions.

The apparent White emigre unity that had been established at the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall in May-June 1921 collapsed in 1922, but in 1923, Aufbau's distrust and even hatred of the pro-Nikolai Nikolaevich actions of Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council intensified even more markedly. Aufbau's leadership even carried out contingency planning for a temporary alliance with the Red Army in the case of a French-led invasion of the Soviet Union launched in the name of Nikolai Nikolaevich. White emigre disunity granted the fledgling Soviet state a measure of respite.

Amid continuing internecine White emigre struggle, Kirill enjoyed rising popularity in the spring of 1923 both among nationalists inside the Soviet Union and in White emigre circles in Europe. At the same time, Nikolai Nikolaevich and the pro-French Markov II saw their influence wane, especially in Germany. [126] General Biskupskii aided Kirill by denouncing Nikolai Nikolaevich and his supporters. For instance, Biskupskii spread slanderous rumors that Nikolai Nikolaevich was old and feeble, virtually at death's door, and thus could not be expected to play any considerable future political role. Markov II's close associate Talberg retaliated in coin. He maintained that Biskupskii secretly served as a Bolshevik agent. [127]

In a striking manifestation of the intense animosity between White emigre factions, upon receiving the news that French leaders were intensifying their preparations to invade the Soviet Union in May 1923, Aufbau leadership indefinitely shelved its plans to foment revolt inside the Soviet Union and to lead a White military intervention against the Bolsheviks. The French-coordinated assault that Aufbau feared was to rely on Polish and Romanian support in addition to assistance from pro-French White emigres behind Nikolai Nikolaevich, most notably Markov II and Talberg of the Supreme Monarchical Council. The French planned to establish a pro-French regime in the territory of the Soviet Union in the middle of the summer of 1923. [128] Markov II had held a meeting at the beginning of May 1923 in which he had discussed the advanced French-backed preparations for an anti-Bolshevik front under Nikolai Nikolaevich. [129]

Nikolai Nikolaevich himself was reluctant to collaborate with Polish troops, and he did not wish for a military campaign against the Soviet Union unless Russians there and not just White emigres called for him to claim the throne. [130] Aufbau's leading figure Scheubner-Richter nonetheless perceived a great threat to Aufbau's interests in the French-led plans for an invasion of the Soviet Union. In a May 1923 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, he warned of advanced French preparations to topple Bolshevism. He asked what "German national circles" were doing to prepare for the moment that "Bolshevik-Jewish rule in Moscow collapses and a national Russia takes its place." He stressed that this course of events "does not lie outside of the realm of the possible." [131] Scheubner-Richter believed that the Soviet regime was ripe for dissolution, and he tried to keep the "wrong" White emigres from seizing power in Russia.

In its drive to thwart a French-led invasion of the Soviet Union in the name of Nikolai Nikolaevich, Aufbau went so far as to negotiate with Bolshevik leaders through intermediaries. Aufbau had a contact man with the Soviet Great Russian heartland, Andreas Remmer. Remmer had served as Western Volunteer Army leader Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov's Foreign Minister in Berlin during the 1919 Latvian Intervention. Remmer traveled from Berlin to Munich to consult with General Biskupskii in late May 1923. The two colleagues were to meet with Kirill to discuss important strategic questions, but the Munich Police arrested Remmer, whom they suspected of serving as a Soviet agent, before these talks could take place. Biskupskii was able to convince Munich authorities that while Remmer maintained contacts with various members of the Soviet government through middlemen, he used the information that he received for nationalist purposes. [132]

Remmer told the Munich Police that the planned French-led invasion of the Soviet Union would either fail miserably or bring about the "complete enslavement of Russia." He claimed that Nikolai Nikolaevich and those White emigres who supported him played the "most despicable role" of serving the "plans and goals of ... Jewish high finance." Remmer emphasized that if the French launched a military intervention against the Soviet Union with Polish and Romanian assistance, then the pro-German -white emigre faction behind Kirill under Aufbau's leadership and the nationalist forces that it collaborated with in the Soviet Union would be forced to fight along with the Red Army. Once the attackers had been defeated, pro-German Whites would launch a putsch in the ranks of the Red Army and destroy the Soviet government. [133] According to Remmer, Aufbau had come to regard French invasion plans that Markov II supported as a threat great enough to warrant a hazardous tactical alliance with the Red Army.

In a June article in Aufbau Correspondence, "Intervention Intentions against Soviet Russia," Scheubner-Richter attacked pro-French White emigres. He asserted: "We cannot believe that France is serious with the fight against Jewish world Communism." He stressed that Kirill's backers rejected a French-led offensive. He further argued that a French-led intervention with Poland's participation would strengthen the Soviet Union, for nationalist circles inside the Great Russian heartland would be forced to fight on behalf of the Bolshevik regime against foreign invaders. [134]

In the summer of 1923, the chasm between Aufbau and the Supreme Monarchical Council continued to widen. Scheubner-Richter criticized Markov II in a July edition of Aufbau Correspondence by running an article, "From the Russian-Monarchical Movement." This piece stressed that Kirill's supporters had formed a legitimist alliance centered in Munich that opposed Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council. The article claimed that the Council had not submitted to Kirill's leadership as it had pledged at Bad Reichenhall. (Actually, the question of the Tsarist succession had been left open then.) Scheubner-Richter also included a translated essay from the newspaper that the Aufbau ideologue Vinberg edited on Kirill's behalf, Vestnik russkago monarkhicheskago obedineniia v Bavarii (Bulletin of the Russian Monarchical Union in Bavaria). Vinbergs article urged all White emigres to unite behind Kirill and to foster the "active struggle for the liberation of the homeland." [135]

An August article in Aufbau Correspondence lamented the strife between White emigre factions. The essay noted, "We, the Russian anti-Semites" acted as "fighters for the national cause in its purest form," but the '''wise men of Zion' are laughing up their sleeves" regarding the disunity among the White emigre groups who aspired to be the "'saviors of the fatherland."' [136] The aversion of pro-Kirill backers under Aufbau's direction to Markov II, Talberg, and other White emigres who supported a pro-French policy had reached critical extremes. Internecine strife among White emigres helped the Bolshevik regime to consolidate its power at a critical time when Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin's health was deteriorating rapidly.

The Munich Police determined during August 1923 that Kirill's supporters under Aufbau's direction were truly determined to restore Kirill to the Russian throne even at the cost of temporarily collaborating with the Bolsheviks. In the case of such an alliance, Kirill's faction hoped to instill the Red Army with pro-monarchical views and to win it over for a putsch against the Bolshevik state. [137] The summer of 1923 thus witnessed extreme political fluidity between members of the radical right and the radical left. It is worth noting in this, context that already in May 1922, the Aufbau member Colonel Karl Bauer had traveled to the Soviet Union with the mission of establishing the terms for a potential German-Soviet military agreement. [138]

In another example of tentative fur right German-Bolshevik rapprochement, the State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order noted an increasing "exchange of ideas" between volkisch Germans and Communists in August 1923. A State Commissioner report described "certain parallels" of a "negative nature" between members of the radical right and the radical left. Both far rightists and fur leftists opposed democracy and parliamentarism, wished to institute a dictatorship, and believed in using violent means to achieve their goals. Certain volkisch Germans and Communists proposed seizing power together and then defeating France. [139] Hitler opposed cooperating with Communists, however. He stressed in a speech at this time: "Swastika and Soviet star tolerate each other like fire and water and cannot be brought together even on tactical grounds." [140]

Tentative volkisch/Bolshevik peace feelers did not lead to a solid political alliance in 1923. Moreover, largely because of the intense discord among White emigres, no military intervention against the Soviet Union took place that year either. In September 1923, the Pro-French faction of the Munich White emigre community under Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council left for Wiesbaden, close to the French border. This occurred after Aufbau leaders had made it absolutely clear that they would go to extreme lengths to foil any French-led intervention in Russia, including temporarily allying with the Bolshevik regime. [141] White emigre disunity proved a boon to the early Soviet Union, which generally faced deep suspicion if not outright hostility in the world political arena.

CONCLUSION

The prominent Aufbau White emigre ideologues Max von Scheubner-Richter, Alfred Rosenberg, Fedor Vinberg, and their volkisch German associate Dietrich Eckart provided a theoretical basis for German-White emigre collaboration against the Entente, the Weimar Republic, the Soviet Union, and international Jewish conspirators. They called for "Germany-Russia above everything, above everything in the world." They emphasized the complementary nature of the German and Russian peoples against their Jewish foes. Hitler seized upon the Aufbau and Eckartian notions of a Jewish Dolchstoss (stab in the back) of both Imperial Russia and the German Empire. In his early political career, he repeatedly called for nationalist Germans and Russians to ally against "Jewish Bolshevism."

Aufbau envisioned large-scale nationalist German-Russian collaboration in which volkisch Germans, most notably National Socialists, and White emigres would play the leading roles. With Aufbau's successful organization of the May-June 1921 Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall, White emigres in Europe in general and in Germany in particular seemed ready for a coordinated anti-Bolshevik campaign. Appearances nonetheless proved deceiving. Aufbau could not unite all White emigres behind its candidate for the Tsarist throne, Grand Prince Kiral Romanov. Instead, Aufbau fought against Nikolai Markov II's pro-French Supreme Monarchical Council, which supported Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov for Tsar.

Aufbau's antipathy towards Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council reached such a degree that Aufbau planned a dangerous tactical alliance with the Red Army in the case of a French-led invasion of the Soviet Union that would be conducted in Nikolai Nikolaevich's name. In the end, Aufbau's increasingly bitter conflict with the Supreme Monarchical Council sapped the energy of the White emigre community in Europe and provided some respite to the fledgling Soviet Union. As we shall see, although much of its energy was directed towards its increasingly vicious rivalry with Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council, Aufbau sought to undermine the Weimar Republic through terrorism and to topple the Bolshevik regime through subversion and military force from 1921 to 1923.

_______________

Notes:

I Erich von Ludendorff, Meine Lebenserinnerungen, 204, cited from Johannes Baur, "Russische Emigranten  und die bayerische Offentlichkeit,” Bayern und Osteuropa: Aus der Geschichte der Beziehungen  Bayerns, Frankens und Schwabens mit Russland, der Ukraine, und Weissrussiand, ed. Hermann Beyer-Thoma  (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000), 472.
 
2 Alfred Rosenberg, "Russe und Deutscher," Auf gut deutsch: Wochenschrift for Ordnung und Recht,  April 4, 1919.
 
3 Rosenberg, Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten (Munich: Deutscher Volks-Verlag, 1920), 82.
 
4 Rosenberg, "Das Verbrechen der Freimaurerei: Judentum, Jesuitismus, deutsches Christentum: VIII.  Deutsches Christentum," Auf gut deutsch, February 28, 1921.
 
5 Rosenberg, "Das Verbrechen der Freimaurerei: IV. Freimaurerei und Judentum," Auf gut deutsch,  January 15, 1921.
 
6 Rosenberg, "Russische Stimmen," Aufgut deutsch, March 28, 1919.
 
7 Dietrich Eckart, “Die Schlacht auf den Katalaunischen Feldern," Auf gut deutsch, February 20, 1920.
 
8 Max von Scheubner-Richter, "Ruckblicke und Parallelen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, July 19, 1922, I.
 
9 Scheubner-Richter, "Klarheit," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, January 17, 1923, I.
 
10 Scheubner-Richter, "Zum funften Jahrestag der Revolution," Aufhau-Korrespondenz, November 9,  1923, I.
 
11 Fedor Vinberg's March 30, 1922 testimony, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 4, 5.
 
12 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands: Teil I: Die Ursachen des Ubels, trans. K. von Jarmersted (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1922), 32, 40, 41.
 
13 DB report from November 1, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 160.
 
14 Adolf Hitler, notes for a speech on August 12, 1921, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, eds. Eberhard Jackel and Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), 453.
 
15 Hitler, speech on August 4, 1921, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 450, 451.
 
16 Hitler, "Die Urschuldigen am Weltkriege: Weltjude und Weltborse," Volkischer Beobachter, April  15/16, 1923, I.
 
17 Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko, "Russland und Deutschland: Gedanken eines russischen Emigranten,"  Aufhau-Korrespondenz, May 24, 1923, I.
 
18 Hitler, speech on July 21, 1920, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen. 163.
 
19 Hitler, speech on August 4, 1921, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 451.
 
20 Hitler, speech on April 21, 1922, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 631.
 
21 Hitler, Hitlers Zweites Buch: Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), 221.
 
22 LGPO report from June 3, 1921, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1813, number 2, 9.
 
23 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7T2, opis I, delo  96, 57, 58; MMFT report to the DB from December 24, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2,  delo 2575, reel 2, 134.
 
24 LGPO report from March 16, 1922, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1813, number 8, 11.
 
25 LGPO reports to the RKU60 from November 28 and December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond  772, opis 1, delo 96, 39, 41, 58.
 
26 [FZO] report from October 15,1920, MMFP, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 198, opis 2, delo 1031, reel 2,  72.
 
27 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis I, delo  96, 58, 60,
 
28 DB report from November 4, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond7, opis I, delo 876, reel 4, 371.
 
29 Aleksandr von Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Budapest, October 8-22, 1921, GARF, fond 5853, opis I,  delo 7, reel I, 1998.
 
30 RKUaO report from June 20, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 772, opis 3, delo 81a, 16.
 
31 RKUoO report from June 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 230.
 
32 DB report from November 4, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis I, delo 876, reel 4, 371.
 
33 LGPO report to the RKUo0 from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis I, delo  96, 62.
 
34 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo  96, 61.
 
35 RKUoO report from September 9, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 20, 21.
 
36 LGPO report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 254.
 
37 "Der I. Kongress zum wirtschaftlichen Wiederaufbau Russlands in Reichenhall: Erstet Tag, 29 Mai  1921," Aufbau: Zeitschrift fur wirtschafts-politische Fragen Ost-Europas, Number 2/3, August 1921, 5,  RKUoO, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 503; LGPO report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA  (TsKhIDK),fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 253, 263.
 
38 RKUoO report from June 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK) ,fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 229/
 
39 Report from Ludwig von Knorring to the AA from June 30, 1921, PAAA, 31490, K096232.
 
40 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis I, delo  96, 62, 65.
 
41 S. A. Stepanov, Chernaia Sotnia v Rossii 1905-1914 (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Vsesoiuznogo zaochnogo  politekhnicheskogo instituta, 1992), 243; LGPO reports to the RKUoO from July 1 and December  4, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 263; opis 1, delo 96, 66.
 
42 LGPO report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 261.
 
43 LGPO report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 257-259.
 
44 Scheubner-Richter, “Der russische Wiederaufbau kongress in Bad Reichenhall: Ein Ruckblick und Ausblick von Dr. M. E. von Scheubner-Richter," Aufbau, Number 2/3 August 1921, 1, RKUoO, BAB, 4311, number 131, 499.
 
45 "Der I. Kongress zum wirtschaftlichen Wiederaufbau Russlands in Reichenhall: Sechster Tag, 3. Juni 1921," Aufbau, Number 213, August 1921, 14, RKUoO, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 514.
 
46 PDM report to the BSMA from June 7, 1923, BHSAM, BsMA 36, number 103009, 29; LGPO report to the RKUo0 from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 253.
 
47 LGPO report from March 16, 1922, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1813, number 8, 11.
 
48 DB report from August 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 2, 109.
 
49 [FZO] report from October 15, 1920, MMFP, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 198, opis 2, delo 1031, reel 2, 70.
 
50 DB report from August [11], 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 2, 109.
 
51 Matthias Vetter, "Die Russische Emigration und ihre 'Judenfrage,'" Russische Emigration in Deutschland 1918 bis 1941: Leben im europaischen Burgerkrieg, ed. Karl Schlogel (Berlin: Akademie, 1995), III.
 
52 LGPO report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b, 261.
 
53 Report from the French Ambassador in Berlin, Laurent, to the MAE from June 25, 1921, SG, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1, opis 27, delo 12523, 52.
 
54 Nemirovich-Danchenko, "Der wirtschaftliche Aufbau Russlands," Aufbau, Number 2/3, August 1921, 2, RKUoO, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 500.
 
55 Scheubner-Richter, "Der russische "Wiederaufbaukongress in Bad Reichenhall," Aufbau, Number 2/3, August 1921, 2, RKUoO, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 500.
 
56 LGPO report to the RKUoO from August 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond772, opis I, delo 96, 7.
 
57 Scheubner-Richter, "Der russische Wiederaufbaukongress in Bad Reichenhall," Aufbau, Number 2/3, August 1921, 1, RKU60, BAB, 43/1, number 131, 499.
 
58 LGPO report to the RKUoO from December 24, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond772, opis 1, delo 96, 61.
 
59 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 157.
 
60 Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offentlichkeit," 463.
 
61 RKUo0 report from July 20, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 150.
 
62 LGPO report to the RKUoO from November 28, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 45/
 
63 RKUoO report from June 20, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 81a, 11, 14.
 
64 MMFT report to the DB from December 24, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 2, 134; LGPO report from September 21, 1921, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1813, number 2, 65.
 
65 ATsVO report from October 8, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 70, 64.
 
66 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 367.
 
67 LGPO report to the RKUoO from November 28, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond772, opis 1, delo  96, 39, 42; Nikolai von Epanchin's testimony included in a PDM report to the BSMI from April  15, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 5, 3.

68 DB report from November 4, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 7, opis I, delo 876, reel 4, 373.
 
69 Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offentlichkeit," 471.
 
70 Walther Nicolai's commentary on his telegraph to Ludendorff from November 10, 1923, Tagebuch  (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 22, 98; DB report from November 4, 1922, RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 373.
 
71 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Budapest, Berlin, October 8-22, 1921, November 11, 12, 1923, GARF, fond  5853, opis 1, delo 7, reel 1, 1993; delo 13, reel 1, 5769.
 
72 Baur, “Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offentlichkeit," 463.
 
73 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Budapest, October 8-22, 1921 and Berlin, November 11-I7, 1923. GARF,  fond 5853, opis I, delo 7, reel I, 1994-1997; delo 13, reel I, 5769, 5773.
 
74 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis I, delo 876, reel 4, 379.
 
75 Schligel, Katharina Kucher, Bernhard Suchy, and Gregor Thurn, Chronik russischen Lebens in  Deutschland 1918-194I (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), 80.
 
76 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, June 5, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis I, delo 11, reel 3, 4851/180;  RKUo0 report from February 21, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 115.
 
77 Nicolai's commentary on a letter from Ludendorff from early April 1922; letter from Hans von Seekt  to Nicolai from March 9, 1920, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 20, 172;  delo 18, 539.
 
78 RKUo0 report from February 21, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis I, delo 96, 115.
 
79 Nicolai's commentary on Heye's letter to him from March 12, 1921, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 18, 351.
 
80 Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Ludendorff from April 19, 1922; Nicolai's letter to Ludendorff  from August 21, 1923; Nicolai's commentary on his "Mitteilung Nr. 8" from early July 1922, Tagebuch  (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 20, 174, 356; delo 22, 91.
 
81 Scheubner-Richter, ''Allgemeine Wirtschaft und Politik," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, October 11, 1922, 3.
 
82 DB report from May 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 954, reel 1, 56.
 
83 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Budapest, April 4, 1922, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 7, reel 2, 2119.
 
84 Vladimir Biskupskii's subpoena from March 11, 1930, APA, BAB, NS 43, number 35, 129, 131 ob.
 
85 DGBud report to the AA from July 18, 1922, PAAA, 83580, 20 ob.
 
86 DGBud report to the AA from July 5, 1922, PAAA, 83579, 130; "Die russischen Emigranten in  Ungarn und Deutschland bereiten sich zum Aufbau ihres Vaterlandes vor," translated article from  Nemzeti Ujsag that Scheubner-Richter sent to the DGBud on July 6, 1922, forwarded to the AA,  PAAA, 83580, 26, 27.
 
87 "Die russischen Emigranten in Ungarn und Deutschland," 29; DGBud report to the AA from July  5, 1922, PAM, 83580, 130 ob.
 
88 DGBud report to the AA from July 18, 1922, PAM, 83580, 21.
 
89 DGBer report to the AA from July 3, 1922, PAAA, 83579, 102; RKUo0 report from July 29, 1922,  RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond772, opis 1, delo 96, 154.
 
90 DB reports from August 4 and 6, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 3, 197; reel  2, 185.
 
91 Letter from Knorring to the AA from August 16, 1922, PAM, 83580, 112, 112ob.
 
92 Kirill Romanov, "An das russische Volk!", included in Scheubner-Richter, "Zwei bedeutsame Deklarationen,"  Aufbau-Korrespondenz, August 16, 1922, 3.
 
93 Scheubner-Richter, "Zwei bedeutsame Deklarationen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, 2, 4.
 
94 Report from Knorring to the RKUo0 from December 28, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 179, 69.
 
95 Report from Knorring to the AA from June 30, 1921, PAAA, 31490, K096232; report from Knotting to the RKUoO from October 18, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 192.
 
96 Feliks Dzerzhinskii, NKVD memorandum from September 1, 1922, RGASPI, fond 76, opis 3, delo  400, 54.
 
97 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, September 12, 13, 1922, April 16-20, 1923, June 5, 1923, GARF,  fond 5853, opis 1, delo 9, reel 1, 3270; delo 11, reel 1, 4698; reel 3, 4851/180, 191; report from Stuttgart  [Baron von Delingshausen?] to the RKUo0 from July 11, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis  I, delo 96, 222; Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Ludendorff from February 18, 1922, Tagebuch  (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 20, 171.
 
98 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Munich, May 26, 1923 and Berlin, June 5, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1,  delo 11, reel 1, 4722; reel 3, 4851/181.
 
99 Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Ludendorff from February 18, 1922, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 20, 171.
 
100 Report from Stuttgart [Baron von Delingshausen?] to the RKUoO from July 11, 1923, RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 223.
 
101 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, June 5, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 11, reel 3, 4851/190, 191.
 
102 RKUoO report from July 1927, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 91, 51.
 
103 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, July 27, 1922, August 9-10, 1922, June), 1923, GARF, fond 5853,  opis 1, delo 8, reel 1, 2947; delo 9, re3l 1, 3230; delo 11, reel 3, 4851/179.
 
104 RMI report to the AA from June 9, 1931, PAAA, 31665, 136.
 
105 DB report from September 19, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 113, 116, 117.
 
106 "Die Kosaken und Grossfurst Kyrill," Volkischer Beobachter, September 20, 1922, 4.
 
107 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 160.
 
108 Rafael Ganelin, "Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii national-sotsializm." Natsionalnaia pravaia prezhde i teper, Istoriko-sotsiokgicheskie ocherki, chast I: Rossiia i russkoe zarubezhe (Saint  Petersburg: Institut Sotsiologii rossiiskoi akademii nauk, 1992), 142.
 
109 2. SAUV report from October 6, 1927, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103476/1, 113.
 
110 RKUoO report from November 1, 1922, BAB, 134, number 68, 142.
 
111 Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (London: B. T.  Batsford Ltd., 1972), 35, 36; RKUoO report from October 22, 1922, BAB, 1507, number 327, 207.
 
112 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 159.
 
113 Stepanov, Chernaia Sotnia v Rossii, 33.
 
114 DB reports from May 15, 1922 and June 8, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel  3, 217; reel 2, 131; Spisok chlenov Russkogo Sobraniia s prilozheniem istoricheskogo ocherky sobraniia  (Saint Petersburg: Tip. Spb. Gradonachalstva, 1906), 21.
 
115 DB reports from August 19, 1922 and April 9, 1923, RGVA (TsKhlDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel  3, 192; reel 4, 334.
 
116 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis I, delo 386, reel 2, 161, 163, 164.
 
117 MMFT report to the DB from December 24, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 2, 135; DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2,  157.
 
118 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, June 5, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 11, reel 3, 4851/183.
 
119 Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die bayerische Offendichkeit," Bayern und Osteuropa, 471.
 
120 PDM report to the BSMA from June 7, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 29.
 
121 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 159.
 
122 SG report from November 4, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1, opis 27, delo 12523, 39.
 
123 PDM report from May 25, 1923, BSAM, POM, number 6708, 129; SG report from November 25,  1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1, opis 27, delo 12523, 9.
 
124 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 157.
 
125 PDM report from May 25, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6708, 129.
 
126 PDM report to the BSMA from June 7, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 31.
 
127 RKUoO report from January 28, 1924, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond772, opis 3, delo 81a, 45.
 
128 Andreas Remmer's testimony from June 2, 1923, BHSAM. BSMA 36, number 103009, 8; PDM  report to the BSMA from June 7, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 31.
 
129 LGPO report from May 7, 1923, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1809, number 9, 121.
 
130 SKoO report to the AA from August 22, 1923, PAAA, 83582, 94.
 
131 Scheubner-Richter, "Russland und England," AuJbau-Korrespondenz, May 17, 1923, 2.
 
132 Remmer's testimony from June 1, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 10; Biskupskii's  testimony from June 2, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 7.
 
133 Remmer's testimony from June 1 and 2, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 8, 9; Remmer's  letter from May 7, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 14, 15.
 
134 Scheubner-Richter, "Interventionsabsichten gegen Sowjetrussland," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, June  14, 1923, 2.
 
135 ''Aus der russisch-monarchistischen Bewegung," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, July 20, 1923, 2.
 
136 "Die 'Russische Tribune' Uber die Regierungsformen in Russland," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, August  25, 1923, 3.
 
137 PDM report to the BSMI from September 3, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 36.
 
138 MAE report to Ferdinand Foch from May 31, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 198, opis 17, delo 406,  reel 1, 82.
 
139 RKUoO report from August 6, 1923, BAB, 134, number 76, 76.
 
140 Hitler, speech on August 19, 1923, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 975.
 
141 BSMA report to the RKUoO from September 26, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 35.
 
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:02 pm

Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER 6: Conspiracies of fire and the sword

While Aufbau failed to unite all White emigres in Europe behind the Tsarist candidate Grand Prince Kirill Romanov in league with National Socialists, the volkisch German/White emigre organization did use political terror and covert military operations to undermine the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union. As the first known example of Aufbau's participation in terrorism, Vice President Vladimir Biskupskii tried to arrange the murder of Aleksandr Kerenskii, who had led the Provisional Government in Russia in 1917 before the Bolsheviks had seized power. In other terrorist undertakings, Aufbau coordinated its activities with those of Organization C, a conspiratorial far right association under the leading Kapp Putsch figure Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, which possessed considerable connections with the NSDAP.

Aufbau participated in at least two prominent terrorist acts in league with Organization C. The Aufbau colleagues Piotr Shabelskii-Bork and Sergei Taboritskii, who possessed ties with Ehrhardt's secretive organization, mistakenly killed a prominent Russian Constitutional Democrat, Vladimir Nabokov, in their attempt to assassinate the Constitutional Democratic leader Pavel Miliukov. The evidence suggests that at least three Aufbau members, General Biskupskii, General Erich von Ludendorff, and his advisor Colonel Karl Bauer colluded in Organization C's shocking assassination of Walther Rathenau, who served as Germany's Foreign Minister. Aufbau thus clearly acted as a terrorist organization.

In its anti-Bolshevik military schemes, Aufbau adopted a three-pronged approach. Building upon the precedent of earlier German/White anti-Bolshevik campaigns in the Ukraine and the Baltic region, Aufbau raised armed forces for operations in these areas. Early Aufbau plans called for an army under Archduke Vasily Vyshivannyi to advance into the Ukraine while troops under the 1919 Latvian Intervention commander Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov struck in the Baltic area. Aufbau later planned to foment revolt inside Soviet borders and then to launch an attack on the Russian heartland of the Soviet Union under the direction of Biskupskii. Aufbau sought to destroy Bolshevik rule and then to establish close political and economic ties between a National Socialist Germany and National Socialist Russian, Ukrainian, and Baltic states.

Aufbau's guiding figure, First Lieutenant Max von Scheubner-Richter, greatly influenced Adolf Hitler's Eastern designs as his leading foreign policy advisor and as one of his closest counselors in general. Aufbau's ideas of reconstructing the Soviet Union along National Socialist lines appealed to Hitler. He had not yet developed his view that the Germans needed to conquer Lebensraum (living space) in the East. Before the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923, Hitler did not envision annexing former Soviet territories to Germany. He still sought to establish an alliance between a National Socialist Germany and National Socialist Eastern states. While none of Aufbau's anti-Bolshevik military schemes came to fruition, the organization's position on the "Eastern question" significantly influenced Hitler's early views.

While Hitler approved of Aufbau's Eastern designs in general, he especially supported the conspiratorial organization's efforts to establish an independent National Socialist Ukraine. After Vyshivannyi's Ukrainian intervention failed to materialize. Aufbau envisioned an autonomous Ukraine under Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, the head of the organization's Ukrainian section. Poltavets-Ostranitsa directed a National Socialist Ukrainian Cossack association that sought to establish a National Socialist Ukraine that would head a powerful Black Sea League. Hitler collaborated closely with Poltavets-Ostranitsa. He desired a National Socialist Ukraine as a provider of agricultural and mineral supplies as well as a springboard for future military operations against both the Soviet Union and France's ally Poland.

AUFBAU'S ENGAGEMENT IN TERRORISM

Despite its benign statutes, Aufbau participated in and supported political terrorism on German soil. In May 1921, General Biskupskii and his Aufbau colleague and Kapp Putsch co-conspirator Colonel Bauer received 12 million Hungarian crowns in Budapest from the Hungarian regent Admiral Nicholas Horthy's regime. Biskupskii and Bauer used some of these funds to place a contract for the assassination of Aleksandr Kerenskii, the former leader of the 1917 Provisional Government in Russia. Biskupskii and other White emigres blamed Kerenskii for having undermined Imperial Russia. [1] In the pages of Aufbau-Korrespondenz (Aufbau Correspondence), for instance, Scheubner-Richter accused Kerenskii of having brought "chaos" to Russia, and he even named him the "greatest enemy of the Germans." [2] Despite trying, Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau comrades Biskupskii and Bauer failed to bring about Kerenskii's death.

Aufbau did not succeed in having Kerenskii murdered, but Aufbau members did execute one of a series of high-profile assassinations that plagued the early Weimar Republic. Aufbau thereby helped to establish terror as a means of political pressure from the radical right. On March 28, 1922, the Aufbau members Lieutenant Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, who had transferred The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from the Ukraine to Germany, and his comrade Lieutenant Sergei Taboritskii traveled from Munich to Berlin. There they intended to assassinate Pavel Miliukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, whom they blamed for helping to topple the Tsar. [3] When the critical moment arrived, they instead shot and killed Vladimir Nabokov, who was also a Constitutional Democratic leader and the father of the famous novelist, in the heat of the scuffle. [4] Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii were eventually sentenced to twelve and fourteen years' jail time respectively. [5]

The details of the planning for Miliukov's assassination remain unclear because of the covert nature of the operation. It is known that Taboritskii had moved in with the leading Aufbau ideologue Fedor Vinberg and Aufbau member Shabelskii-Bork in the Munich pension Modern in January 1922 and had joined Aufbau. [6] The three comrades since the time of the German occupation of the Ukraine in 1918 formed a terrorist cell based along the lines of the Black Hundreds in Imperial Russia. [7] Taboritskii lived with Vinberg for a while, and they frequently met with Shabelskii-Bork to discuss politics and to conspire against common enemies. [8]

Vinberg in particular passionately detested Miliukov for his claim in a November 1916 speech before the Imperial Russian Duma (Parliament) that Tsaritsa A1eksandra Romanov, who was of German descent, harbored anti-Russian intentions. Vinberg had comforted his intimate royal friend and quite possibly lover (the Tsar was consistently away at the front throughout this period) when she had burst into tears in his presence upon receiving word of the charges. [9] Because of his known hatred of Miliukov and his close connections with the perpetrators Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii, Vinberg was suspected of having masterminded the assassination attempt against the Constitutional Democratic leader.

In his testimony to the Munich Police, Vinberg admitted that he had traveled to Berlin on March 23, 1922 and had left early on March 28, the day of Nabokov's assassination. He noted that his actions appeared "very suspicious," but that he had stayed in Berlin to arrange for the distribution of his new book translated into German as Der Kreuzesweg Russlands (Russia, Via Dolorosa). [10] Vinberg's alibi proved highly suspect indeed, but he managed to avoid prosecution. He was eventually implicated in Nabokov's murder, however, and he later fled Germany largely as a result of this. [11]

The State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order concluded that Aufbau leadership had colluded in the Miliukov assassination attempt. [12] General Biskupskii, Aufbau's number two man, had also left Munich for Berlin at the time of the attempted murder. Like Vinberg, he became the object of intense suspicion. Also like Vinberg, Biskupskii managed to escape prosecution. [13] Later, Weimar Germany's secret intelligence agency concluded that the Munich branch of Nikolai Markov II's Union of the Faithful, which had been formed in February 1922, had also helped to organize the attempted assassination of Miliukov. [14] While Aufbau and the Union of the Faithful possessed many political differences, they agreed on the use of terror as a means of political pressure.

Scheubner-Richter wrote an article maligning Miliukov that appeared in Aufbau Correspondence soon after the assassination attempt. Scheubner-Richter actually wrote his piece shortly before the attempted murder, which strongly suggests that he knew of Shabelskii-Borkand Taboritskii's murderous undertaking. Scheubner-Richter's essay incited hatred against Miliukov, most likely to justify the Constitutional Democrat's murder. ScheubnerRichter accused Miliukov of working for the "final suppression of Germany." He further asked if the German government's permission for Miliukov to publish an Entente-friendly newspaper in Germany represented "stupidity Of a crime." [15]

Scheubner-Richter condoned the attempted assassination of Miliukov in an April 1922 Aufbau Correspondence article, "Russian Terrorists." The piece did not mention mat Shabelskii-Bork, Taboritskii, and their mentor Vinberg all played active roles in Aufbau. As "distressing" as the recent assassination attempt against Miliukov proved, the article noted the prevailing poverty among White emigres as a mitigating factor. Scheubner-Richter condemned the "brazen gourmet existence" of Bolshevik leaders, who lived off of "plundered Russia," and the substantial wealth among Constitutional Democratic leaders such as Miliukov that came from Entente sources. Given such material disparity, it remained "surprising" that White emigres had not carried out more violent acts.

Scheubner-Richter's article also pointed out a certain Constitutional Democratic hypocrisy regarding the use of terrorism. The piece noted that in 1907 the Constitutional Democrats under the leadership of Miliukov and Nabokov had rejected a Duma proposal to censure terrorist acts as morally reprehensible. [16] Indeed, the use of political terror was by no means the sale property of the far right. The radical right attracted a great deal of negative attention for its use of assassination as a means of political pressure, however. The lead article of Aufbau Correspondence cast the attempted murder of Miliukov in a somewhat positive light while seeking to keep Aufbau's name away from the undertaking.

The official National Socialist response to the assassination attempt against Miliukov as presented in the Volkischer Beobachter (Volkisch Observer) attempted to mitigate Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii's deed. An early April 1922 article in me National Socialist periodical accused Miliukov of agitating for war against Imperial Germany, leading the February Revolution in Russia with English support, and seeking to undermine Germany. [17] Direct evidence is lacking that Hitler had concrete knowledge of the Aufbau plans to assassinate Miliukov, however.

It is known that me Aufbau terrorist cell of Vinberg, Shabelskii-Bork, and Taboritskii possessed connections with Organization C. This conspiratorial organization under the key Kapp Putsch participant Captain Hermann Ehrhardt committed terrorist acts, carried out covert anti-Bolshevik and anti-Weimar Republic military preparations, and possessed close links with Hitler's NSDAP. [18] Ehrhardt's secretive alliance arose in June 1921, when officers of the disbanded Ehrhardt Brigade who had participated in the Kapp Putsch of March 1920 formed Organization Consul, commonly known as Organization C. "Consul" stood for Ehrhardt himself. [19] Organization C became infamous for its attempted and successful assassinations of leftist, often Jewish, leaders in the early years of the Weimar Republic. [20] Aufbau increasingly coordinated its activities with those of Organization C. Like Aufbau, Organization C rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the Weimar Constitution. Organization C dedicated itself to fighting socialism, Bolshevism, and "Jewry" under the motto: "Struggle for Germany's rebirth." [21]

Like the National Socialist Party and Aufbau, Organization C based its operations in Munich. It also possessed many branches throughout Germany. Captain Ehrhardt led Organization C from exile, most of me time from Austria. He headed approximately 5,000 active members who could call further men to action if necessary. [22] Organization C possessed several subdivisions. Section C of Organization C directed right-wing press and propaganda. [23] Lieutenant-Commander Eberhard Kautter led Section C. Kautter served as Captain Ehrhardt's political advisor and intelligence officer.

While Aufbau's guiding figure and the prominent National Socialist leader Scheubner-Richter assured the Bavarian Interior Ministry that only White emigres had participated in the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall in May-June 1921, in fact, he had allowed Kautter to negotiate with Congress members. Kautrer had helped Congress participants to secure a substantial loan from German industrialists, including Aufbau's President Baron Theodor von Cramer-Klett and representatives of the company Mannesmann. In return, Congress members had pledged to grant the industrialists railway and mining concessions in the planned future monarchical Russian state. [24] Kautter's clandestine activities at the Congress demonstrated significant coordination between White emigre circles and Organization C.

Scheubner-Richter supported Organization C. Lieutenant-Commander Paul Werber of Organization C became acquainted with Dr. Ruthenick of the Deutschvolkischer Schutz- und Trurzbund (German Volkisch Protection League) in Bremen, who raised money for nationalist causes in Germany from far right American sources. Werber arranged for Dr. Riithenick to hold talks with the "leading personalities" in Munich. In late August 1921, Dr. Ruthenick met with Scheubner-Richter. Another member of Organization C, Dr. Borner, assured Dr. Ruthenick that he had "come to the right person" in Scheubner-Richter, who had written a letter that had aided Dr. Ruthenick in raising $5,000. Dr. Borner used this money for a mission to America to gain financial support for far right German activities. [25] The primary American connection to the German far right was most likely the anti-Semitic industrialist and politician Henry Ford.

The Munich Police established a high level of collaboration between the well-connected Organization C and the National Socialist Party. Hitler communicated regularly with Ehrhardt and tried to gain as many of Ehrhardt's followers for the NSDAP as he could. [26] Seized letters demonstrated that even before Organization C had existed, the future Organization C leader Captain Alfred Hoffmann had written Hitler personally with regard to personnel matters in the NSDAP. He had also worked to "prepare the ground for Hitler" in the city of Wilhelms haven on the North Sea. [27] Moreover, Hoffmann's colleague Lieutenant-Commander Werber, who represented Organization C in northwestern Germany, carried out propaganda for the NSDAP and its periodical, the Volkisch Observer. He even opened branches of the National Socialist Party in northwestern Germany. [28]

In an example of the "fight fire with fire" philosophy, Organization C operated along the lines of the Communist Party by using influential men to build cells that inconspicuously influenced the opinions of rank and file members of radical right organizations, including the National Socialist Party. [29] During the summer of 1921, Ehrhardt sent the student Hans Ulrich Klintzsch to lead the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (Storm Secton, SA) of the NSDAP and to coordinate its activities with those of Organization C. [30] Klintzsch later sent Franz Jaenicke, the co-founder of the Deutsch-Russischer Club (German-Russian Club) in Berlin, to found a branch of the National Socialist Party in the German capital. [31] Jaenicke's high position in the German-Russian Club indicates another connection berween White emigres and the NSDAP. Ehrhardt later sent the prominent Orgamzation C leader Hermann Goring to the SA to gain control of it. Goring nonetheless switched his loyalties from Ehrhardt to Hitler as the leader of the SA beginning in February 1923. [32]

Organization C possessed more military might than the National Socialist Party. The secretive alliance combated overt and subversive threats from the Soviet Union and also fought against Polish invaders in Upper Silesia. The conspiratorial association coordinated its anti-Bolshevik activities with White emigres. Section A of Organization C under Captain Hoffmann led an anti-Bolshevik counter-intelligence service and cultivated contacts with nationalist Germans and White emigres. [33] Already in November 1920, the time of Aufbau's foundation, Hoffmann had stressed in a speech that the far right's "emergence" in Bavaria could only occur after the "shattering of the Treaty of Versailles," which itself would only be possible after the "successful German orientation of the coming Russia." [34] Organization C thus connected Germany's welfare with that of a restored nationalist Russian state.

Section B of Organization C under Lieutenant Manfred von Killinger oversaw military matters. Section B supported German self-defense organizations in Upper Silesia, most importantly Freikorps Oberland (Uplands Volunteer Corps), the only fully armed formation of the roughly 80,000 German soldiers who opposed Polish invaders in 1921. [35] The Thule Society, which had helped to spawn the National Socialist Party, had overseen the formation of Freikorps Uplands. [36] The former Latvian Intervention commander Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov possessed connections with Freikorps Uplands in the fall of 1921. In another example of nationalist German-White emigre collaboration, he raised volunteers from Russian internment camps in Germany for action against the Poles in Upper Silesia. [37] Freikorps Uplands held ideological views similar to those of White forces in the Russian Civil War. The formation advertised for members with the assertion: "We fight Jewish-Russian Bolshevism and American-Jewish capitalism, both of which are diseased outgrowths of economic life." [38]

Hitler admired Freikorps Uplands, which had connections to Organization C and White emigres. He used the formation as a model for National Socialist paramilitary forces that had begun with the creation of a Turn- und Sportabteilung (Gymnastics and Sport Section), actually a large-scale armed bodyguard, in the fall of 1920. [39] In his March 1921 deposition on behalf of members of Freikorps Uplands, he noted that when "the concept of self-protection is taken up, then this self-protection cannot effectively be achieved in the form of weak local defense, but only in the form of shock and strike-ready organizations roughly of the type Uplands." [40]

Section B of Organization C feared the Bolshevik specter. Section B's leader, Lieutenant Killinger, stressed that Organization C had been formed with the urgent sense that it had to be "avoided above all else that Germany become a Soviet republic and such conditions as in Russia should enter the country." [41] Section B worked to overthrow Bolshevik rule. It received one million gold Marks in April 1922 from American sources, most likely primarily from Ford, to defeat Communism in Germany and Russia in cooperation with White emigres the next summer. After military success, right-wing governments in Germany and Russia were to be established. [42]

Section B of Organization C gained the loyalty of the fierce anti-Bolshevik First Lieutenant Gerhard Rossbach, who had led a Freikorps in the 1919 Latvian Intervention and had afterwards established the Rossbach Corps, an illegal paramilitary formation in northern Germany with 8,000 combat-ready men. [43] Rossbach maintained the determined anti-Bolshevik spirit of the Latvian Intervention. He used two Baltic German officers who had followed him back from Latvia in 1919 as his assistants. In April 1922, he traveled to Prague to discuss an operation against the Soviet Union under the leadership of General Piotr Vrangel, the former head of the Southern Russian Armed Forces in the Crimea during the Russian Civil War.

At these talks, Rossbach agreed to lead a troop contingent in the planned undertaking, for which Vrangel was organizing troops on Yugoslavian soil. [44] The intervention, which enjoyed French backing, was to be carried out officially in Grand Prince Kirill Romanov's name with Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov playing a leading military role alongside Vrangel. [45] AB we have seen, no military intervention against the Soviet Union took place in 1922, largely because of internecine White emigre strife between Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau and Nikolai Markov II's Supreme Monarchical Council.

Hitler's National Socialist Party drew strength from the Freikorps movement that conspired with Organization C. Rossbach became acquainted with Hitler at a National Socialist meeting in Munich in the summer of 1922. He joined the Munich branch of the NSDAP soon after. [46] His intense anti-Semitism and his belief in using Sturmtruppen (storm troops) for political purposes accorded with fundamental National Socialist ideas. [47] In late 1922, Hitler created the Grossdeutsche Arbeiterpartei (Greater German Worker's Party) with Rossbach's assistance to expand National Socialism's influence in northern Germany. Hitler did not achieve the success he had hoped for, but this initiative under Rossbach's immediate supervision improved collaboration between the southern National Socialist and northern volkisch movements. [48]

Years after the Hitler/Ludendorff putsch of November 1923, the State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order stressed the key role that Freikorps-type organizations had played in the early "radical right movement" in Germany. In particular, the agency noted that Rossbach, Uplands, and Ehrhardt (Including Organization C) had "stood at the center of the different putsch undertakings." The report further noted: "The National Socialists were strongly infiltrated by Freikorps leaders and Freikorps ideas in the first years of their existence up until 1923." [49]

Freikorps formations that influenced the early NSDAP upheld the Russian Civil War spirit of cooperation between nationalist Germans and Russians. For instance, Lieutenant Edmund Heines, who led the Munich branch of Rossbach Corps, stressed in a speech at a National Socialist congress in November 1922 that everyone present shared the ethos of the "Baltikumer" (Baltic fighters) whether they had served in Latvia under Colonel Bermondt-Avalov's command or not. [50] Freikorps members who shared a common spirit and drive with White emigres tended to be anti-Semitic. In late 1922, members of the NSDAP were heard singing a Freikorps song, "The Republic Asked Us." [51] This song includes the lines: "We do not want a Jew republic / Phooey! Jew republic, / For it is to blame. / For they yelled: Bow-wow-wow! / And we yelled: Throw them out! Throw them out! Throw them out!" [52]

The intensely anti-Semitic Organization C with which Aufbau and the NSDAP were allied became best known for assassinating the prominent Jewish politician Walther Rathenau in Berlin on June 24, 1922. [53] Rathenau had become Germany's Foreign Minister in January 1922. On April 16, 1922, he had signed the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Foreign Minister Georgii Chicherin, thereby making Germany the first Western country to recognize the Soviet Union officially. [54] Already in early April 1922, Organization C had sent agents to Genoa. Italy, where an international conference was taking place from which the Rapallo Treaty emerged, with the mission of assassinating Soviet representatives. [55] This assignment demonstrates the high degree to which Organization C's leadership despised German governmental efforts to seek rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Rightist Germans and White emigres hated Rathenau for signing the Treaty of Rapallo, and his action sealed his doom.

The degree to which Aufbau members participated in the conspiracy to assassinate German Foreign Minister Rathenau is not entirely clear, but Aufbau leaders drew unwelcome attention to themselves through their known hatred of Rathenau. Already in a September 1921 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, for instance, the de facto Aufbau leader Scheubner-Richter wrote of Rathenau as a man who did not serve German interests but who rather sought to bring Bolshevism to Germany. Scheubner-Richter expressed his amazement that such a dangerous person could serve in the German government instead of being imprisoned for treason. [56] Baron Ludwig von Knorring, the leader of the White emigre community in Baden Baden, who favored a constitutional monarchy for Russia, wrote the German Foreign Office in the wake of the Rathenau assassination and lamented the "suggestive force" that members of "Russian far right groups" exerted on "calm German types." [57]

Aufbau leaders came under suspicion of complicity in Rathenau's murder while they were outside Germany. Shortly before Rathenau's assassination on June 24, 1922, a high-level Aufbau delegation that included First Lieutenant Scheubner-Richter, General Biskupskii, and the Ukrainian Cossack leader Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa arrived in Budapest to hold talks with the president of the Russian Monarchical Club there, Prince Mirza Kazem Bek, who had supported Aufbau for some time.

Kazem Bek drew unwelcome attention to Aufbau's high-level delegates by giving a fiery speech in their presence in which he denounced Rathenau soon after the latter's assassination. Kazem Bek noted that the politician's murder had "cleared many obstacles out of the way of the German nationalists." He hoped: "German policy, which had gone astray, will now be directed in a better path." He further stressed, "It goes completely without saying that Rathenau's death will also strengthen our connection with Germany, for it has given rise to a strengthening of the national idea." [58] The Wiener Morgenzeitung (Vienna Morning Newspaper) caused a furor in its July 1, 1922 edition by releasing an article on the Budapest talks under the provocative tide, ''AConfetence of Murderers in Budapest." [59] Scheubner-Richter termed the Vienna Morning Newspaper article a "provocation." [60] He claimed that it put words into his mouth, cast him in a negative light with regard to Rathenau's assassination, and associated him with "all possible political adventurers." [61] The Vienna Morning Newspaper article did indeed fabricate an incendiary speech of Scheubner-Richter's. The newspaper was correct, however, in asserting that the Aufbau member and former Kapp Putsch conspirator Colonel Karl Bauer, whose adjutant Lieutenant Alfred Gunther had been arrested in connection with the Rathenau murder, maintained close connections with various White emigres and Hungarian rightists, including many present at the conference in Budapest. [62]

In his own defense, Scheubner-Richter assured the German Embassy in Budapest that his arrival date of June 22, 1922, two days before Rathenau's assassination, demonstrated that he had not come to discuss the changed political situation that had arisen after Rathenau's death. [63] While hard evidence is lacking, it is quite possible that Scheubner-Richter and his colleagues Biskupskii and Poltavets-Ostranitsa had possessed advance knowledge of Rathenau's impending assassination and had left Munich both to distance themselves from suspicion of complicity in the crime and to strengthen ties with Hungarian rightists in light of the soon-to-be altered political situation. In any case, Biskupskii and others around him in Aufbau praised Rathenau's assassination, thereby drawing suspicion of their involvement in the conspiracy to murder the controversial politician. [64]

As a further indication of Aufbau's complicity in Rathenau's murder, Colonel Bauer, who served as Aufbau's contact man in Vienna, was implicated in Rathenau's assassination. Bauer's arrest threw suspicion on, among others, his close colleague General Biskupskii and the contact man whom he and Biskupskii used in Budapest, the White emigre General Piotr Glasenap. [65] Moreover, Bauer's adjutant and General Ludendorff's secretary during the Kapp Putsch, Lieutenant Gunther, a Gruppenleiter (group leader) in Organization C, was suspected of conspiring in Rathenau's murder. Authorities found recent suspicious letters from the Aufbau members Ludendorff and Bauer at Gunther's residence. [66]

Like Walther Steinbeck, a prominent member of Organization C who was arrested in connection with Rathenau's assassination, Gunther had close links with Hitler's NSDAP. This demonstrates a connection between Aufbau and the National Socialist Party in conspiratorial terrorist operations. After his brush with the authorities, Gunther traveled to Munich, where he was well acquainted with the SA leader Hans Ulrich Klintzsch and Hitler as well. Gunther began working for the NSDAP. [67] He served in the Fahndungsabteilung (Detective Department) that observed the political police. He was later sought in connection with the June 4, 1922 assassination attempt on Phillip Scheidemann, who had proclaimed the German Republic on November 9, 1918. [68]

Despite the evidence against him and his dose associates, the Aufbau member Colonel Bauer was able to avoid prosecution for Rathenau's assassination. He was able to continue his subversive activities for Aufbau's cause for a while. In the summer of 1922, he transferred large sums of money to Aufbau in general and General Biskupskii in particular, perhaps some of which was intended to fund terrorist operations. [69] Bauer threw more suspicion on Aufbau as a terrorist organization when he was later arrested for planning the assassination of Scheidemann. [70]

Because of a lack of hard evidence, the precise degree that Aufbau participated in the wave of assassinations that rocked the early Weimar Republic cannot be determined. It is dear, however, that Aufbau supported and engaged in political terrorism. The attempted assassination of the Constitutional Democratic leader Miliukov, which led to the death of Nabokov instead, can be attributed to Aufbau with great certainty, for the culprits Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii as well as their mentor Vinberg all belonged to the conspiratorial organization. With regard to Rathenau's murder, compelling circumstantial evidence implicates Aufbau members, most notably Biskupskii, Ludendorff, and Bauer, of at least abetting the crime, while Scheubner-Richter and Poltavets-Osrranitsa seem to have known of the assassination plans beforehand. The two most prominent assassinations that Aufbau members carried out or conspired in dealt with politicians who had staunchly opposed Aufbau's policy of fostering volkisch German-White emigre collaboration to establish right-wing regimes in both Germany and Russia.

AUFBAU'S MILITARY PLANS AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION

In addition to participating in political terrorism on German soil, Aufbau planned large-scale military operations against the Soviet Union in league with Hitler's NSDAP in the course of 1921-1923. Continuing in the tradition of earlier German-White Russian Civil War campaigns, where regular German Army units and Freikorps had collaborated with White forces against the Red Army on the flanks of the Soviet Union, Aufbau planned armed operations in the Baltic region and the Ukraine. Aufbau particularly emphasized wresting the Ukraine from Soviet control. Aufbau also planned a military intervention for the Soviet heartland itself under General Biskupskii to overthrow Bolshevik rule. Hitler approved of Aufbau's goals of reorganizing the Soviet Union into National Socialist Russian, Ukrainian, and Baltic states that would ally with Germany against the Entente. He especially wished the creation of a National Socialist Ukraine under the Ukrainian Cossack and Aufbau member Colonel Poltavets-Ostranitsa.

In the course of 1921, Poltavets-Ostranitsa's colleague General Biskupskii, Aufbau's vice president and Scheubner-Richter's most important White emigre collaborator, intensified his efforts to form a "League of the Defeated" composed of nationalist Germans, Hungarians, and Russians (actually primarily Ukrainians) under his leadership. [71] Soon after the end of the Monarchical Congress at Bad Reichenhall in June 1921, Biskupskii's efforts at alliance building bore fruit. German (Prussian and Bavarian), Russian, and Hungarian monarchists concluded a pact of mutual assistance to restore monarchical regimes to their respective countries. After this restoration, the three nations were to ally along the lines of the Holy Alliance of the nineteenth century. [72]

In the late summer of 1921, after Biskupskii's success in right-wing alliance building, Aufbau supported a Ukrainian separatist, the young Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg, who called himself Vasily Vyshivannyi in Ukrainian. Aufbau under the direction of Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii backed Vyshivannyi in part to return Habsburg rule to Austria. [73] Vyshivannyi had served as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the German/Austro-Hungarian occupation of the Ukraine late in World War I. He had received Austro-Hungarian support in a failed bid to replace Pavel Skoropadskii as hetman, or leader, of the Ukraine in July 1918. In 1920, Vyshivannyi had begun to lead the most influential group of Galician nationalists based in Vienna who sought to separate Galicia from Poland and to join it with an independent Ukraine. Vyshivannyi was to serve as the hetman of the new state. While Vyshivannyi's supporters generally opposed Skoropadskii, Vyshivannyi had helped to mend old animosities by marrying Skoropadskii's daughter. [74]

Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii aroused considerable right-wing interest in Vyshivannyi's bid for an independent Ukraine. [75] They secured approximately two million Marks in financing for Vyshivannyi's cause from Aufbau members and sympathetic Bavarian parties. The wealthy President of Aufbau, Baron Theodor von Cramer-Klett, granted Vyshivannyi particularly substantial subsidies. [76] The Aufbau member Vladimir Keppen, Biskupskii's cousin, contributed 60,000 Swiss francs to support Vyshivannyi's cause. [77] General Ludendorff lent his name to Vyshivannyi's efforts. [78] Aufbau's leading Ukrainian representative, Poltavets-Ostranitsa, served in Vyshivannyi's Supreme Council in Vienna. [79]

In the summer of 1921, Vyshivannyi signed an agreement with Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii whereby he officially commissioned Biskupskii with forming his army in Bavaria for use in the Ukraine. In return, Vyshivannyi granted Biskupskii, Scheubner-Richter, and their wealthy Aufbau associates trading and industrial concessions in the planned autonomous Ukrainian state. At the beginning of September 1921, Biskupskii sent an agent to Hungary to purchase horses for Vyshivannyi's nascent army stationed in Bavaria. Vyshivannyi established recruiting centers for his interventionary force outside his Bavarian base, most notably in Berlin. Volunteers were paid for their trip to Bavaria. Once there, they were given a horse and a rifle, and they were disguised as equestrian forest wardens. [80]

General Biskupskii planned a two-pronged campaign against the Soviet Union with a northern theater of operation as well as a southern one. In addition to supervising the creation of Vyshivannyi's army that was to operate in the Ukraine, he organized a White emigre interventionary force for the Baltic region that was to succeed where Colonel Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army had failed in the 1919 Latvian Intervention. In this endeavor, Biskupskii collaborated with his old comrade General Piotr Glasenap, who had taken over command of the Russian Northwestern Army in Estonia from General Nikolai Iudenich in 1919. Biskupskii also cooperated with Bermondt-Avalov. With General Ludendorff's backing, the three White emigre officers organized armed White emigre formations backed with German Freikorps support. This White emigre/German interventionary force was to engage Soviet troops in the north while Vyshivannyi's army invaded the Ukraine. [81]

Biskupskii's collaboration with Bermondt-Avalov aroused the suspicion of the State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order. The agency asserted in September 1921 that Bermondt-Avalov, with his "adventurous nature" and the "poor insight" he demonstrated in his "dealings with Russian and German hotheads," proved "just as detrimental as a paid agent of the Entente." The report noted that Bermondt-Avalov nevertheless

was and still is a sincere sponsor of German-Russian rapprochement; he hates the Entente with his entire soul, and he perceives an alliance between Germany and Russia to be the only possibility to overthrow the Bolsheviks and to take revenge together against the Entente.


The secret political police concluded that Bermondt-Avalov had laudable intentions, which, driven by "morbid vanity," he could not carry out. [82] Incidentally, it is not clear if Bermondt-Avalov officially belonged to Aufbau, but he conspired with Aufbau leaders and he supported Grand Prince Kirill Romanov, Aufbau's candidate for the Tsarist throne. [83]

The southern and northern military offensives against the Soviet Union that Biskupskii planned with his colleagues Vyshivannyi, Bermondt-Avalov, and Glasenap failed to progress past the organizational stage. The planned southern offensive under Vyshivannyi lost initiative in the fall of 1921, largely because of a lack of funding. "[84]While Bermondt-Avalov established recruiting centers for a new Baltic intervention, the anti-Bolshevik advance in the north he planned in league with Generals Biskupskii and Glasenap likewise did not materialize. [85] In January 1922, the socialist Prussian government exiled Bermondt-Avalov from Prussian territory on the grounds that he was a troublesome foreign adventurer. [86]

After experiencing disappointments, Aufbau downscaled its anti-Bolshevik military planning in the first half of 1922, but it continued to envision a sweeping reorganization of Europe and the Soviet Union. The foreign policy views of Aufbau's guiding figure Scheubner-Richter are particularly important since by the full of 1922, the Baltic German served as Hitler's chief advisor on foreign policy matters and one of his closest counselors in general. [87] A Munich Police report from November 1922 noted that since the primary National Socialist foreign policy advisor represented White emigre interests, he was bound to act according to the desires of his constituency. It was therefore questionable if he could mesh White emigre desires with nationalist German concerns. The report noted that the direction of National Socialist foreign policy through a representative of exile Russian interests gave rise to serious reservations both in Germany and abroad. [88]

French intelligence from November 1922 indicated that Scheubner-Richter and his indispensable Aufbau colleague Biskupskii sought monarchical restoration. First of all, Aufbau policy called for the return of Habsburg rule to Austria. Colonel Bauer, who engaged in political terrorism and acted as Aufbau's contact man in Vienna, in particular worked towards this goal. Aufbau leadership organized combat groups in Austria under the direction of Bavarian officers and strove to include the South Tyrol, which had come under Italian control after World War I, in the planned Austrian state. Aufbau strategy then sought to unite Austria and Hungary under the Habsburg crown. Aufbau also sought to reestablish the Wittelsbach Dynasty in Bavaria as a step towards giving Germany a monarchical state system.

French intelligence further specified that Aufbau foreign policy, which set the tone of National Socialist strategy, sought to detach huge regions from the Soviet Union and to establish friendly governments in the East. Specifically, Aufbau envisioned the creation of Southern (Ukrainian), Baltic, and Siberian states in addition to a rump Russia. The Southern state was to take the form of a Black Sea League under Ukrainian leadership. This new entity would include the Don, Kuban, and Terek Cossack nations. The Black Sea League was to form the most important of the planned successor states to the Soviet Union. The League was to come under the control of Poltavets-Ostranitsa, the head of Aufbau's Ukrainian faction who led what was known in German as the Ukrainische Nationale Kosakenvereinigung (Ukrainian National Cossack Organization). Poltavets-Ostranitsa had already envisioned a Black Sea League dUrIng the German occupation of the Ukraine in late World War I. [89]

By late December 1922, when Poltavets-Ostranitsa's superior Scheubner-Richter had already established himself as Hitler's leading foreign policy advisor, Hitler seems to have begun developing his notion of gaining Lebensraum (living space) in the East, but only in embryonic form. Hitler's early Lebensraum ideas reflected the prevailing Aufbau policies of the time. In a conversation with the journalist Eduard Scharrer towards the end of December 1922, Hitler called for the "vigilant" observation of the Soviet Union. He warned that as soon as the Bolsheviks had solidified their power internally, they could turn against Germany. He called for the "smashing of Russia with the help of England" to gain room for German settlers and to establish a wide field of activity for German industry. [90]

Since its inception in late 1920, Aufbau had emphasized the complementary nature of German industrial production and Russian (or Ukrainian) agricultural supplies and raw materials. Where economic domination develops, settlement follows. Hitler gradually formed his plans to gain Lebensraum in the East as a more aggressive outgrowth of fundamental Aufbau Eastern policy. Yet it is important to note that Hitler's Lebensraum ideas did not fully take shape until after the failed Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923. Hitler did not treat the Lebensraum theme in his pre-Putsch speeches. [91]

Hitler only made a powerful case for Germany's need to drive eastwards in Volume II of Mein Kampf, which was published in December 1926. He stressed in a famous passage:

And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn out gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future. If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states. [92]


In the pre-Putsch period, Hitler conspired with White emigres to overthrow both the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union, and he tried not to alienate his Eastern allies by openly scheming to conquer their homeland. He only developed aggressive Lebensraum ideas after the National Socialist/Aufbau bid for power in Germany and Russia had collapsed in November 1923.
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:05 pm

Part 2 of 2

In the spring of 1923, Aufbau leadership in alliance with Hitler increased its preparations to invade the Soviet Union by directing subversive activities within the Great Russian center of the state. Aufbau possessed a significant number of contacts with anti-Bolshevik and pro-Kirill Romanov elements inside the Great Russian core of the Soviet Union. [93] Hitler seems to have favored Aufbau's plan of weakening Bolshevism through internal revolt. In 1921, he had told the National Socialist ideologue and Aufbau member Alfred Rosenberg that those inside a country made revolutions, not those who had been exiled. [94]

In the spring of 1923, Andreas Remmer, who had served as the Foreign Minister of Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army during the 1919 Latvian Intervention, increased his activities as an intermediary between Kirill's supporters under Aufbau and nationalist groupings in me Great Russian heartland. After the failure of the Latvian Intervention, Remmer had led an anti-Bolshevik intelligence operation in Berlin that had smuggled White propaganda into the Soviet Union. By the spring of 1923, he had established significant contacts with nationalist organizations inside the Soviet Union composed largely of merchants and Orthodox clergy. Remmer helped to coordinate preparations for a nationalist Russian coup that Kirill Romanov, Scheubner-Richter, Biskupskii, and, judging by his regular correspondence with Biskupskii, Bermondt-Avalov planned for the beginning of July 1923. [95]

Remmer outlined the planned nationalist Russian state in a May 1923 report that he drafted for Biskupskii and other Aufbau leaders. Remmer stressed that the intended coup in the Soviet heartland would create an "all-Russian national soviet (council) state." This country would encompass a "league of all Christian national soviets" in Russia, which other entities could join if they possessed the "same Christian and governmental goals." This new federation was to be ruled by a "national dictatorship," but local soviets would nonetheless possess considerable autonomy. The Orthodox religion was to serve as the "basis of legislation and morality." An economic recovery was to be brought about "with the help of national forces" that would effect the "expulsion of the foreigners and their exploitative system," referring primarily to Jews. [96]

When questioned by the Munich Police in early June 1923, Remmer stated that if the pro-German Whites succeeded in overthrowing Bolshevism, they would not immediately restore the monarchy, but would instead establish a "Russian national farmers' dictatorship" and only set a Tsar upon the throne a few years later. He stressed that this new Russian state would maintain friendly relations with Germany and reject cooperation with the Entente. [97]

With the waning support for the pro-French Russian throne claimant Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov among White emigres during the spring of 1923, Aufbau intensified its preparations to direct an internal revolt inside the Great Russian heartland of the Soviet Union that was to be coupled with an anti-Bolshevik military intervention from abroad. From June 1 to June 15,1923, the Aufbau leaders Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii left Munich for Finland, where propaganda and military preparations for a White offensive against the core of the Soviet Union were already well advanced. The Aufbau-coordinated intervention was to use many German officers and troops already placed in Finland, including units from Freikorps Uplands that had fought against Polish invaders in Upper Silesia and which Hitler so admired.

Scheubner-Richter noted on the day of his departure for Finland that, conditions willing, the anti-Bolshevik offensive in harness with a revolt of nationalist Russian circles inside the Soviet Union would begin during the first half of August under the direction of Generals Biskupskii and Piotr Krasnov. [98] Krasnov, the former leader of the pro-German Great Don Host during the Russian Civil War, had frequent dealings with pro-Kirill Aufbau. [99] He managed to skirt White emigre infighting between Aufbau and Nikolai Markov II's pro-Nikolai Nikolaevich Supreme Monarchical Council in that he personally favored neither Kirill nor Nikolai Nikolaevich for Tsar. Instead, he advocated the candidacy of Grand Prince Dmitrii Romanov, who enjoyed little support among White emigres as a whole. [100]

Scheubner-Richter referred to Aufbau's policy of fomenting anti-Semitic internal revolt in the heartland of the Soviet Union in a June 1923 article in Aufbau Correspondence, "Intervention Intentions against Soviet Russia." He wrote of the "rise of the anti-Semitic movement and religious currents in Russia" that supported Kirill Romanov as the legitimate heir to the Tsarist throne. Scheubner-Richter further noted that circles of "national Russians" believed that they themselves could overthrow their "racially foreign tormentors," meaning the Jews. [101]

Despite all its talk of restoring the monarchy to Russia, Aufbau planned a National Socialist Russian state. The French military intelligence agency the Second Section concluded in June 1923 that Aufbau sought to make General Biskupskii the dictator of a Russian federation who would place Kirill or Kirill's son Vladimir, who was more popular, on the throne as a symbolic figurehead. Aufbau's support of the pro-Kirill movement in Russia thus truly aimed at establishing a dictatorship in Russia along National Socialist lines. This National Socialist Russian state would ally itself closely with a National Socialist Germany. [102] The planned German-Russian National Socialist alliance was to direct itself against the fledgling Polish state. General Ludendorff in particular and Aufbau leadership in general wished to attack France's ally Poland to win back areas that Germany had lost to the new state after World War I, most notably parts of Upper Silesia and Posen Province. [103]

The precise timing is unclear, but some time in 1923, the Aufbau Generals Ludendorff and Biskupskii signed a pact regulating relations between the planned National Socialist German and Russian states. The agreement specified that after the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime, a Romanov monarchy would be established in Russia in which Biskupskii would de facto play the leading role. The new regime would represent a Russian form of National Socialism. The accord also stipulated Austria's Anschluss (incorporation) into Germany as well as Poland's partition between Germany and Russia according to the borders of 1914. [104] Aufbau's plans for an alliance between National Socialist German and Russian states, while never fulfilled, largely because of White emigre disunity, nonetheless reached a high degree of specificity.

In addition to planning an offensive against the Great Russian heartland of the Soviet Union in 1923, Aufbau sought to establish an independent National Socialist Ukraine in the course of that year. Hitler showed considerable interest in Aufbau's designs to create an autonomous Ukrainian state. In early 1923, Aufbau under the direction of Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii intensified its support of Ukrainian independence. Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii increasingly relied on the advice of Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko, the former press chief of General Piotr Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces on the Crimean Peninsula during the Russian Civil War. Nemirovich-Danchenko acted as an expert on Ukrainian matters in both Aufbau and Aufbau's subsidiary organization, Renewal, which opposed what it regarded as the Jewish imperialism ofMoscow. [105]

A March 1923 article in the National Socialist newspaper the Volkisch Observer that dealt with an anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Ukraine demonstrated Aufbau's success in interesting National Socialist leadership in Ukrainian affairs. The article's commentary, which the Aufbau member and National Socialist ideologue Rosenberg most likely wrote, wished that

the desperate struggle of the Ukrainians may end with the defeat and extermination of Russia's executioner. Then Germany could breathe a sigh of relief as well. As long as the plague in Russia holds sway, however, there will never be peace in the German people. [106]


In league with Hitler's National Socialists, Aufbau undermined Soviet authority in the Ukraine by employing agents in the two largest Ukrainian cities, Kiev and Kharkov. In April 1923, Soviet authorities made numerous arrests and confiscated massive amounts of White emigre propaganda material, primarily Grand Prince Kirill Romanov's declarations to the "Russian people" and the "Russian army." These texts had been distributed in Kiev and Kharkov with Aufbau's assistance. Aufbau transmitted the information it received regarding Ukrainian matters to the National Socialist Party. For instance, Aufbau informed the NSDAP of the Bolshevik arrest of intellectuals in Kiev and Kharkov because they had propagated anti-Soviet literature. [107]

Further evidence of National Socialist/Aufbau support of Ukrainian independence appeared in the case of Hustevych Bohdan. Bohdan, a Ukrainian, was discovered to possess detailed military sketches in his Munich apartment in May 1923. [108] He was called in for police questioning. He related that he belonged to a secret alliance, the Military Organization of Eastern Galicia. This group fought for a Greater Ukraine consisting of lands currently under Bolshevik, Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovakian rule. [109] Aufbau in general and Biskupskii in particular supported this pro-Kirill organization since it strove for an independent Ukraine that could serve as a base of operations for offensives against both Poland and the Soviet Union. [110]

Bohdan admitted that he received militaty instruction from former active German officers. [111] Captain Ernst Rahm in particular had arranged military training for Ukrainian independence fighters such as Bohdan. Rohm is best known as the SA leader who made an unsuccessful grab for power in 1934. In 1923, he was a prominent leader in the Reichsflagge (Imperial Flag), an organization that had joined the Vereinigte vaterlandische Verbande Bayerns (United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria) under Hitler's leadership. Rahm had used his position in the Wehrkreiskommando (District Defense Command) to establish a course to train dependable pro-German Ukrainians, including Bohdan. All course participants had fought on the side of the Central Powers during World War I. The class Bohdan presently attended was the second of three that were planned with a total of thirteen participants, all of whom were to leave Germany for the East to foster the establishment of a powerful, independent Ukraine. [112]

The Munich Police received furrher information about the secret military courses for Ukrainian nationalists from Friedrich Preitner, one of the officer instructors. Preitner told the Munich Police that the Ukrainian independence movement would serve as Germany's ally in case Poland attacked in East Prussia or in Upper Silesia. The clandestine military lessons in which Bohdan and other Ukrainian nationalists participated took place in the office of the Bund Bayern und Reich (Bavaria and the Empire League). Like the Imperial Flag, this organization had joined the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria under Hitler's leadership in November 1922. The Bavaria and the Empire League sought to unite "all Christian-volkisch thinking men of German blood for the reconstruction of the Fatherland." [113] Preitner noted that he advised the Ukrainian course participants to listen to Hitler speak so that they could learn how an orator seized an audience. This fact further demonstrated National Socialist-nationalist Ukrainian collaboration. [114]

As another indication of National Socialist interest in Aufbau's efforts to detach the Ukraine from Soviet control, Hitler strongly supported Colonel Poltavets-Ostranitsa's Ukrainian National Cossack Organization as of spring 1923. Hitler viewed Poltavets-Ostranitsa's association as a national independence movement along the lines of his own National Socialist Party. Both groupings opposed Bolshevism, sought to weaken Polish power, worked to intensify anti-Semitism, and strove for national revolutions that would lead to dictatorship. Hitler sent directives to Poltavets-Ostranitsa's supporters in the Ukraine via Vienna and Budapest and supplied them with National Socialist propaganda materials. [115]

Poltavets-Ostranitsa hoped that a National Socialist Germany would help to establish an independent Ukraine under his leadership in the historical form of the hetman state. [116] He even developed his Ukrainian National Cossack Organization along National Socialist lines. The official periodical of his organization, the newspaper translated into German as Der Ukrainische Kosak (The Ukrainian Cossack), glorified German National Socialism and used the swastika as its symbol. [117] Poltavets-Ostranitsa's newspaper released an article, "Our View," in March 1923 that asserted: "The time of a productive National Socialist revolution that will seize all countries ... has drawn near." [118] Poltavets-Ostranitsa thus regarded National Socialism as the wave of the future.

An April 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer printed "Our View" from Poltavets-Ostranitsa's newspaper, The Ukrainian Cossack. Commentary on the piece from Rosenberg, the de facto editor-in-chief of the National Socialist paper in place of the ailing Dietrich Eckart, noted: "This essay shows us that the National Socialist idea ... hovers over the world like an aura." Further, "We already know today that the democrat is dead, the Marxist is decayed, and the Bolshevik goes over the land in convulsions, but the future in Europe belongs to the National Socialist idea." [119] Somewhat later, Scheubner-Richter ran the essay "Our View" in Aufbau Correspondence with favorable commentary under the tide, "The Ukraine and National Socialism." [120] Poltavets-Ostranitsa's National Socialist views found great favor in the early German National Socialist Party and Aufbau.

In an article in an August 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer, "The Ukraine and Russia," Rosenberg, presumably, on behalf of the "editorial staff," drew attention to Poltavets-Ostranitsa's newspaper The Ukrainian Cossack. The essay argued: "We believe that Great Russians and Ukrainians will finally decide for a more federal arrangement of their empire after the smashing of Jewish-Bolshevik Moscow." The piece emphasized that the Ukraine, where "patriots" were struggling against a "centralized dictatorship," occupied a similar position to Bavaria. where rightists were opposing the "November Republic." [121] In addition to supporting Poltavets-Ostranitsa's campaign to create a National Socialist Ukraine, by drawing parallels between the Ukraine and Bavaria, this essay hinted that the NSDAP was drawing up plans to destroy "centralized dictatorship," meaning the Weimar Republic. As we shall see, Aufbau supported Hitler and General Ludendorff in their bid to overthrow the Weimar Republic.

CONCLUSION

In the years 1921-1923, Aufbau engaged in political terrorism in Germany and sought to overthrow the Soviet Union through both subversion and military force. Aufbau's Vice President General Vladimir Biskupskii used some of the funds at his disposal to support terrorist activities. The Aufbau comrades Piotr Shabelskii-Bork and Sergei Taboritskii attempted to murder the Russian Constitutional Democratic leader Pavel Miliukov, but they accidentally killed Miliukov's associate Vladimir Nabokov instead. The Aufbau members Biskupskii, General Erich von Ludendorff, and Colonel Karl Bauer, at the least, colluded with Organization C under the important Kapp Putsch figure Captain Hermann Ehrhardt in the assassination of the German Foreign Minister, Walther Rathenau. Aufbau's de facto leader Max von Scheubner-Richter seems to have had advance warning of this crime.

In their anti-Bolshevik military schemes, Aufbau leaders initially planned armed offensives in the Ukraine and the Baltic region along the lines of earlier German/White interventions there. Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii originally planned for an army under Archduke Vasily Vyshivannyi to march into the Ukraine while the Larvianlntervention leader Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov led an expeditionary force into the Baltic region. Later on, Aufbau tried to direct the creation of an autonomous National Socialist Ukraine under the Cossack leader Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa. Finally, Aufbau planned a military strike against the Great Russian heartland of the Soviet Union after the outbreak of revolt there. Biskupskii was to wield de facto power over a rump Russian state that would be organized along National Socialist lines. Hitler supported Aufbau's Eastern policies, as Scheubner-Richter acted as his leading foreign policy advisor. Hitler particularly approved of Aufbau's designs to create an autonomous National Socialist Ukraine. He had not yet developed his conception that the German people needed Lebensraum in the East.

In its campaign to assert its supremacy in right-wing German/White emigre affairs through the means of political terrorism and anti-Bolshevik military plots, Aufbau increasingly allied itself with and influenced Hitler's rising National Socialist movement. By the full of 1922, the fortunes of the National Socialist Party and Aufbau had become inextricably intertwined. The two anti-Entente, anti-Weimar Republic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-Semitic entities were linked most strongly through the Baltic German Scheubner-Richter, Aufbau's driving force and one of Hitler's most trusted counselors. The National Socialist Party and Aufbau had developed into close conspiratorial allies. As we shall see, as of late 1922, the NSDAP and Aufbau were poised for a joint drive to overthrow the Weimar Republic and to place Hitler and General Ludendorff in charge of Germany through the use of paramilitary force.

_______________

Notes:

 
1 ATsVO report from May 23, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 47, 2.
 
2 Max von Scheubner-Richter, "Deutsche Wirtschaftspolitik," Wirtschafts-politische Aufbau-Korrespondenz  uber Ostftagen und ihre Bedeutung fur Deutschland, October 13, 1921, 1, 2.
 
3 JM charge against Piotr Shabelskii-Borkand Sergei Taboritskii from May 29, 1922, GSAPKB, Repositur  84a, number 14953, 16.
 
4 Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the "Protocols of  the Elders of Zion" (Chico, CA Scholars Press, 1981), 141.
 
5 Karl Schlogel, Katharina Kucher, Bernhard Suchy, and Gregor Thurn, Chronik russischen Lebens in  Deutschland 1918-1941 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), 112.
 
6 PDM report to the BSMI from March 30, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 3, 89; letter  from Ludwig von Knorring to the RKUoO from December 28, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772,  opis 2, delo 179, 69.
 
7 Rafael Ganelin, “Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii natsional-sotsializm," Natsionalnaia pravaia  prezhde i teper, Istoriko-sotsiowgicheskie ocherki, chast I: Rossiia i russkoe zarubezhe (Saint Petersburg:  Institut Sotsiologii rossiiskoi akademii nauk, 1992), 142.
 
8 Harald Gustav Graf’s testimony included in a PDM report to the BSMI from March 30, 1922,  BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 4, 8.
 
9 Letter from Shabelskii-Bork to his wife from December 31, 1925, GSAPKB, Repositur 84a, number  14953, 65.
 
10 Fedor Vinberg's March 30, 1922 testimony, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 4, 18.
 
11 Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, 141.
 
12 RKUoO report from March 30, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK),fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 100.
 
13 Vinberg's testimony included in a PDM report to the BSMI from April 15, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI  22, number 71624, fiche 4, 64.
 
14 RKUoO report from [August?] 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 167, 169.
 
15 Scheubner-Richter, "Miljukow in Berlin," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, March 31, 1922, 1.
 
16 Scheubner-Richter, "Russische Terroristen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, April 14, 1922, 1.
 
17 "Das Attentat in Berlin," Volkischer Beobachter, April 1, 1922, 2.
 
18 Ganelin, "Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii natsional-sotsializm" 142.
 
19 RKUoO reports from September 29 and November 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 339, 2; number 325, 29.
 
20 RKUoO report from September 23, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 442, 126.
 
21 RKUoO reports from November 4 and 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 557, 105, 106; number 325, 29.
 
22 RKUoO report from November 4 and 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 557, 76; number 325, 29, 30.
 
23 RKUoO report from November 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 325, 29.
 
24 Letter from Scheubner-Richter to the BSMI from September 19, 1921, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number  71624, fiche 3,54; Heinrich Class, Wider den Strom, vol. II, BAK, Kleine Erwerburg 499, 508; LGPO  report to the RKUoO from July 11, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 129b: 266, 267.
 
25 Questioning of Paul Werber, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 441, 10; letters from Ludwig Neeb to  Alfred Hoffmann from August 21 and 22, 1921, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 441, 4, 87.
 
26 RKUoO report to the PDM from October 20, 1921, BSAM, PDM, number 6803, 34.
 
27 Situation reports from Hoffmann from January 17, 1921, and February 23, 1921, RKUoO, BAB,  1507, number 441, 127, 231.
 
28 RKUoO report from December 1, 1922, BAB, 134, number 69, 153.
 
29 RKUoO report from August 4, 1922, BAB, 134, number 66, 6, 7.
 
30 PDM report from June 1, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 322.
 
31 Franz Jaenicke, "Lebenslauf," Luckenwalde, July 1, 1923, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 329, 331.
 
32 Interview with Gerhard Rossbach on October 31, 1951, IZG, ZS 128, 1; PDM report from June 1, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 322.
 
33 RKUoO reports from September 29 and November 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 339, 2; number 325, 29.
 
34 Situation report from Hoffmann from November 12, 1920, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 441, 218.
 
35 RK050 report from November 12, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 325, 29; questioning of Friedrich  Wilhelm von Plodowski from March 17, 1922, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 339, 217.
 
36 Letter from the Sicherheitsdiemt des Reichsfuhrers - SS, der SD-Fuhrer des SS Oberabschnittes Ost to  the RSHA from October 5, 1938, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 500, opis 1, delo 504, 24.
 
37 LGPO report from September 1921, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1813, number 6, 25, 26.
 
38 "Verpflichtung," BSMI, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 73675, fiche 4, 89.

39 PDM report from June 1, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 320.
 
40 Case against Joseph Romer at the LGMI, RKUoO report from November 21, 1922, BAB, 1507,  number 343, 148.
 
41 Deposition of Manfred von Killinger from October 20, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 339, 15.
 
42 RMI report to the SKoO from April 3, 1922, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1812, number 25, 2.
 
43 RKUoO report from September 11, 1921, BAB, 1507, number 339, 410; questioning of Plodowski  from March 17, 1922, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 339, 222.
 
44 RKUoO reports from April 7, another date in April, and November 25, 1922, BAB, 1507, number  345, 186, 242, 249; DGBel report to the AA from March 14, 1922, PAAA, 83578, 15.
 
45 DGBer report to the AA from June 20, 1922, PAM, 83579, 57.
 
46 Rossbach's deposition from May 11, 1923, RKUoO, BAB, 1507, number 211, 153.
 
47 RKUoO report from December 16, 1922, BAB, 134, number 69, 170.
 
48 RKUoO report from January 24, 1925, BAB, 134, number 170, 151.
 
49 RKUoO report from April 27, 1928, BAS, 134, number 173, 117, 118.
 
50 RKUoO reports from November 24, 1922 and March 25, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 345,266; number  211, 2.
 
51 PDM report to the RKUoO from August 1, 1922, BAaB, 1507, number 440, 172.
 
52 "Die Republik hat uns gefragt," a Freikorps song, RKUoO, July 25, 1922, BAS, 1507, number 440,  162.
 
53 RKUoO report from September 23, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 442, 126.
 
54 Martin Sabrow, Der Rathenaumord: Rekonstruktion einer Verschworunggegen die Republik von Weimar  (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994), 70.
 
55 RMI report to the SKoO from April 3, 1922, GSAPKB, Repositur 77, title 1812, number 25, 2.
 
56 Scheubner-Richter, "Worum es sich handelt, Aufbau-Korrespondenz, September 17, 1921, 1.
 
57 Letter from Knorring to the AA from June 26, 1922, PAAA, 83579, 61 ob.
 
58 DGBud report to the AA from July 5, 1922, PAAA, 83579, 130; "Die russischen Emigranten in  Ungarn und Deutschland," Nemzeti Ujsag, AA PAAA, 83580, 26-28.
 
59 "Ein Morderkongress in Budapest," Wiener Morgenzeitung, July 1, 1922, DGBud, forwarded to the  AA, PAAA, 83580, 32.
 
60 Letter from Scheubner-Richter to the DGBud from July 6, 1922, PAAA, 83580, 19.
 
61 Letter from Scheubner-Richter to Nemzeti Ujsag from July 6, 1922 that Scheubner-Richter sent to  the DGBud on July 6, 1922, PAAA, 83580, 34.
 
61 "Ein Morderkongress in Budapest," 32.
 
63 Letter from Scheubner-Richter to Nemzeti Ujsag from June 29, 1922, PAAA, 83580, 33.
 
64 DB report from July 17, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 3, 199.
 
65 DB reports from November 11, 1922 and June 8, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386,  reel 2, 134, 163; ATsVO report [1921 or 1922], GARF, fond 5893, opis I, delo 46, 24.
 
66 RKUoO report from [August?] 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 169; PVE report  to the PDM from September 1, 1922, BSAM, PDM, number 6708, 49.
 
67 RKUoO reports from June 4 and November 1923, BAB, 1507, number 442, 93, 199; PVE report to  the PDM from September 21, 1922, BSAM, PDM, number 6708, 48.
 
68 PDM report to the RKUoO from January 16, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71525, fiche I, 34.
 
69 RKUoO report from [August?] 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 169.
 
70 RKUoO report from March 25, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 211, 2.
 
71 LGPO report to the RKUoO from June 2, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 81a, 12.
 
72 DB report from August [11], 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575, reel 2, 108.
 
73 DB report from November I11, 1922, RGVA (TKhIDK) fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 163, 164.
 
74 ATsVO report from October 10, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 47, 9,1 0; MMFH report to the  DB from May 1, 1921, RGVA (TKhIDK), fond 198, opis 17, delo 203, reels, 479.
 
75 ATsVO report from October 10, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 47, 10.
 
76 DB report from January 3, 1922, RGVA (TKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 953, reel 1, 81.
 
77 ATsVO report from October 10, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 47, 11.
 
78 MMFH report to the DB from May 1, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 198, opis 17, delo 203, reel 5,  479.
 
79 RKUoO report from July 20, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 96, 152.
 
80 ATsVO report from October 10, 1921, GARF, fond 5893, opis 1, delo 47, 9, 11.
 
81 MMFT report to the DB from December 24, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 2, delo 2575,  reel 2, 133; RKUoO report from December 8, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 40.
 
82 RKUoO report from September 9, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 5, 6, 19.
 
83 SKoO report to the AA from March 20, 1923, PAAA, 83581, 239 ob.
 
84 DB report from March 22, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 954, reel 7, 583.
 
85 RKUoO report from January 17, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 77.
 
86 RKUoO report to the PDB from January 13, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 70.
 
87 PDM report from November 26, 1922, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 183; Johannes Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 1900-1945: Deutsch-russische Beziehungen im 20 Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 268.
 
88 PDM report from November 26, 1922, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 182, 183.
 
89 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 161, 163, 164.
 
90 Adolf Hitler, notes of a conversation with Eduard Scharrer towards the end of December 1922,  Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, eds. Eberhard Jackel and Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart: Demsche  Verlags-Anstah, 1980), 773.
 
91 Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (London: Penguin Press, 1998), 649.
 
92 Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 654.
 
93 Otto von Kursell. "Dr. Ing, Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter zum Gedachtnis," ed. Henrik Fischer  (Munich, 1969), 19, 20.
 
94 Ganelin, "Rossiiskoe chernosotenstvo i germanskii natsional-sotsializm," 146.
 
95 Andreas Remmer's testimony from June 1 and 2, 1923 and Remmer's letter from May 7, 1923.  BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 8, 10, 12, 14.
 
96 Remmer's letter from May 7, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 22, 23.
 
97 Remmer's testimony from June 2, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 9.
 
98 DB report from June 8, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 129.
 
99 DB reports from November 11, 1922 and December 6, 1938, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo  386, reel 2, 159; dew 299, reel 1, 76.
 
100 SKoO report to the AA from July 4, 1923, PAM, 83582, 56 ob.
 
101 Scheubner-Richter, “Interventionsabsichten gegen Sowjetrussland," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, June  14, 1923, 2.
 
102 DB reports from June 6 and 8, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 125, 130.
 
103 SKoO report to the AA from August 22, 1923, PAAA, 83582, 96.
 
104 Translation of Vladimir Biskupskii's September 7, 1939 comments, APA, BAB, NS 43, number 35,  47, 48.
 
105 DB reports from May 15 and 23, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond7, opis 1, delo 954, reel 1, 55; delo  876, reel 4, 349.
 
106 ''Aufstand in der Ukraine," Volkischer Beobachter, March 14, 1923, 3.
 
107 DB reports from May 1 and 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel I, 4; delo 954,  reel 1, 55, 56.
 
108 FA/AFK report to the BSMI from May 23, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71625, fiche 2, 60.
 
109 Hustevych Bohdan's testimony included in an FA/AFK report to the BSMI from May 23, 1923,  BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71625, fiche 2, 63.
 
110 SKoO report to the AA from March 20, 1923, PMA, 83581, 240.
 
111 Bohdan's testimony from May 23, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71625, fiche 2, 63.
 
112 RKUoO report co the RWM from May 15, 1923 presented at the 4. SAUV on October 12, 1927,  BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103476/1, 41; Nikolai Derezynskii's testimony included in an FA/AFK  report to the BSMI from May 23, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71625, fiche 2, 66.
 
113 PDM report to the BSMI from November 14, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 73685, fiche 1, 5.
 
114 Friedrich Preitner's testimony included in an FA/AFK report to the BSMI from May 24, 1923,  BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71625, fiche 2, 68, 69.
 
115 DB reports from March 21 and May 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 953, reel 1, 53;  delo 954, reel 1, 55, 56.
 
116 Letter from Kursell to the APA from April 21, 1934, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 519, opis 3, delo 11b,  31.
 
117 DB report from May 15, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 954, reel 1, 56.
 
118 Ukraine und Nationalsozialismus," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, May 17, 1923, 4.
 
119 Alfred Rosenberg, "Nationalsozialismus im Weltkampf," Volkischer Beobachter, April 7, 1923, 3.
 
120 "Ukraine und Nationalsozialismus," May 17, 1923, 4.
 
121 "Die Ukraine und Russland," Volkischer Beobachter, August 29, 1923, 3.
 
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Wed Mar 20, 2019 3:48 am

Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER 7: ''In Quick March to the Abyss!"

Late 1922 through November 1923 witnessed both the acme and the almost total collapse of the collaboration between Hitler's National Socialist Party and Aufbau to topple the Weimar Republic. In his newspaper Aufbau-Korrespondenz (Aufbau Correspondence), Aufbau's leading figure and the prominent National Socialist policy maker First Lieutenant Max von Scheubner-Richter stressed: "Today Bavaria's historical mission consists of safeguarding German unity in the face of the international solidarity of the Soviets and the stock exchange people." If Bavaria failed to fulfill its calling, "then Germany's downfall and with it Bavaria's is sealed.' [1] Scheubner-Richter titled his essay "In Quick March to the Abyss!" thereby indicating his belief that the Bavarian-based National Socialist/White emigre radical right invited disaster by not forcefully resisting both Bolshevism and the Weimar Republic.

Scheubner-Richter's aggressive political views deserve particular attention since he acted as the closest advisor of both Adolf Hitler and General Erich von Ludendorff, who led anti-Weimar Republic paramilitary groupings in Bavaria that grew increasingly powerful under the stimulus of the French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Basin beginning in early 1923. Scheubner-Richter despised Bolshevism, and he spent much of his energies combating its spread. He nonetheless appreciated some of its aspects. In particular, he admired what he regarded as the Bolshevik lesson that a few determined men could shape world history, and he stressed that the National Socialist movement should adopt the Bolshevik tactics of subversion followed by strict centralization and militarization to defeat its political enemies.

Inspired by the Bolshevik model, Scheubner-Richter advocated using paramilitary forces based in Bavaria under himself, Hitler, and Ludendorff to overthrow the Weimar Republic. To a significant degree, he planned a repeat of the March 1920 Kapp Putsch in which he, Hitler, and Ludendorff had participated, with similar White emigre support, only this time from the south. Scheubner-Richter's combative policy of seeking to topple the Weimar Republic by force, in addition to costing him his life in the November 1923 Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, helped to cause the near-collapse of the National Socialist movement, the termination of Aufbau as a significant political force, and the nadir of volkisch German-White emigre collaboration.

THE MILITANT RADICAL RIGHT'S CRYSTALLIZATION IN BAVARIA

Aufbau's guiding figure Scheubner-Richter served as the pivotal contact man for the Bavarian radical right in the period leading up to the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. He officially began serving as the chief advisor of the volkisch leader and Aufbau member General Ludendorff in August 1922. In the fall of 1922, Scheubner-Richter acted as the primary liaison man between Hitler and Ludendorff. He coordinated their activities and brought the two far rightists ever closer politically.' Scheubner-Richter met with Hitler, Ludendorff, and Walther Nicolai, the head of the pro-Kirill Romanov intelligence service code named Project S, towards the end of October 1922. The four conspirators agreed that Hitler should lead an alliance of radical right paramilitary forces, the Vereinigte vaterlandische Verbande (United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria). At this meeting, Hitler argued convincingly in favor of a legal rise to power. Nicolai agreed with Hitler's position, and, for the time being, the four plotters adopted this plan of action. 3

The seizure of power of Benito Mussolini's Fascists in Italy in late October 1922 inspired Scheubner-Richter and his allies Hitler and Ludendorff to undertake increasingly aggressive measures in Germany. Scheubner-Richter's article in the November I, 1922 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, "The Fascists as Masters in Italy," indicated the spur that Mussolini's March on Rome had given to radical rightists centered in Bavaria. Scheubner-Richter stressed that Communism could only be defeated through its own violent methods. He noted: "That which the German Freikorps did halfheartedly was done passionately in Italy." He praised Mussolini for demonstrating that "bold personalities" could master a "scourge" that held the world in fear. While he asserted that pan-Germans could see "no friend" in Fascism since difficult days lay ahead for the ethnic Germans of the South Tyrol under Italian rule, he hoped that the "principle that the Fascists represent" would become "universal and self-evident in Germany."4

Bolstered by Fascism's spectacular rise in Italy, the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria under Hitler's leadership made their first official appearance on November 9, 1922, the three-year anniversary of the November Revolution that had toppled the German Empire.5 Among the nineteen organizations that belonged to the far right alliance were the National Socialist Party, the Bavarian branch of volkisch leader Heinrich Class' Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League), and the Bavarian section of the allied Deutschvolkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Volkisch Protection League).6 General Ludendorff called for the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria to adopt an audacious national revolutionary offensive. He openly promoted the most dynamic segment of the volkisch movement, Hitler's National Socialists. He assisted the NSDAP with his extensive knowledge of organizational and propaganda tactics.7 As of the autumn of 1922, the radical right centered in Bavaria had coalesced into a dangerous opponent of the Weimar Republic.

The early Weimar Republic, which was never entirely stable at the best of times, received an extreme shock in early January 1923 that aided fur rightists. French and Belgian authorities, claiming that the German government had reneged on its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, sent in troops to occupy Germany's leading industrial region, the Ruhr Basin. The French-Belgian advance into the Ruhr Basin worsened the already ruinous inflation that plagued the Weimar Republic, and it spurred the increasingly vigorous activities of the radical right centered in the National Socialist/Aufbau nexus of Bavaria. In the middle of January 1923, the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria under Hitler and the Aufbau members Ludendorff and Scheubner-Richter held a mass protest rally against the French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Basin.8

Around this time, the Aufbau leaders Scheubner-Richter and General Vladimir Biskupskii urged White emigres in Germany to repay the Germans for their hospitality by helping them against foreign enemies. Aufbau called on all able-bodied White emigres either to assist German paramilitary units opposing French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr Basin, or to participate in anti-Bolshevik and anti-Polish operations in the East along the lines undertaken by Biskupskii's close colleague General Piotr Glasenap. Glasenap, who coordinated his activities with Aufbau and presumably belonged to the secretive organization, formed White emigre combat units in East Prussia that he pledged to use to aid rightist Germans in their disputes with the Poles, who were allied with the hated French.9

Glasenap soon furthered right-wing German and White emigre interests in Hungary. He transferred his activities to the Danubian state in the course of February 1923. He collaborated with Prince Mikhail Volkonskii, an Aufbau ally and Kirill-supporter who headed the Provisional Senate of White emigres in Hungary, to lead a military academy in Budapest.10 Glasenap prepared an armed White emigre formation in Hungary that was to collaborate with German paramilitary forces against foes in both the West and the East.11 Aufbau's earlier attention to right-wing Hungarian affairs, which had been most recently manifested in Scheubner-Richter's talks with the de facto Hungarian dictator Admiral Nicholas Horthy at the beginning of 1923, had paved the way for ever closer military collaboration between Aufbau and Hungarian rightists and White emigres in Hungary.12

SCHEUBNER-RICHTER'S LESSONS FROM BOLSHEVISM

As the year 1923 progressed, Hitler developed an ever-closer political and personal relationship with Aufbau's guiding figure, Scheubner-Richter, who acted as the leading contact man in the radical right German/White emigre milieu in Bavaria. The pro-Kirill, anti-Bolshevik intelligence leader Nicolai noted the extensive degree to which Scheubner-Richter influenced Hitler's political ideas. Nicolai valued Scheubner-Richter highly as a clever and politically talented man, but he nevertheless believed that the Baltic German lacked the necessary grasp of German conditions because of his formative experiences in Imperial Russia.13

In addition to relying on Scheubner-Richter for political counsel, Hitler enjoyed a close personal connection with him and his wife Mathilde. Despite the fact that Mathilde was almost thirty years older than Scheubner-Richter, the couple had a happy marriage. Hitler had his home away from home at Scheubner-Richter's house, and he honored Mathilde like his mother (his own mother was long since dead). She, for her part, adored him. Mathilde had been unable to bear children because of a venereal disease contracted in her first marriage, and she seems to have regarded Hitler as a replacement son.14

Although Hitler's close advisor Scheubner-Richter despised Bolshevism, he nonetheless learned from it. In the pages of his newspaper Aufbau Correspondence, he argued both that the Weimar Republic had borrowed strict centralizing practices from the Soviet Union, and that National Socialism itself should emulate intense Bolshevik centralization. He addressed the first point in a July 1922 article, "Looks Back and Parallels." He noted similarities between recent German and Russian history, and he warned the German people of the "abyss" that it was in danger of falling into. He asserted that at the German Constitutional Convention in Weimar and Berlin in 1919, the primary goal had been to replace the "creation of the German Bismarck" with that of "the Jew Preuss." The new Constitution authored by Hugo Preuss stressed "centralism and uniformity." This formulation had arisen "consciously with some, unconsciously with the majority, according to Moscow recipe."

In his essay, Scheubner-Richter further argued that primarily Jewish Bolshevik leaders had learned from the Russian Civil War: "Only in a centrally governed state can a small, racially foreign minority rule and violate large national majorities in the long term." He charged the "fathers of the Weimar Constitution" with holding "trains of thought" close to Soviet leaders:

The centralist spirit of the Weimar Constitution, which eliminated the national independent existence of the German tribes and made everything dependent upon Berlin, was the un-German product of Moscow governmental wisdom and was supposed to make Germany ready for the instillation of a Soviet dictatorship.


Scheubner-Richter further asserted, "The democratic-socialist majority in the German Parliament" of the Weimar Republic was currently striving "to break the resistance of national circles and to destroy the individuality and self-reliance of the Germans once and for all" so that "a small racially foreign minority can dominate and terrorize large national majorities." He ended his article by appealing: "German people, reflect and learn from the sad experiences of the Russian people! Bavarian people, defend yourself!"15 Scheubner-Richter portrayed the intense centralization of the Soviet Union that the Weimar Republic had allegedly imitated as a threat to volkisch Germany's existence.

On the other hand, Scheubner-Richter viewed ruthless centralization as a positive factor when carried out by the "right" people. Despite his opposition to "Jewish Bolshevism," he admired the strict centralization and militarization of the Soviet Union as directed by the (Jewish) Soviet Commissar for War Lev Trotskii. In a January 1922 article in Aufbau Correspondence, "What We Can Learn from Our Enemies!", Scheubner-Richter stressed: "God grant us a national German dictator with the energy of a Trotskii!"16 In another provocative article in a March 1923 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, "The Red Army: What We Can Learn From Soviet Russia!", Scheubner-Richter praised some of Trotskii's recent observations. Scheubner-Richter argued that National Socialism could only defeat Bolshevism by applying the latter's own methods of subversion followed by ruthless centralization and repression.17 His essay was published along with some editing changes, mostly cuts, in installments in the Volkischer Beobachter (Volkisch Observer) from March 21-23, 1923 under the more subtle title, "The Red Army."

In his essay, Scheubner-Richter treated Trotskii's "very instructional" description of the "subversion of an army that is not in the hands of the International, and the glorification of the same [old-style] military principles when they serve the purposes of the International." He asserted: "The expositions of Lev Trotskii are consistent, dear, and expedient."18 Scheubner-Richter intended his article to serve as a lesson on how, as he worded it in a passage in the original Aufbau Correspondence article that did not appear in the Volkisch Observer, "One should learn from one's enemies."19

Regarding Trotskii's treatment of army propaganda, Scheubner-Richter asserted: "We cannot recommend it urgently enough for the attention of our leading political and military authorities." He stressed the "open secret" that Bolshevik propaganda operated with "non-material slogans" and had succeeded in granting Bolshevism the guise of a "spiritual movement." He noted that unlike troops of the Red Army, German soldiers lacked a clear "unifying idea." He stressed, "An army without ideals is not a fighting force and is not resistant to subversive propaganda." Scheubner-Richter here primarily referred to the catastrophic outcome of World War I for nationalist German and Russian concerns, but then he drew lessons for the future.

At the end of his essay, Scheubner-Richter asked, "What, then, are the practical applications that we must draw from the remarks of Trotskii ... which are most educational for every German politician and officer?" He listed five principles before offering his own conclusion:

1. Communism first undermines the armies and military institutions of national states through its propaganda to create its own armies from their ruins in accordance with precisely the same military principles. 2. Communism, in contrast to likewise revolutionary Social Democracy and democracy, dearly recognizes that military might constitutes the basis of each state, just as political goals can only be achieved and maintained through the ruthless application of military instruments of power. 3. The economy or civic welfare does not constitute the main thing. If necessary, one can manage without industry and commerce if one has a military power apparatus at one's disposal. 4- Superior leadership qualities cannot be learned in military crash courses, rather these call for tradition and training; that is why it is not possible to create even a proletarian army without giving it the necessary military backbone through an old officer and non-commissioned officer corps. 5. World history is made not through parliaments and majority decisions, but through the energy of a few men who know how to evaluate the realities of life. At a time when Germany in its most difficult hour is being ruled by parliamentary buffoons, pacifistic idiots, and democratic ideologues, it is direly necessary that the few men whose sense has not yet been clouded over by newspaper twaddle and phrase-mongering learn from Russia's example what is necessary for us and how one must act. If they do not do this, then the time must not be far when French chauvinism marching from the West and Russian military Bolshevism marching from the East meet in the heart of Germany and come to an agreement about the division of the spoils.20


Scheubner-Richter's reasoning supports the German historian Ernst Nolte's idea that Bolshevism represented "both nightmare and example for National Socialism."21 Scheubner-Richter's essay demonstrated that the early National Socialist movement borrowed from Bolshevism in stressing the importance of the determination of a few men to carry out subversion followed by ruthless centralization and militarization to achieve political ends. In effect, Scheubner-Richter wished to play Trotskii to Hitler's Lenin. At the rime that he wrote his article, Scheubner-Richter was undermining Bolshevik rule by disseminating nationalist, anti-Semitic propaganda among the Red Army and in broad segments of the Soviet population. Some months after the publication of his essay, he marched at the head of strictly organized and highly indoctrinated radical rightists along with Hitler and General Ludendorff. Scheubner-Richter co-led an idealistic putsch against the Weimar Republic that, as it overemphasized the power of a few determined men, failed utterly.

THE HITLER/LUDENDORFF (SCHEUBNER-RICHTER) PUTSCH

As Hitler grew closer to Scheubner-Richter in the course of 1923, his policies became increasingly aggressive. Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter, the leaders of the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria, decided to demonstrate their strength in early April 1923. They organized large-scale military exercises in Munich in which approximately 6,000 men participated.22 The United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria increasingly displayed their paramilitary formations, including the NSDAP Sturmabteilung (Storm Section, SA), the Reichsflagge (Imperial Flag), and the Bund Oberland (Uplands League), a successor to Freikorps Uplands, which had joined the Associations in February.23 The Munich Police estimated the membership of these three paramilitary groups in Munich at between 1,000 and 1,500 for the SA, 150 to 200 for the Imperial Flag, and 680 to 1,000 for the Uplands League.24

In keeping with aggressive far right policies, the paramilitary contingent of the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria, known as the Vaterlandische Kampfverbande (Patriotic Combat Associations), held a massive demonstration on May 1,1923 under the slogan: "Defense against a leftist putsch."25 In so doing, the Patriotic Combat Associations demonstrated their adherence to the increasingly confrontational policies of Hitler, Ludendorff, and their advisors Scheubner-Richter and General Biskupskii of Aufbau.26 Early in the morning of May 1, approximately 3,000 men gathered under Hitler's supervision with arms acquired from Army barracks. They threatened to foil the state-approved Communist gathering in the center of Munich by force if necessary.27

While Hitler stressed in a fiery speech around this time that he sought a Germany united not "under the Soviet star, the Star of David of the Jews, but under ... the swastika," he and his militant followers ironically ended up aiding the Communist cause.28 By occupying most of Munich's security forces on May 1, 1923, they allowed Communist leaders to seize the initiative by holding their march in an aggressive manner with banners flying though they had been specifically forbidden to do so. After an uncomfortable standoff with Munich security forces, Hitler's supporters finally laid down their weapons in return for permission to march into the city center with music blaring.29

Scheubner-Richter asserted in the pages of his Aufbau Correspondence soon after the tumultuous events of May I that the Bavarian government had "put Bavaria's reputation as a national state at stake."30 "Whatever damage the Bavarian government may have caused its reputation, it is clear that the National Socialist movement and Aufbau, both of which Scheubner-Richter represented, had attracted the fury of the previously sympathetic Bavarian government, the Munich Police, and the Army through their insubordination.

Theodor Endres, the chief of staff of Wehrkreiskommando VII (District Defense Command VII), later asserted, "We officers all had 'rightist' leanings" before May 1, 1923 and had supported the militant policies of Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter. Entire Army companies had joined the National Socialist SA and had proudly participated in Hitler's punitive expeditions, such as the one to Coburg. As we have seen, Army soldiers had also stored the arms of the SA and other rightist paramilitary units in Army barracks. Nonetheless, the insubordination of May 1 "brought a decisive turn in the conduct of the rightist Bavarian government towards the right-wing Associations." Endres asserted: "The day had opened the eyes of the government and clearly shown it where the path of toleration and compromise with the National Socialists led."31

Bavarian authorities regarded the events of the next day, May 2, 1923, with distrust as the NSDAP and other right-wing organizations in Bavaria formed the Kampfgemeinschaft nationaler Verbande (Action Group of National Associations). The Action Group came under the overall leadership of Hitler and Ludendorff.32 Scheubner-Richter served as secretary.33 Associations that joined the Action Group included the Vereinigung deutscher Grenzmarker (Union of Frontier Area Germans) under the 1919 Latvian Intervention veteran First Lieutenant Gerhard Rossbach, the Wikingbund (Viking League), a successor organization to the conspiratorial Organization C under the 1920 Kapp Putsch participant Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, the German Viilkisch Protection League, and the Uplands League.34

Hitler, urged on by his close advisor Scheubner-Richter, pursued an increasingly militaristic course of action in May 1923 that drew strength from former Freikorps members of Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov's Western Volunteer Army in the Latvian Intervention. Hitler created a new NSDAP Sturmabteilung Hunderrschaft (Storm Section Hundred), the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Rossbach- und die Baltikumkampfer (Rossbach and the Baltic Fighters Association). This formation was named after Rossbach, the prominent former Freikorps leader and ardent National Socialist." The National Socialist movement later adopted the brown shirts of Storm Section Rossbach.36 Hitler's NSDAP also increased its ties to the Latvian Intervention mastermind General Count Rudiger von der Goltz.37 A May 1923 report from the State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order grimly noted that the National Socialists and their allies, including many former Freikorps elements, were systematically preparing for a putsch against the Weimar Republic.38

Hitler and his collaborators possessed a large war chest for their putsch preparations. Aufbau enjoyed a favorable financial situation.39 General Ludendorff in particular had access to considerable funds. Although Ludendorff claimed in his memoirs that money had been sorely lacking among White emigres in Germany, the intelligence leader Nicolai stressed in his diary that the general had only possessed substantial funding for his operations during his period of activity in Aufbau.40 In May 1922, General Biskupskii and his White emigre personal secretary, the enthusiastic National Socialist Arno Schickedanz, had made an arrangement with Ludendorff whereby the latter was to use funds from the Russian throne claimants Kirill and Viktoria Romanov to further the "German-Russian national cause" in the framework of Aufbau. Ludendorff had pledged to return the money as soon as he was able to, presumably when he held a position of authority in Germany after helping to overthrow the Weimar Republic.

Beginning in May 1922 and continuing through 1923, Kirill and Viktoria channeled approximately 500,000 gold marks to Ludendorff to support nationalist German-Russian undertakings.41 Since this amount of money exceeded the discretionary means of Kirill and Viktoria, wealthy as they were, substantial funding had to have come from outside sources. Most importantly, the right wing, anti-Semitic American industrialist and politician Henry Ford gave considerable sums of money to Kirill's representative in America, the Aufbau member Boris Brazol. Brazol then transferred funds to Kirill and Viktoria for use in financing far right organizations in Germany, notably the National Socialist Party and Aufbau.42 Hitler praised Ford in Mein Kampf as "a single great man" who "still maintains full independence," much to the "fury" of the "Jews who govern the stock exchange forces of the American Union."43

The Aufbau leaders Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii also played key fund-raising roles for Hitler's NSDAP. Scheubner-Richter ostentatiously displayed his wealth by driving an expensive Benz automobile.44 He was a rich man through his marriage into the German nobility, and he channeled considerable financial resources to the National Socialist Party from White emigre sources, notably Russian industrialists, especially former oilmen. Moreover, he raised funds for the National Socialist Party from Bavarian aristocrats, businessmen and bankers, and from leading German industrialists such as August Thyssen.45 General Biskupskii also routed funds from White emigre sources to the NSDAP. In particular, he used the Reichstag (Parliament) member and Aufbau Second Vice President Dr. A. Glaser for this purpose.46 Hitler benefited a great deal financially from his association with Aufbau.

Hitler received backing from sources other than Aufbau. In the summer of 1923, he obtained increasing support for his anti-Weimar Republic putsch preparations from White emigres and right-wing Hungarians. French intelligence warned in July 1923 that Bavarian-based White emigres were preparing for a coup against the German government along the lines of the 1920 Kapp Putsch. In particular, a leader of Ukrainian independence activities in Munich, Konstantin Scheglovitov, who had helped to organize Scheubner-Richter's '920 mission to General Piotr Vrangel's Southern Russian Armed Forces in the Crimea, was coordinating armed White emigre formations for action against the Weimar Republic.47

Other prominent White emigres backed Hitler's campaign for power. Most likely to help organize a right-wing putsch from the volkisch German/White emigre power base in Bavaria, the Latvian Intervention leader Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, who corresponded regularly with Aufbau Vice President Biskupskii, left Hamburg for Munich in July 1923.48 Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, the Ukrainian Cossack leader whom Aufbau intended to rule a National Socialist Ukraine, wrote Hitler in early September 1923. He expressed his confidence that Hitler would soon come to power in Germany, and then the strivings for an independent Ukraine would have excellent chances of success.49

Also in the first half of September 1923, Hitler received a pledge of support from the anti-Semitic, nationalist Hungarian movement known in German as Erwachende Ungarn (Awakening Hungary). Awakening Hungary conspired with Aufbau, stood in contact with Ludwig Muller von Hausen, the German publisher of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and had begun collaborating with the National Socialist Party in 1921.50 Josef Gaal, an associate of Ulain, the leader of Awakening Hungary, wrote Hitler in early September 1923.51 Gaal promised Hitler support for any bid for power in Germany that he undertook.

In his letter, Gaal also expressed his hopes of having the honor to greet personally both Hitler and the Aufbau member Colonel Karl Bauer (who was infamous for his involvement in the assassination of the German Foreign Minster Walther Rathenau) in Budapest. Bauer's intermediary role demonstrated that Aufbau served as a liaison between the NSDAP and Awakening Hungary. Gaal assured Hitler that violent action against the postwar European order was impending. He wrote of the present "historical moment, which is so important for the fate of both of our peoples. "" The radical right in Bavaria and Hungary was gearing up to challenge the existing European order.

Bolstered by increasing support from White emigres and right-wing Hungarians, Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter intensified their preparations to overthrow the Weimar Republic in the course of September 1923. On September 17, the National Socialist SA, the Uplands League, and the Imperial Flag formed the Kampfgemeinschaft Bayern (Action Group Bavaria), commonly known as the Kampfbund (Combat League).53 Friedrich Weber, the leader of the Uplands League in Munich, stressed that all Combat League members subordinated themselves to the "political leadership of Herr Adolf Hitler ... in complete agreement with the method and goal" that he had set forward.54 Ludendorff influenced the affairs of the Combat League primarily in an unofficial capacity. Scheubner-Richter served as Hitler's plenipotentiary in the Combat League, once again demonstrating considerable Aufbau influence over National Socialist policies.55

In another example of his admiration of Bolshevik tactics, as opposed to Bolshevism as a system, Scheubner-Richter had earlier warned in the pages of the National Socialist newspaper the Volkisch Observer that the "supporters of the independent German Freikorps spirit" and the "political advocates of federal ideas" in Germany would be "swept away by the strict, centrally united Red Armies" if they did not learn "to submit to a unified leadership."56 He thus had reason to be pleased with the unification of rightwing forces in the Combat League under himself, Hitler, and Ludendorff.

Scheubner-Richter stressed the confrontational goals of the Combat League in an article in the September 21, 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer, "Germany's Bolshevization." He emphasized that Hitler had arisen as a "prophet" of the "German people" who knew how "to jolt the German soul awake and to free it from the chains of Marxist thinking." He argued that the new "volkisch Germany" had recognized that its greatest enemy lay in internal dissension, and it had therefore created the Combat League. All those who wished a "free Germany" should join this alliance. He stressed that the Combat League had embarked on an all-out endeavor: ''And the struggle will be fought under the motto, 'On the one side the Soviet star, on the other side the swastika.' And the swastika will - triumph!"57 Scheubner-Richter thus expressed his faith in the ability of Hitler's National Socialist movement and its allies, including Aufbau, to overcome the Bolshevik menace he perceived both inside and outside Germany.

In the midst of his preparations to overthrow the Weimar Republic with the assistance of Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau, Hitler found time in September 1923 to visit Wahnfried in Bayreuth, the former villa of the German composer and volkisch philosopher Richard Wagner. He met with the leading volkisch theorist Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who currently lived there. Hitler took the Aufbau member and leading National Socialist ideologue Alfred Rosenberg along with him on this pilgrimage.58 Hitler and Rosenberg's meeting with the partially paralyzed volkisch philosopher went extremely well. A week later, Chamberlain wrote Hitler: "My faith in Germandom has never wavered for a moment, though my hopes had, I confess, reached a low ebb. At one blow you have transformed the state of my soul." Hitler rejoiced "like a child" upon receiving this message.59

Chamberlain wrote an essay for the Volkisch Observer soon after his meeting with Hitler and Rosenberg, "God Wills It! Reflection on Germany's Current State of Affairs." He supported Hitler during the present "world-historical turning point." He praised Hitler without mentioning him by name, noting that the times called for "the born Fuhrer." Word on the street had it that "the man has appeared and is awaiting his hour among us. "60 Hitler returned praise to Chamberlain. He later referred to Bayreuth as the city in which "the spiritual sword with which we fight today was forged, first by the Meister [Wagner] and then by Chamberlain."61 In Mein Kampf, he criticized Imperial Germany, where "official governmental authorities passed by the observations of Houston Stewart Chamberlain with the same indifference as still occurs today."62 Despite a charged political situation in Bavaria, Hitler found time to strengthen his volkisch roots along with the White emigre Rosenberg in September 1923.

Around the time that Hitler and Rosenberg established a personal connection with Chamberlain, the greatest living volkisch theorist, relations deteriorated rapidly between the Kahr government in Bavaria and the Combat League under Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter. In September 1923, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, now the virtual dictator of Bavaria with the title of General State Commissioner, forbade mass gatherings of the NSDAP. Kahr took this drastic step after Scheubner-Richter, Hitler's "influential political advisor," had refused to guarantee him that no complications would arise from such meetings.63 Scheubner-Richter clearly opposed Kahr, who earlier had helped to turn Bavaria into a haven for volkisch German-White emigre collaboration. Scheubner-Richter's negative attitude towards Kahr influenced Hitler.

The dispute between the Kahr government on one side and Hitler, Ludendorff, Scheubner-Richter, and Biskupskii on the other helped to worsen the already deteriorating relations between Hitler and Captain Ehrhardt, the former leader of the now outlawed Organization C. Kahr asked Ehrhardt to visit him in Munich in late September 1923.64 Ehrhardt left his refuge in the Austrian Tyrol for this meeting. He traveled to Munich in an Army car.65 Largely as a result of these secret talks, Ehrhardt's Viking League publicly disassociated itself from the NSDAP-led Combat League at the beginning of October 1923. Ehrhardt justified this action by claiming that the National Socialist struggle against Kahrs government was dividing nationalist circles instead of uniting them. [66]

The State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order noted in early October 1923 that the friendship between Ehrhardt on one side and Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter on the other had greatly deteriorated as of late.67 Ludendorff stressed at the time that he had nothing to do with the remnants of Ehrhardt's Organization C. He noted that this grouping was working against him. Ludendorff even openly belittled Ehrhardt as a "pest" in right-wing Munich circles in the course of the month, thereby deepening the rift between himself and Ehrhardt.68

Despite the intensifying dispute between Kahr and Ehrhardt on one side and Hitler, Ludendorff, and himself on the other, Scheubner-Richter expressed confidence in the ability of the Combat League to master events on its own. In early October 1923, an agent reported to the State Commissioner that Scheubner-Richter had recently assured him that the entire Bavarian Combat League would march into neighboring Thuringia and Saxony to strike down the powerful Communist movements there within a matter of days. After this, the Combat League would continue on to Berlin to overthrow the German government.

Scheubner-Richter had further told the government informant that the Germans had to fight against the French in the Ruhr Basin, and that it would be better to die in the struggle against the French than to vegetate in the face of such ignominy. Finally, Scheubner-Richter had claimed that the mood amongst the men of the Combat League was even more enthusiastic than among German soldiers in August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I.69 Scheubner-Richter overestimated the strength of the forces at his disposal. This error would soon cost him his life.

Relations between General State Commissioner Kahr and the Combat League under Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter steadily deteriorated in late October and early November 1923. At a crucial Combat League leadership meeting on October 23, 1923, Hitler stressed that Kahr could not lead a successful putsch against Berlin since he had already failed during the 1920 Kapp Putsch.70 On November 5, 1923, Kahr called Combat League leaders to his presence to give them an official protocol stating that the Bavarian government, the Army, and the Bavarian Police would not participate in any Combat League putsch. Hitler himself did not attend this meeting. Instead, he sent Scheubner-Richter as his representative.71 Hitler met with Scheubner-Richter the next day. Although Scheubner-Richter had repeatedly assured his intelligence colleague Nicolai that he would prevent a rash action on the part of the Combat League, he advised Hitler to undertake a show of force to begin Germany's "liberation."72 This plan of action led to debacle.

Hitler launched his bid for power in Bavaria and beyond on November 8, 1923. He came to Scheubner-Richter's dwelling in the afternoon just after General Ludendorff had left. Scheubner-Richter gave Hitler a situation report and urged immediate action. Hitler told Scheubner-Richter to accompany him to the beer hall Burgerbraukeller in uniform, which he did.73 When Hitler entered the beer hall, where many Bavarian leaders were gathered, including Kahr, the Aufbau member Rosenberg was at his side.74 Hitler fired his pistol at the ceiling and announced the outbreak of a national revolution. He stressed in a fiery speech that the coup did not oppose the Bavarian Police and the Army, but sought to overthrow the "Berlin Jewish government and the November criminals of 1918."75 The putschists released an appeal, "To the Population of Munich!", which asserted that the "November Revolution" had met its end that day and that therefore "one of the most ignominious periods in German history has ended and the way has been cleared for the volkisch German freedom movement."76
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Wed Mar 20, 2019 3:48 am

Part 2 of 2

Hitler and Scheubner-Richter worked together in the putsch. While Hitler negotiated with Kahr and other Bavarian leaders in a side room of the beer hall while pointing a gun at them, Scheubner-Richter carried out his own, ultimately unsuccessful, talks with high-ranking members of the Bavarian Police.77 He then drove Hitler's car to pick up General Ludendorff, who had been left out of the loop and had not participated in the negotiations in the Burgerbraukeller. Scheubner-Richter came home in the early morning of November 9 and told his wife Mathilde that things had gone "wonderfully," without the shedding of blood.78

Actually, while the first day of the putsch did not lead to bloodshed, serious problems arose early on. When approximately 250 members of the Uplands League appeared at an Army barracks at 7:00 in the evening on November 8 and demanded weapons and munitions, the commanding officers there arrested them instead.79 Former Latvian Intervention Freikorps leader First Lieutenant Gerhard Rossbach failed in his mission to provide the putschists with large-scale armed support as well. Rossbach took some of his followers adorned with swastika armbands to the Bavarian Infantry School, assembled the cadets there, and marched them to the Burgerbraukeller80 Then he attempted to use the cadets to occupy the seat of the government in Munich. This endeavor failed at around 1:00 in the morning of November 9, 1923, as Munich Police members threatened to use force against Rossbach and the cadets he had assembled, and Rossbach backed down.81

The support that Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter hoped for from Awakening Hungary ultimately fell through as well. Ulain, the leader of the right-wing Hungarian organization, was arrested on November 9 on the Austro-Hungarian border with a treaty between the Combat League and Awakening Hungary that he wished Hitler and Ludendorff to sign.82 One of Hitler's representatives had visited Ulain on November 2, 1923 and given him the pact. Ulain planned to use Hungarian "patriotic organizations" to overthrow the Hungarian government and to restore Hungary's 1914 borders with the Combat League's assistance.83 According to the terms of the treaty, the new Hitler/Ludendorff government was to deliver weapons for Ulain's Awakening Hungary movement in return for substantial agricultural deliveries.84 This proposed agreement represented a basic variation of Aufbau policy.

Creating more problems for Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter, the former Organization C leader Captain Ehrhardt ordered his followers in Munich not to join the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, largely because of his differences with Ludendorff.85 Ehrhardt fundamentally agreed with National Socialist ideology, but, as he stressed in a speech soon after the failure of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, Hitler had attempted to overthrow the Weimar Republic too soon. He should have ordered things in Bavaria first and only then prepared for a march on Berlin.86

Faced with disappointment on multiple fronts, Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter decided to march through the streets of Munich with their backers on November 9, 1923 in a show of determination that they hoped would raise popular support for their putsch. Hitler marched to the Feldherrnhalle (Commander's Hall) in central Munich arm in arm with Scheubner-Richter at his right, while Ludendorff strode to the right and somewhat ahead of Scheubner-Richter.87 Arno Schickedanz, Aufbau's deputy director, Aufbau Vice President Biskupskii's secretary, and a fervent National Socialist, marched in the second row of the leading group of putschists. Rosenberg marched farther back.88

When pro-Kahr forces opened fire on the marchers after Kahr had withdrawn the support that he had earlier pledged Hitler at the point of a pistol, a bullet struck Scheubner-Richter in the heart and sent him reeling, mortally wounded. According to the version of events that Hitler subsequently told Scheubner-Richter's widow Mathilde, since he had been marching arm in arm with Scheubner-Richter, he had been pulled down when her husband had fallen. Then Scheubner-Richter in his dying convulsions had pinned him down so that he could not get back up.89 Theodor Endres of District Defense Command VII offered a more plausible version of events, namely that Hitler had thrown himself to the ground with the firing of the first shots, thereby dislocating his shoulder. Endres stressed that Hitler's act had been the correct mode of action for a former active soldier to take and had not been at all unheroic. Endres asserted that claims that Hitler had only gone to the ground as a result of being pulled there were "as dumb as alien to the front [lines in battle]."90

Hitler's disastrous bid for power in Germany with the support of Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau failed far more dramatically than the Kapp Putsch of March 1920 had. Hitler himself asserted melodramatically during his 1924 court testimony for the putsch that he had believed even beforehand that the undertaking had been "doomed to failure."91 The State Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order asserted that the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch had fundamentally represented a repeat of the Kapp Putsch from the south. Reserve actions had been prepared in Austria and Hungary under the leadership of key players in the Kapp Putsch, most notably Major Waldemar Pabst, who collaborated with Aufbau from the Austrian Tyrol, and the conspiratorial Aufbau member Colonel Bauer, who operated from Vienna.92

As had occurred after the Kapp putsch in March 1920, right-wing forces dispersed in the wake of the failed Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. Hitler was imprisoned, and other prominent National Socialists such as Hermann Goring and Gerhard Rossbach went into hiding.93 Many White emigres left Germany for France. The Aufbau ideologue Fedor Vinberg, for example, traveled to Paris both because of the failure of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, in which he was implicated by association, and as a result of mounting suspicion that he had masterminded the March 1922 assassination attempt on the Constitutional Democratic leader Pavel Miliukov.94 The Munich White emigre community shrank dramatically in late 1923 and 1924. This process occurred not only because of the failure of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch and the death of Scheubner-Richter, who had guided National Socialist-White emigre cooperation, but also since, with the stabilization of the German mark, France with its high inflation rate offered more favorable living conditions for Russian exiles.95

The death of the most important White emigre in Bavarian affairs, Scheubner-Richter, in the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch proved a tremendous blow to National Socialist-White emigre collaboration. Aufbau's guiding figure had displayed remarkable courage throughout his military and political career. He had asserted in a January 1923 Aufbau Correspondence article: "It is not necessary that I live! But it is necessary that the German nation lives in a free, great German Reich!"96 His words had been based on genuine conviction and had not been mere bravado. Hitler fully appreciated the magnitude of the loss of his closest political advisor. He subsequently lamented, "Everyone is replaceable, with the exception of one: Scheubner-Richter!"97 Scheubner-Richter had proved truly indispensable in both the National Socialist movement and Aufbau.

Aufbau's remaining leadership gained ideological capital by portraying Scheubner-Richter as a fallen hero of the right-wing German/White emigre cause. Aufbau's new leader, Scheubner-Richter's old Rubonia Fraternity colleague Otto von Kursell, dedicated a manuscript to the memory of Aufbau's former de facto leader, "Dr. Engineer M. E. von Scheubner-Richter, Killed in Action on November 9, 1923." Kursell drew a heroic picture of his former comrade on the cover of his dedication, and he related the events of Scheubner-Richter's funeral. At this ceremony, Kursell had given a speech on behalf of the Rubonia Fraterniry in Riga. Schickedanz, another Rubonia member and Scheubner-Richter's close ally, had spoken in the name of Aufbau. Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko, one of Aufbau's Ukrainian experts, had made remarks as a "Russian emigre who has been thrown abroad."98 Kursell also wrote a retrospective essay praising Scheubner-Richter's struggle against "Marxism and its Jewish heads."99

Nemirovich-Danchenko contributed an essay in Kursell's publication in honor of Scheubner-Richter titled, "A Splendid Death." He argued that Scheubner-Richter had fulfilled his dream of attaining a worthy end by falling as a "good German who covered his honored leader and friend, the pride of nationalist Germany," meaning Hitler, "with his breast." Nemirovich-Danchenko concluded: "In these times of cowardice, betrayal, and disgrace, this heroic death will be inscribed with golden letters into Germany's martyr history."100 He thus eulogized Scheubner-Richter as a self-sacrificing hero whose death served the cause of German greatness. As we will see in Chapter Nine, Hitler also subsequently emphasized this theme.

Scheubner-Richter's death greatly affected Hitler. He partially dedicated Mein Kampf to "those eighteen heroes," of whom Scheubner-Richter was the most prominent, "who sacrificed themselves for us all with the clearest consciousness. They must forever recall the wavering and the weak to the fulfillment of his duty, a duty which they themselves in the best faith carried to its final consequences."101 During January 1942, he reminisced of the early days of the National Socialist Party: "Thinking of that time reminds me of Scheubner-Richter's sacrifice."102 Scheubner-Richter truly proved to have been an irreplaceable comrade and advisor for Hitler.

Biskupskii, who had been Aufbau's leading figure after Scheubner-Richter, experienced serious difficulties after the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. Bavarian authorities suspected him of complicity in the failed undertaking. Schickedanz, Biskupskii's secretary in Aufbau, had prominently participated in the events of November 8/9. Moreover, Biskupskii was known to have advised Ludendorff in the fall of 1923. Despite the compelling evidence that Biskupskii had played a key behind-the-scenes role in the buildup to and execution of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, Bavarian authorities were not able to prove that he had worked to incite Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter ro rise against the Bavarian government with the ultimate goal of marching on Berlin.103

After the failure of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, the death of Scheubner-Richter, and the marginalization of Biskupskii, Aufbau lost in stature and soon disbanded. After the catastrophic events of November 8/9, 1923, Aufbau officially continued to exist under the direction of Kursell, who headed the editorial staff of Aufbau Correspondence.104 Aufbau soon faded out, however.105 The last issue of Aufbau Correspondence appeared on June 15, 1924.

While National Socialist-White emigre collaboration reached its nadir towards the end of 1923, Hitler granted the leadership of the NSDAP for the duration of his imprisonment to the White emigre, Aufbau member, and Party philosopher Rosenberg. Hitler scrawled a note shortly before his arrest stating that Rosenberg should "lead the movement from now on."106 Hitler charged Aufbau's second secretary and the secretary of the NSDAP, Max Amann, with serving as Rosenberg's deputy.107 Hitler thus placed the direction of the National Socialist Party in the hands of two Aufbau members who had worked for nationalist German-Russian rapprochement.

CONCLUSION

Just as Aufbau could not unite all White emigres in Europe, the conspiratorial organization failed to place Adolf Hitler and General Erich von Ludendorff in power in Germany in 1923. Aufbau's leading figure, Max von Scheubner-Richter, coordinated the activities of Hitler and Ludendorffin various paramilitary associations that finally crystallized as the Combat League. Scheubner-Richter brought Hitler and Ludendorff together for a Combat League putsch that he largely modeled along Bolshevik lines. While he abhorred Bolshevism, Scheubner-Richter nonetheless admired its example that a few determined men could alter world history, and he learned from the Bolshevik methods of subversion followed by ruthless centralization and militarization to neutralize political enemies. He appreciated the "energy" of the Soviet Commissar for War Lev Trotskii, and he wished to play Trotskii to Hitler's Lenin.

On November 8, 1923, Scheubner-Richter goaded Hitler to undertake what became known as the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch. While the coup began auspiciously, problems soon arose, as the hoped for support from fur right Germans and Hungarians fell short. In an effort to regain mastery of the situation, Scheubner-Richter marched with Hitler and Ludendorff at the head of a radical right contingent that also included the Aufbau members Alfred Rosenberg and Arno Schickedanz. Scheubner-Richter was shot fatally in the heart while marching at Hitler's side. His death proved an irreplaceable loss for Hitler.

National Socialist-White emigre collaboration reached a low point after the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch collapsed, though two Aufbau members led the NSDAP during Hitler's imprisonment. The Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch that Aufbau supported failed even more spectacularly than the Kapp Putsch of March 1920, in which Hitler, Ludendorff, and Scheubner-Richter had also participated. Right-wing forces dispersed in the aftermath of the Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch, just as they had after the Kapp Putsch had collapsed in Berlin. Without its guiding figure Scheubner-Richter, Aufbau sank into political insignificance and then faded out entirely. Nonetheless, two Aufbau colleagues led the National Socialist movement while Hitler was incarcerated: the White emigre Rosenberg and the German Max Amann.

While Aufbau's political aspirations to place Hitler and Ludendorff in charge in Germany miscarried in the course of 1923, Aufbau did succeed in making crucial ideological contributions to National Socialism from 1920 to 1923. The Aufbau ideologues Scheubner-Richter, Rosenberg, and Fedor Vinberg, acting in league with the volkisch publicist Dietrich Eckart, influenced Hitler's early anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic views considerably. These four ideological comrades inspired Hitler's notion of a looming descent into apocalyptic struggle against conspiratorial Jewish forces behind predatory finance capitalism and murderous Bolshevism. Aufbau's fundamental ideological contributions to Hitler's anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic Weltanschauung forms the subject of the following chapter.

_______________

Notes:

1 Max von Scheubner-Richter, "Im Eilmarsch zum Abgrund!" Wirtschafts-politische Aufbau-Korrespondenz  uber Ostfragen und ihre Bedeutung fur Deutschland, July 26, 1922, 3.

2 Bruno Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis 1919-1923: Munchen als Zentrum der mitteleuropaischen  Gegenrevolution zwischen Revolution und Hitler-Putsch (Munich: Stadtarchiv Munchen, 1978),  237, 323, 324, 451.
 
3 Walther Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Erich von Ludendorff from October 26, 1922, Tagebuch  (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis I, delo 20, 422, 423.
 
4 Scheubner-Richter, "Die Faszisten als Herren in Italien," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, November 1, 1922,2.
 
5 "Vaterlandische Feier," Volkischer Beobachter, November 8, 1922, 4.
 
6 PDM report to the BSMI from November 14, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 73685, fiche  1, 4, 5, 8.
 
7 RKUo0 report to the BSMA from January 31, 1924, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103456, 7.
 
8 PDM report to the BSMI from January 22, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 25, number 81592, 10.
 
9 Aleksandr von Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, February 11-14, March 5- 6, November 21, 1923,  GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 10, reel I, 4102; reel 2, 4120; delo 13, reel 2, 5861.
 
10 DB report from April 9, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 4, 334.
 
11 Lampe, Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, March 5-6, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo 10, reel 2, 4120.
 
12 PDM report to the BSMA from December 12, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103472, 50.
 
13 Nicolai's commentary on Ludendorff’s letter to him from March 20, 1923, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 22, 26.

14 Nicolai's commentary on Ludendorff's letter to him from March 20, 1923, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA  (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 22, 26; Julia Hass (Otto von Kursell's daughter), personal interview, January 21, 2003.
 
15 Scheubner-Richter, "Ruckblicke und Parallelen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, July 19, 1922, 2-4.

16 Scheubner-Richter, "Was wir von unseren Feinden lernen konnen!", Aufbau-Korrespondenz, January  14,1922, I.
 
17 Scheubner-Richter, "Die Rote Armee: Was wir von Sowjetrussland lernen konnen!", Aufbau-Korrespondenz, March 22, 1923, 1-3.
 
18 Scheubner-Richter, "Die Rote Armee," Volkischer Beobachter, March 21, 1923, 3; March 22, 1923, 2.
 
19 Scheubner-Richter, "Die Rote Armee," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, March 22, 1923, 3.
 
20 Scheubner-Richter, "Die Rote Armee," Volkischer Beobachter, March 23, 1923, 3.
 
21 Ernst Nolte, Der europaische Burgerkrieg 1917-1945: Nationalsozialismus und Bolschewismus (Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen Verlag, 1987), 21, 22.
 
22 PDM report to the BSMI from April 11, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6707, 16.
 
23 PDM report from April 28, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 288; RKUoO report from June 21, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 344, 8.
 
24 PDM report from January 15, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 405, 406.
 
25 PDM report to the BSMI from May 3, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 25, number 81594, 6.
 
26 RKUoO report to the BSMA from January 31, 1924, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103456. 7; Lampe,  Dnevnik (Diary), Berlin, April 16-20, 1923, GARF, fond 5853, opis 1, delo II, reel I, 4698.
 
27 Theodor Endres, ''Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch 1923," 1945, BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number 925, 20.
 
28 "Deutsche Maifeier," Volkischer Beobachter, May 3, 1923, 2.
 
29 Endres, "Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  925, 22, 23.
 
30 Scheubner-Richter, “Bittere Betrachtungen," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, April 19, 1923, 2.
 
31 Endres, "Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  925, 3, 4, 10, 22, 23.
 
32 RKUo0 reports from May 2 and 23, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 388, 2; number 343, 261.
 
33 Johannes Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 1900-1945: Deutsch-russische Beziehungen im 20.  Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 268.
 
34 RKUoO reports from May 23 and October 5, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 343, 261; number 388, 40.
 
35 PDM report from June 1, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 322.
 
36 Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National  Socialism, trans. Jean Steinberg (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), 87.
 
37 RKUoO report from November 18, 1923, BAB, 134, number 78, 14.
 
38 RKUoO report from May 15, 1923 presented at 4. SAUV report on October 12, 1927, BHSAM,  BSMA 36, number 103476/1, 41.
 
39 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 368.
 
40 Ludendorff, Meine Lebenserinnerungen, 204, cited from Baur, "Russische Emigranten und die  bayerische Offentlichkeit, Bayern und Osteuropa: Aus der Geschichte der Beziehungen Bayerns,  Frankens und Schwabens mit Russland, der Ukraine, und Weissrussland, ed. Hermann Beyer-Thoma  (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000), 472; Nicolai's commentary on his letter to Ludendorff  from February 18, 1922, Tagebuch (Diary), RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 20, 171.
 
41 Letter from Vladimir Biskupskii to Arno Schickedanz from October 21, 1939, APA, BAB, NS 43,  number 35, 12, 13.
 
42 James and Suzanne Pool, Hitlers Wegbereiter zur Macht, trans. Hans Thomas (New York: The Dial  Press, 1978), 107.
 
43 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 639.
 
44 DB report from July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 370.
 
45 Pool, Hitler’s Wegbereiter zur Macht, 53.
 
46 2. SAUV report from October 6, 1927, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103476/1, 113; DB report from  July 3, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 876, reel 4, 367.
 
47 DB report from July 23, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 7, opis 1, delo 1255, reel 2, 209.
 
48 Andreas Remmer's testimony from June 1, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103009, 12; PBH/AII  report to the RKUoO from July 24, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 71, 157.
 
49 RKUoO report from August 14, 1925, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo 105b, 99.
 
50 Letter from the organizers of the "First World Congress for the Protection of the Christian Nations"  to Ludwig Muller von Hausen from April 26, 1921, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 577, opis 2, delo 10, 7;  PDM report to the BSMA. from December 12, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103472, 50.
 
51 BSMI report to the BSMA from March 22, 1924, BHSAM, BSMA36, number 103472, 47.
 
 52 Letter from Josef Gaal to NSDAP Headquarters from September 8, 1923 included in a PDM report  to the BSMA from December 12, 1923, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103472, 51.
 
53 Letter from Weiss to Hitler from September 17, 1923, IZG, Fa 88, 30; PDM report from September  18, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 439.
 
54 Friedrich Weber, "An die Herren Landes- und Kreisleiter!”, September 26, 1923, included in a  RKUoO report from November 9, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 343, 314.
 
55 PDM report from September 18, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6697, 439.
 
56 Scheubner-Richter, “Die Rote Armee," Volkischer Beobachter, March 22, 1923, 3.
 
57 Scheubner-Richter, "Deutschlands Bolschewisierung," Volkischer Beobachter, September 21, 1923, I.
 
58 Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (London: B. T.  Batsford Ltd., 1972), 13.
 
59 Geoffrey G. Field, Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain (New  York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 435-438.
 
60 Houston Stewart Chamberlain, "Gott will est Betrachtung uber den gegenwartigen Zustand  Deutschlands," Volkischer Beobachter, November 9, 1923, 1.
 
61 Hartmut Zelinsky, Sieg oder Untergang: Siegund Untergang. Kaiser Wilhelm II, die Werk-ldee Richard  Wagners und der "WeItkampf” (Munich: Keyser, 1990), 12.
 
62 Hitler, Mein Kampf 269.
 
63 RP report from November 6, 1923, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 73694, fiche 2, 18.
 
64 Heinrich Class, Wider den Strom, vol. 2, BAK, Kleine Erwerbung 499, 698.
 
65 II. SAUV report, [September-November] 1927, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103476/2, 634, 639.
 
66 ''Ausnahmezustand im Reich und in Bayern. Eine deutliche Absage," Bayerischer Kurier, October 4, 1923, reprinted in a PDM report from October 30, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6708, 151.
 
67 RKUo0 report from October 4. 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 2, delo 189, 78.
 
68 RKUoO reports from October 18 and November 18, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 558, 116; 134, number 78, 13.
 
69 RKUoO report from October 9, 1923, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 4, delo 13, 164.
 
70 RKUoO report to the BSMA from January 31, 1924, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103456, 8.
 
71 Endres, ''Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  92 5, 35.
 
72 Nicolai's commentary on his telegraph to Ludendorff from November 10, 1923, Tagebuch (Diary),  RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 1414, opis 1, delo 22, 99; Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis, 342, 343.
 
73 Interview with Mathilde Scheubner-Richter on April 3, 1936, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number  1263, 5.
 
74 Konrad Heiden, Der Fuhrer: Hitler's Rise to Power, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton  Mifflin, 1944), 186.
 
75 Hitler, speech on November 8, 1923, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, eds. Eberhard Jackel and  Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), 1054.
 
76 ''An die Munchener Bevolkerung!", leaflet in possession of the PDM, BSAM, PDM, number 6711,  5.
 
77 Deposition of Georg Rauh to the PDM on November 19, 1923, BSAM:, PDM, number 6709, 3.
 
78 Interview with Mathilde Scheubner-Richter on April 3, 1936, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number  1263, 5.
 
79 Endres, "Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  92 5, 46, 47.
 
80 Interview with Gerhard Rossbach on December 13, 1951, IZG, ZS 128, 9.
 
81 Endres, "Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  925, 40, 44, 45.
 
82 KI report on the Hitler Putsch, RGASPI, fond 495, opis 33, delo 306,108.
 
83 DGBud reports to the BSMA from November 10, 1923 and January 16, 1924, BHSAM, BSMA 36,  number 103472, 49, 53.
 
84 SALM report to the PDM from November 29, 1923, BSAM, PDM, number 6707, 67.
 
85 RKUoO report from November 18, 1923, BAB, 134, number 78, 13.
 
86 RKUo0 report from December 13, 1923, BAB, 1507, number 558, 147.
 
87 Interview with Mathilde Scheubner-Richter on April 3, 1936, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number  1263, 6.
 
88 APA report to the A9N from November 2,1937, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 519, opis 4, delo 26,134.
 
89 Interview with Mathilde Scheubner-Richter on April 3, 1936, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number  1263, 7.
 
90 Endres, ''Aufzeichnungen uber den Hitlerputsch," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number  925, 56.
 
91 The Hitler Trial: Before the People's Court in Munich, vol. I, trans. H. Francis Freniere, eds. Lucie  Karcic and Philip Fandek (Arlington: University Publications of America, 1976), 59.
 
92 RKUoO report [1925?], RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 3, delo 781, 4; RKUo0 report to the  BSMA from January 31,1924, BHSAM, BSMA 36, number 103456, 8.
 
93 RKUoO report from February 9, 1924, BAB, 1507, number 442, 210.
 
94 Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 204; Norman Cohn, 'Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the  Jewish World Conspiracy and the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion " (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981),  141.
 
95 PPS report to the AA from November 14, [924, PAAA, 83584, 168, 170; RKUoO report from July  1927, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis I, delo 91, 51.
 
96 Scheubner-Richter, "Klarheit," AuJbau-Korrespondenz, January 17, 1923, 2.
 
97 Georg Franz-Willing, Ursprung der Hitlerbewegung 1919-1922 (Preussisch Oldendorf: K. W. Schutz  KG, 1974), 198.
 
98 Otto von Kursell, "Die Trauerfeierlichkeiten: Einaschung auf dem Munchner Ostfriedhof am 17.  November 10 Uhr fruh," Dr. Ing. M E. von Scheubner-Richter gefallen am 9. November 1923 (Munich:  Muller und Sohn, November 1923), NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number 1263, 3.
 
99 Kursell, "Die Linie im Leben Max von Scheubner-Richters," Dr. Ing. M E. von Scheubner-Richter  gefallen am 9. November 1923, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number 1263, 4.
 
100 Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko, "Ein schoner Tad," Dr. Ing. M E. von Scheubner-Richter gefallen  am 9. November 1923, NSDAPHA, BAB, NS 26, number 1263, 4.
 
101 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 687.
 
 02 Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, trans. Norman Cameron and R. H.  Stevens, second edn. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), 173
 
103 RKUoO reports from April 25, 1924, September 17, 1923, and January 24, 1923 RGVA (TsKhIDK),  fond 772, opis 3, delo 81a, 38, 45, 54.
 
104 RKUoO report from May 7, 1925, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 4, delo 52, 145.
 
105 PDM report to the RKUoO from September 14, 1926, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 772, opis 1, delo  101, 22.
 
106 Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race, 42.
 
107 Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (London: Penguin Press, 1998), 211.
 
101 Hitler, Mein Kampf 687.
 
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

Postby admin » Mon Apr 22, 2019 1:41 am

Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER 8: The four writers of the apocalypse

The early National Socialist preoccupation with the "Jewish Bolshevik" peril manifested itself in the lead article of a July 1922 edition of the Party newspaper the Volkischer Beobachter (Volkisch Observer). This essay asserted that the National Socialist movement had begun by warning: "Germany is rushing towards Bolshevism with giant strides." The article, signed by the "Party leadership," asked,"Do you want to wait until, as in Russia, a Bolshevik murder squad comes into operation in every city and bumps off everyone who does not want to bow to the Jewish dictatorship as a 'counterrevolutionary?'" The Party leadership stressed that this and worse would "occur with the same methodicalness as in Russia" unless the Germans realized that "one has to fight now if one wants to live.'" Resistance to "Jewish Bolshevism," cast in terms of a life and death struggle, formed a central tenet of early National Socialist ideology.

In his book The Occult Establishment, the historian James Webb asserts that exiled "Russian idealists" served "as witnesses to the national tragedy and reminders of the insecurity which also troubled the West; as bearers of an illuminated culture that was preoccupied with Apocalypse; and as carriers of the plague of conspiracy-theory politics.'" Webb correctly assesses the destabilizing influence of Russian expatriates. Several White emigres significantly affected the virulently anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic National Socialist Weltanschauung. Adolf Hitler, who only began to develop strong anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic views in the second half of 1919, learned extensively from some White emigres. This chapter examines influential written sources of Aufbau views grouped thematically (including some passages printed before Aufbau's official inception in the fall of 1920) and assesses their impact on Hitler's ideas.

In his groundbreaking 1939 work The Apocalypse of Our Times, the French scholar Henri Rollin noted the crucial roles that three White emigre Aufbau members, Max von Scheubner-Richter, Fedor Vinberg, and Alfred Rosenberg, played in shaping National Socialism. In particular, Rollin asserted that the three colleagues were astounded at the success that the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, who had himself been an obscure emigre, had achieved by using mass propaganda and brutally destroying his adversaries after seizing power. The White emigre trio, Rollin claimed, sought to fight fire with fire by using Lenin's own methods to defeat him.3 While Bolshevism appalled them, Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, and Rosenberg nonetheless learned from its ruthless tactics.

Building upon the anti-Semitic ideas of the Imperial Russian author Fedor Dostoevskii, fundamental Aufbau views as expressed by Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, and Rosenberg maintained that an insidious Jewish world conspiracy manipulated an unholy alliance between rapacious finance capitalism and bloodthirsty Bolshevism. This subversive and destructive phenomenon manifested itself most terribly in the Soviet Union. "Jewish Bolshevism" there, according to Aufbau ideology, not only caused the death of millions of Russians through war, starvation, disease, and misrule, but deliberately worked to annihilate the Russian nationalist Christian intelligentsia. "Jewish Bolsheviks" threatened to spread their terrifying acts of eradication to Germany and beyond in the near future.

The White emigre Aufbau members Vinberg, Rosenberg, and Scheubner-Richter (the last two of whom also served as important National Socialists) transmitted anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic White emigre thought with its conspiratorial and apocalyptic overtones to Hitler both directly and indirectly through Hitler's early volkisch mentor, Dietrich Eckart. Eckart collaborated with Rosenberg and the Aufbau artist Otto von Kursell in the volkisch newspaper Auf gut deutsch (In Plain German) from 1919 to 1921, he may well have belonged to Aufbau himself, and he edited the Volkisch Observer from 1921 until Rosenberg de facto replaced him in May 1923. He played a formative role in the genesis of National Socialist ideology. The Volkisch Observer praised him as the "champion and intellecrual forerunner of the National Socialist movement."4

Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, and Rosenberg warned apocalyptically of the threatened perdition of Germany and the rest of Europe and even the world through "Jewish Bolshevism," and Eckart borrowed from Aufbau's apocalyptic standpoint in his writings. He equated the perceived apocalyptic Jewish world menace with "Jewish Bolshevism." He thus served as the fourth "writer of the apocalypse." While General Count Rudiger von der Goltz had directed the anti-Bolshevik Latvian Intervention of 1919 in the spirit of "ex oriente lux!" ("from the East - light!"), White emigre Aufbau ideologues and their volkisch comrade Eckart emphasized the negative corollary of this motto, namely ex oriente obscuritas! (from the East - darkness!).

THE "JEWISH BOLSHEVIK" PERIL

In developing his intensely anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic outlook, Hitler borrowed extensively from the ideas of Eckart and Aufbau White emigres, although he later tried to minimize the importance of outside influences on his ideas in Munich. In Mein Kampf, he claimed of his time in Vienna (1908-1913): "There took shape within me a world picture and a philosophy which became the granite foundation of all my acts. In addition to what I then created, I have had to learn little; and I have had to alter nothing."5 As we noted in the Introduction, Brigitte Hamann's 1996 work, Hitler's Vienna: Apprentice Years of a Dictator, convincingly refutes notions of Hitler's early anti-Semitic ideological development.6 Moreover, while Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that one should not enter politics until the age of thirty, for it is only then that one possesses a firm Weltanschauung, the historian Eberhard Jackel has demonstrated that Hitler did not possess a fully developed world view by 1919, when he was thirty.7

Hitler harbored standard socialist views well into 1919. Hitler's former immediate commander on the Western Front in World War I, Aide-de-Camp Hans Mend, asserted that his earlier underling had exclaimed towards the end of 1918 in Munich: "Thank God that the kings' crowns have fallen from the tree. Now we proletarians also have something to say."8

Records suggest that Hitler served the socialist Bavarian government beginning in the middle of February 1919 as the Vertrauensmann (representative) of his military company in Traunstein outside of Munich. He transmitted propaganda from the socialist government to the soldiers in Traunstein's barracks. He was voted deputy battalion representative in April 1919, meaning that he was to ensure that the soldiers under his supervision remained loyal to the socialist Bavarian regime. Moreover, in subsequent years, Hitler earned scorn from the ranks of the National Socialist Party for not helping to overthrow the Raterepublik (Bavarian Soviet Republic) in May 1919.9

Hitler only began to develop a detailed anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic ideology beginning in the second half of 1919 through his collaboration with Eckart and Rosenberg, who served as his early mentors. Mend confirmed Hitler's rapid political lurch from the far left to the far right in postwar Munich. When he heard Hitler speak publicly at the beginning of 1920, he thought: ''Adi has changed his colors, the red lad!"10 In addition to borrowing anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic ideas from Eckart and Rosenberg, Hitler soon learned far right concepts that castigated "Jewish Bolshevism" from the Aufbau ideologues Scheubner-Richter and Vinberg as well.

Following World War I, White emigres in general and Aufbau ideologues in particular used the Russian author Fedor Dostoevskii's right-wing views to further their political agendas. Aufbau's concentration on Dostoevskii's ideas formed part of what the German historian Otto-Ernst Schliddekopf has termed the spread of a "Dostoevskii myth" in postwar Germany.11 To begin with, the Aufbau author Vinberg drew from Dostoevskii's views on the alleged Jewish peril, most notably as expressed in Diary of a Writer. In his 1922 work translated from Russian into German as Der Kreuzesweg Russlands (Russia, Via Dolorosa), Vinberg mentioned Dostoevskii first and foremost among those thinkers who had conceived the existence of a "powerful, organized, international, Jewish-Masonic power that endeavors to achieve world domination."12 Vinberg cited a March 1877 passage from Diary of a Writer, but he altered it to lend it a more sinister aspect:

Their empire is drawing near, their entire empire! The triumph of the Jews is nearing, before which brotherly love, the truth, Christian sentiments, and the national pride of the European peoples will fade and recede. A heap of Jews will rise above humanity increasingly stronger and more powerful and will endeavor to make its mark on the entire world.


Dostoevskii had not written the last sentence about a "heap of Jews," but the gist of Vinberg's doctored citation conforms to what Dostoevskii did assert with regard to the Jews. Vinberg commented on his altered quote from Dostoevskii,"This prophecy of such a great authority on the human soul has been fulfilled. The entire world is now in the clutches of these Anti-Christs."13 Vinberg granted Dostoevskii prophetic powers, particularly with regard to the "Jewish question."

Like his Aufbau colleague Vinberg, Rosenberg greatly respected Dostoevskii. On the title page of his 1920 book, Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten (The Trail of the Jew through the Ages), he quoted from Dostoevskii: "The Jewish idea is that of profiteering." Later in this work, he credited Dostoevskii with recognizing the basic Jewish principle of "exploiting all peoples."" In a February 1921 article in Eckart's newspaper In Plain German, Rosenberg argued that nationalist Russians needed to draw strength from the "old Slavic force." He asserted,"One already finds the prophecies for this [process] in Dostoevskii."15 Rosenberg believed Dostoevskii's ideas to have a regenerative effect.

Rosenberg also praised Dostoevskii in his 1922 treatise, Pest in Russland! Der Bolschewismus, seine Haupter, Handlanger und Opfer (Plague in Russia! Bolshevism, Its Heads, Henchmen, and Victims), which admirably described the "essence and development of Jewish Bolshevism" according to the Volkisch Observer.16 He labeled Dostoevskii "the greatest of all Russians." He argued that if one read Dostoevskii's Diary of a Writer carefully, then one could understand a great deal about the present horrible situation in the Soviet Union.17 Like Vinberg, Rosenberg ascribed remarkable perceptive powers to one of Imperial Russia's most famous authors.

Aufbau propagandists disseminated Dostoevskii's assertions of a sinister Jewish world conspiracy to members of the German radical right, including National Socialists. Dostoevskii's influence on the early National Socialist movement manifested itself in a July 1921 edition of Der Nationalsozialist (The National Socialist), a replacement periodical for the temporarily Outlawed Volkisch Observer. The National Socialist contained an article under the pseudonym "Alarich" titled,"Dostoevskii (Born 1821) and the Jewish Question." The essay quoted from Dostoevskii's Diary of a Writer from March 1877, with slight modifications:

What would happen if there were three million Russians and 80 million Jews in Russia instead of the other way around, what would the latter do with the Russians, how would they handle them? ... Would they nor simply make them into slaves? Or worse yet, would they not skin them completely? Would they not exterminate them entirely, not destroy them just as they had other peoples earlier in their ancient history?


The article in The National Socialist also cited the above-mentioned passage from Dostoevskii's March 1877 section of Diary of a Writer, which asserted of the Jews: "Their empire is approaching, their whole empire! The triumph of ideas is beginning before which feelings of philanthropy, thirst for the truth, Christian and national feelings, and even the racial pride of European peoples bow." The piece's commentary argued that the mystically inclined Russian author had expressed "timeless truths that have always held and will always hold as long as there are Jews."18 National Socialists revered Dostoevskii's anti-Semitic ideas.

An unsigned essay in a January 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer,"Dostoevskii as Politician and Prophet," quoted from a passage of Dostoevskii's that was first published in an anniversary edition of Diary of a Writer in 1906.19 The article cited Dosroevskii's assertion: ""When the entire wealth of Europe has been wasted, the bank of the Jew will remain. Then the Anti-Christ may come and anarchy rule." The commentary on Dostoevskii's warning asserted:

Anarchy already rules in Russia today ... Russia ignored the admonitions of Dostoevskii and so the poet of yesterday will become the poet of the Russia of tomorrow, which with its return to the volkisch will have found its way home out of anarchy. For the rest of Europe, however, Dostoevskii is still the poet and admonisher for today, for perhaps already tomorrow "may the Anti-Christ come and anarchy rule."20


Such a detailed treatment of Dostoevskii's anti-Semitic warnings in the official National Socialist newspaper demonstrated considerable acceptance of the author's ideas among National Socialists.

Rosenberg owed a significant debt to Dostoevskii in forming his conception of the Jews as the manipulators of both capitalism and socialism/ Bolshevism. Eckart, Vinberg, and Scheubner-Richter also treated the theme of a monstrous capitalist-Bolshevik embrace through the agency of the Jews. In a March 1921 article in the Volkisch Observer, Rosenberg credited Dostoevskii with recognizing "the continual growth of the Jewish stock exchange and the Jewish revolution." Rosenberg then asserted that now the "Jewish stock exchange has united with the Jewish Revolution."" Rosenberg stressed in an August 1921 edition of the Volkisch Observer,"It has come as the seer Dostoevskii prophesied 50 years ago: 'Now the times of great wars and great revolutions are coming. And the international Jewish bank will emerge victorious from them!"'22

Rosenberg argued that a capitalist-Bolshevik Jewish conspiracy existed on other occasions. In a March 1920 article in In Plain German that he wrote in collaboration with Eckart, Rosenberg argued that while the "most unscrupulous Jewish terror" in Russia "ruins the economy and industry; when all is said and done, it works for stock market speculators and big capitalists."23 In his introduction to a work of verse and drawings that Eckart and his Baltic German assistant Kursell produced in 1921, Totengraber Russlands (Russia's Gravediggers), Rosenberg claimed: "The Bolsheviks were and are the envoys of the stock market Jews from all countries," and "it was Jewish money which paid for the machine of subversion." After the victory of "Jewish Bolshevism," the "Russian national assets" came under the control of "Jewish high finance and its satellites."24

Rosenberg also linked finance capitalism and Bolshevism with scheming Jews in two of his early major works. In his 1922 book Plague in Russia!, he asserted: "If one understands capitalism as the high-powered exploitation of the masses by a quite small minority, then there has never been a greater capitalist state in history than the Jewish Soviet government since the days of October 1917."25 In his 1923 treatise Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die judische Weltpolitik (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Jewish World-Politics), he labeled "Jewish high finance as the breeder of Marxism, of terrorism," and he described the "world political cooperation of Jewish high finance with the most extreme Marxism." He further argued: "Nowadays the red and golden Internationals have openly become the Jewish National as they earlier secretly were."26 Rosenberg thus claimed that whereas earlier, Jews had sought to control events from behind the scenes, they had now openly emerged as the driving force behind both finance capitalism and Bolshevism.

Rosenberg's views on the firm ties between both finance capitalism and Bolshevism through a worldwide Jewish conspiracy became official National Socialist ideology, as witnessed in Rosenberg's January 1923 essay, Wesen, Grundsatze und Ziele der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (Essence, Principles, and Objectives of the National Socialist German Workers Party).27 Hitler thanked Rosenberg for crafting this "extension of the Party Program."28 In his treatise, which was published in abbreviated form in a September 1923 edition of the National Socialist, Rosenberg examined the "greatest fraud of the 19th century, as it finally triumphed in Moscow in November 1917 and in Berlin in November 1918: the anticapitalist world revolution led by world capital." He asserted that "this enormous world fraud" had only been made possible by the fact that Jews led capitalism as well as Marxism.29 Rosenberg's conception of a monstrous capitalist-Bolshevik embrace through the agency of world Jewry greatly influenced National Socialist ideology.

At the time of his close collaboration with Rosenberg in the publication of In Plain German, Hitler's mentor Eckart also argued that the Jews linked finance capitalism with Bolshevism. In a November 1920 essay, '''Jewry uber alles'" ("'Jewry above Everything"'), Eckart maintained that both capitalism and Bolshevism represented means to the end of a Jewish world dictatorship. He wrote of a prevalent "error" that usually constituted a "conscious lie," namely that the Jews, given that they embodied capitalism to a certain degree, would never launch Bolshevism or even support it since it sought to destroy capital. He insisted: ''As if the Jewish people, if it were one day to have unlimited power on earth, would not have everything under the sun, all gold and silver and the other riches of the world, everything but yet everything!"30 Capitalism and Bolshevism for Eckart thus represented Jewish tools for achieving world domination.

In his work Russia's Via Dolorosa, the Aufbau ideologue Vinberg did not concern himself greatly with the alleged connections between high finance and Bolshevism through a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. He did, however. argue: "The Bolshevik movement as such in a certain sense is to be described as a purely Jewish one, and ... certain Jewish banks are interested in it."31 Vinberg tended to view matters from a religious standpoint and did not treat economic matters in detail, but he nevertheless propagated the basic White emigre thesis that Jewish capitalists had financed the Bolshevik revolution.

Vinberg's leader in Aufbau, Scheubner-Richter, upheld the idea of world Jewry's manipulation of both finance capitalism and allied Bolshevism. In a September 1922 essay in Aufbau-Korrespondenz (Aufbau Correspondence), Scheubner-Richter stressed that the worldwide victory of Bolshevism would entail the "enslavement of the German people through the Communist and golden-Jewish International."32 He argued along similar lines in an article in a September 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer,"Germany's Bolshevization." He maintained,"French chauvinism as the bailiff of international finance," like "Russian Bolshevism," in reality represented a "tool in the hands of the Jewish International."33 He thus portrayed Germany as the victim of a worldwide conspiracy led by Jewish high finance that manifested itself in the twin threats of the French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Basin in the West and Bolshevik pressure from the East.

Hitler, who relied greatly upon Scheubner-Richter's advice regarding both domestic and foreign affairs, repeatedly treated the theme espoused by Aufbau White emigres and Eckart that Jewish finance capitalism supported Bolshevism. In a June 1922 speech, Hitler blamed Jewish capital for the perils that faced Germany to the East and to the West. He employed a manner of reasoning similar to that of Scheubner-Richter in claiming: "Chinese henchmen in Moscow and black ones on the Rhine stand as cultural guardians of Jewish capitalism."" Hitler thus expressed a White emigre view of influential finance Jews hiring minions of color to perform their dirty work for them in both the Soviet Union and in the West.

During his close political collaboration with Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau Hitler often treated circumstances inside the Soviet Union to back his claim that Jewish finance capitalism lurked behind Bolshevism. In a September 1922 speech dealing with the Soviet Union's "New Economic Policy," he argued that private capitalism was temporarily being reinstated, but

the only capitalists are the Jews, and so the circle that Marxist theory aims at is complete: expropriation of private capitalism, through socialization to state capitalism and back to private capitalism. In this process, capital only changed big wigs and work methods changed. Only the Jew is proprietor and there is a 14-hour working day.


He warned,"A Jewification of the economy as in Russia is inevitably being carried out among us as well."35 Hitler thus used perceived atrocious Soviet conditions as a model of things to come in Germany because of the insidious drive of Jewish capitalists for wealth and power.

Hitler emphasized during a January 1923 speech that the Marxist theory of class struggle was a swindle propagated by the Jews. He stressed that the National Socialist Party firmly believed that the gathering Bolshevik revolution in Germany "will not concern a struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, for, as in Russia, both will become the slaves of him who has seduced the one and led the other: the Jew. The NSDAP is rather of the conviction that this is about a racial struggle."36 By 1923, Hitler had thoroughly internalized the Aufbau view that Jewish finance capitalists used Bolshevism to enslave European peoples, most notably Russians and Germans.

In his post-1923 writings, Hitler also labeled Bolshevism a pernicious outgrowth of Jewish capitalism. In Mein Kampf, he wrote of Bolshevism in "Russia" as a means "to give a gang of Jewish Journalists and stock exchange bandits domination over a great people." In another section of his autobiography, he warned that the "Marxist shock troops of international stock exchange capital" sought to

break the back of the German national state for good and all ... with friendly aid from outside. The armies of France must, therefore, besiege the German state structure until the Reich, inwardly exhausted, succumbs to the Bolshevistic shock troop of international Jewish world finance. And so the Jew today is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany.37


Hitler again linked capitalism and Bolshevism with the schemes of international Jewry in his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf in which he primarily dealt with foreign policy matters. He asserted,"The national White Russia fought against the Jewish-speculative ... international capitalist Red Revolution." He further wrote of the current "Jewish capitalist Bolshevik Russia."38 Aufbau's views that the Jews used Bolshevism for the purposes of capitalist exploitation thus not only found expression in Hitler's early speeches, but in his later ideological works as well.

In addition to maintaining that Jewish financiers supported Bolshevism in order to achieve world rule, Aufbau ideologues and Eckart emphasized that the Bolshevik regime was an almost strictly Jewish undertaking. In Aufbau Correspondence, Scheubner-Richter asserted on one occasion that 80 percent of Soviet Commissars were Jews, while he later put the figure at 90 percent.39 He also argued,"Today's 'Russian' Soviet government consists mainly of Jews."40 In an April 1923 article, he emphasized that the "outrageous terror" in the former Russian Empire represented the "revenge of the Jews against the Russian people."41

Scheubner-Richter's Aufbau colleague Vinberg also treated the theme of the overwhelmingly Jewish nature of Bolshevism. In his work Russia's Via Dolorosa, he presented a historical schema in which over fifty years of "Jewish revolutionary agitation" in Imperial Russia had led to what others had termed the "Great All-Russian Revolution," bur which deserved to be called the "Jewish Revolution." He further claimed that 545 leaders exercised dictatorial control over "Russia," of which 447 were Jews.42

Vinberg's ideological comrade in Aufbau, Rosenberg, who borrowed from Vinberg's ideas in his writings, consistently emphasized Bolshevism's Jewish nature.43 He titled his first article for Eckart's In Plain German,"The Russian-Jewish Revolution." He claimed in his February 1919 essay that Jews in Russia had erected an "almost purely Jewish 'Russian' government" with Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin representing nothing bur the "Russian advertisement of the Jewish undertaking."44 Rosenberg repeated his "Russian advertisement" charge regarding Lenin in his first book, The Trail of the Jew through the Ages. In this 1920 work, he also stressed that he had traveled in Russia from Petrograd in the north to the Crimea in the south in 1917 and 1918 and had noted that where Bolsheviks had gathered,"90 out of 100 of them were Jews."45 In a Match 1921 edition of In Plain German, he argued that approximately 90 percent of Soviet Commissars were Jews.46 And he asserted in the Volkisch Observer in August 1921: "The names of all the Jewish executioners are available, of 550 governmental Commissars ... 457 are Jews!"47

Rosenberg labeled Bolshevism a "Jewish dictatorship." He claimed in an April 1923 edition of the Volkisch Observer that "Bolshevism" represented a "purely Jewish dictatorship with the help of the scum of a people over the best of the nation."48 Here he demonstrated his belief in the victim status of Russians at the hands of Jews. Rosenberg's assertions of Bolshevism's Jewish essence found widespread acceptance in Hitler's National Socialist Party. Writing in In Plain German in April 1921, Rosenberg credited the NSDAP alone among German political entities with expressing "the truth" about the "shameless Jewish dictatorship" over the peoples of the Soviet Union.49

Like Rosenberg, his assistant in In Plain German, Eckart viewed Bolshevism as a primarily Jewish phenomenon. In November 1919, he wrote in a manner similar to Rosenberg that "Jewish men of terror" truly led Bolshevism, with Lenin "only the one who has been put forward" as a front man.50 He further asserted in February 1920 that of the total of 457 Soviet Commissars, 422 were Jews.51 In a November 1920 article in In Plain German, Eckart cited an English source that placed the current number of Jewish Commissars at 446 out of 574.52 Eckart continued to present Bolshevism as a Jewish menace after he began editing the Volkisch Observer in August 1921 on Hitler's personal invitation.53 Eckart asserted in an October 1921 edition of the National Socialist newspaper that the "true purpose of the Russian Revolution" represented the "murderous enslavement of an entire people by Jewry."54

Aufbau ideologues and their colleague Eckart consistently conceived overwhelming Jewish preponderance in Bolshevism, and they impressed this view forcefully upon Hitler. He claimed in an August 1920 speech that out of 478 Soviet delegates, 430 were Jews,"always the greatest enemies of the national Russian."55 In the first article that he wrote for the Volkisch Observer, a January 1921 essay,"The Volkisch Idea and the Party," Hitler argued that out of a population of 150 million, there remained "perhaps only 600, 000 who, not appalled at the hideousness of the Jewish blood dictatorship, do not damn this people and its diabolical infamies."56 In Hitler's Aufbau-influenced view of Bolshevik Russia, a small Jewish minority oppressed millions through terror.

Hitler equated Bolshevism with Jewish rule in a March 1921 article in the Volkisch Observer,"Statesmen or National Criminals." He asserted: "Struggle against Bolshevism in Russia means the eradication of the Jews!" He argued,"The Russian worker will thoroughly solve the Jewish question" after recognizing the Jews as "devils" who had "promised heaven" but had created "hell." The "solution" that Hitler referred to did not mean the extermination of Jews along the lines of the Endlosung (Final Solution). He used imagery from the biblical Exodus to assert that the solving of the "Jewish question" in Russia would cause problems for Germany, for now "the great migration will begin. Russia today has become a desert. The Jew again longs for fleshpots. 'Joseph-Rathenau' Germany appears to them to be the Egypt of the future." While, he asserted, the Jews would not find a "Nile Delta," they would at least have a "Spree-Berlin."57 At this point in his career, Hitler wanted to expel Jews from Germany, and he feared that more Jews would come to Germany when "Jewish Bolshevism" collapsed.

Hitler stressed the fundamentally Jewish nature of Bolshevism on other occasions. In April 1922, he asserted that "400 Soviet Commissars of Jewish nationality" lived lives of abundance, whereas 30 million Russians were reduced to eating "roots and grass" to prolong their lives for "a few weeks or days."58 In forming his concept of "Jewish Bolshevism," Hitler learned a great deal from Vinberg in particular. Aufbau leadership assigned Vinberg to hold detailed ideological discussions with Hitler by the fall of 1922 at the latest. As of October 1922, Vinberg had already held numerous lengthy personal discussions with Hitler. '9 Notes that Hitler made for a November 1922 speech demonstrated Vinberg's influence over his thinking on the "Jewish question." Hitler cited "Col[onel] Weinberg" [sic] that the Soviet Union represented a "Jewish state." He further jotted down,"Outcome: collapse ilia Russia. Jewish dictatorship. Evidence (Weinberg) [sic]."60

Vinberg's colleagues Scheubner-Richter and Rosenberg in particular stressed that the "Jewish Bolshevik" dictatorship had killed millions of Russians through war, disease, starvation, and execution. In an October 1922 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, Scheubner-Richter estimated the costs of the "Bolshevik experiment" to the Russian people at approximately two million refugees and 35 million dead.61 In an August 1921 Volkisch Observer article,"The Pogrom Against the German and the Russian Peoples," Rosenberg claimed of Russia: "A characteristic Jewish rule of terror was set up as world history had not yet seen ... Over 30 million people have sunk away through murder, starvation, and cholera."62 He revised his figures upwards in his 1923 Protocols work. He asserted,"Over 40 million Russians perished through the Jewish terror."63 Hitler used the figure of 40 million Russian victims of starvation that the Jews had caused as early as an August 1921 speech.64

Scheubner-Richter and Rosenberg accused the "Jewish Bolshevik" regime of deliberately and systematically annihilating the nationalist Russian spiritual and intellectual leadership. Scheubner-Richter argued in an April 1922 Aufbau Correspondence article,"The Plunder of the Church": "Right at the beginning of its rule, Bolshevism began the methodical persecution of the Orthodox Church hand in hand with the general extermination of the Russian intelligentsia."65 In a June 1923 article in Aufbau Correspondence,"The Third International at Work," he described the Jewish scheme to establish the "rule of the international Jews." In Russia, this undertaking "began with the extermination of the Russian national intelligentsia."66

Like his Aufbau colleague Scheubner-Richter, Rosenberg accused "Jewish Bolsheviks" of annihilating nationalist Russians. In his above-mentioned August 1921 article in the Volkisch Observer,"The Pogrom against the German and the Russian Peoples," Rosenberg claimed: "A systematic destruction of the Russian national intelligentsia by the Jewish government began immediately after the Bolsheviks had triumphed."67 In his 1922 work Plague in Russia! he asserted,"The Jewish conspirator took the place of the expelled or murdered leadership." Moreover, he argued,"Such a systematic eradication of the national Russian leadership would never ever have taken place if Russians had been at the head of the coup. h is well known that the true dictator of Soviet Russia is the Jew Lev Trotskii." 68 Here Rosenberg demonstrated pro-Russian and anti-Semitic views by ascribing terrible Soviet exterminations to sinister Jewish elements.

Rosenberg described horrific means that "Jewish Bolsheviks" allegedly used in their efforts to eliminate nationalist Russian spiritual and intellectual leaders. In his book Plague in Russia! he wrote of a sadistic type of torture widely attributed to "Jewish and Chinese" agents of the Chrezvychainaia Komissia po Borbe s Kontr-revolutsiei (Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with Counter-revolution, usually referred to as the Cheka). This torment was euphemistically referred to as "pulling off gloves." In this gruesome process, Cheka agents supposedly dunked the victim's arms in boiling water, removed them, made circular cuts at the elbows, and stripped off the skin.69

Rosenberg's colleague Eckart emphasized the White emigre theme of the Jewish eradication of the nationalist Russian spiritual and intellectual leadership, often through horrific means. Eckart described the "pulling off gloves" form of torture in an April 1920 article,"That Which Kapp Wanted to Protect Us From." He attributed this atrocity to "Jewish Commissars" against "men, women, young girls, and even small children." Citing an English newspaper, he also depicted a method of torture whereby "Jewish Commissars" bound stone jars filled with live rats over the genitals of their prisoners and then used fire to force the vermin to gnaw their way into their victims' flesh. Eckart further wrote of the "Jewish Commissars'" mission "to eradicate Christianity root and branch" through cruel methods.70 Eckart's revulsion at sadistic "Jewish Bolshevik" means of destroying the Christian Russian leadership did not derive solely from White emigre sources, but White emigres in general and Rosenberg in particular influenced Eckart's notions of "Jewish Bolshevism" as a hideous scourge of Christianity.

In a February 1920 edition of In Plain German, Eckart used the Zunder Document as evidence of the Jewish destruction of the nationalist Russian intelligentsia. It will be recalled that the Zunder Document was a spurious anti-Semitic propaganda piece from the Russian Civil War that purported to emanate from the Central Committee of the Israelite International League.71 Eckart quoted the letter's assertion that allegedly came from Bolshevik Jews: "We must destroy the best and cleverest minds." He asserted,"Even if this document did not exist, it would be genuine, so precisely does it correspond to the Jewish way of thinking."72 Eckart believed that Jewish thought called for the mass extermination of Gentiles.

Hitler learned from the assertions of Eckart, Scheubner-Richter, and Rosenberg that "Jewish Bolshevism" had virtually annihilated the nationalist Russian intelligentsia. In his notes for a December 1920 oration, he wrote: "The bloody Jew. The Russian mortuary. Slaughter of the intellectual leadership of a people. A people without brain-workers is lost (The Soviet X Dietrich E[c]kart X)."73 In a July 1922 speech, Hitler claimed,"The Jew with his Revolution" sought his own "protection" through the "elimination of the evil national intelligentsia." He further stressed that "over 30 million people" in the Soviet Union had been "martyred, partly on the scaffold, partly through machine guns and similar means, partly in veritable slaughtering houses, and the rest through starvation in millions upon millions." In short: ''An entire people is dying out there."74 Hitler thus drew upon Eckartian and Aufbau thought in forming his view that the "Jewish Bolsheviks" decimated the Russian people and destroyed its intelligentsia.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler again treated the "Jewish Bolshevik" annihilation of the nationalist Russian intelligentsia. He drew upon Aufbau and Eckartian thought to describe a ruthless Jewish drive for world domination. With the stage set for the "last great revolution," Hitler argued:

The democratic people's Jew becomes the blood-Jew and tyrant over peoples. In a few years he tries to exterminate the national intelligentsia and by robbing the peoples of their natural intellectual leadership makes them ripe for the slave's lot of permanent subjugation.


He further asserted,"The most frightful example of this kind is offered by Russia, where [the Jew] killed or starved about thirty million people with positively fanatical savagery, in part amid inhuman tortures."75 Hitler presented Russians as the greatest victims of international Jewry's insatiable drive to destroy nationalist intelligentsias in order to achieve world rule.

In his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler further dealt with the Aufbau/Eckartian theme of the "Jewish Bolshevik" annihilation of the former leading elements of Russian society in order to establish Jewish rule. He argued that the Imperial Russian ruling class had consisted "above all" of "very many Germans (Balts!)." The Aufbau members and Baltic Germans Scheubner-Richter and Rosenberg also believed this. Hitler argued,"Jewry exterminated the previous foreign upper strata with the help of Slavic racial instincts." In the conclusion of his work, he maintained: "The total victims of this Jewish struggle for hegemony in Russia amounted to 28-30 million dead for the Russian people" in "the most terrible crime against humanity of all times."76 Hitler was outraged at what he regarded as the deliberate "Jewish Bolshevik" massacre of the best of the Russian people.

In addition to writing of horrible conditions in the Soviet Union, Vinberg, Scheubner-Richter, Rosenberg, and Eckart warned that "Jewish Bolshevism" threatened to overwhelm Germany. Rosenberg and Eckart stressed that "Jewish Bolsheviks" would eradicate the nationalist German intelligentsia after they had conquered Germany. In his work Russia's Via Dolorosa, Vinberg cautioned that "Jewish Bolshevism" threatened to engulf Germany. He asserted of the 1919 Spartacist uprising under the "Jewess Rosa Luxemburg," "The revolution in Germany developed according to the same Jewish directives as in Russia."77 In a September 1923 article in Aufbau Correspondence,"Bolshevism Ready to Pounce!", Scheubner-Richter argued that "Jewish Bolshevism" with its atrocities was on the verge of spreading to Germany. He claimed: "The greatest danger that threatens Germany is not the black and white French, but Jewish Bolshevism."78 Even at the time of the French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr, Scheubner-Richter stressed the primacy of the "Jewish Bolshevik" peril.

Rosenberg feared the spread of the Bolshevik "plague" to Germany, for he firmly believed that the triumph of Bolshevism in Germany would bring with it the Jewish annihilation of the nationalist German intelligentsia. He stressed in a March 1921 edition of the Volkisch Observer that Jews threatened to carry out the "slaughter of the national leadership" in Germany followed by "bloody Jewish terror enforced with foreign troops as in Russia."79 Here Rosenberg emphasized that the Jews sought to destroy the leading elements of a conquered people and then to use others to do their dirty work for them.

In the final installation of his essay printed in the Volkisch Observer in August 1921,"Anti-Semitism: An Economic, Political, National, Religious, and Moral Necessity," Rosenberg warned: "If things go on as of late, then the coming struggle will bring victory to Jewish Bolshevism and cost the best Germans their lives."80 In his 1922 treatise, Plague in Russia!, Rosenberg cautioned,"The misery, starvation, and epidemic that already prevail in Russia are in store for the German people; it must prepare itself to hand down its national intelligentsia to eradication."81 Rosenberg strongly believed that if "Jewish Bolsheviks" established their tyranny over Germany, then they would destroy the best of the German people just as they had allegedly eradicated the Russian nationalist intelligentsia.

In an article in a November 1920 edition of In Plain German,"'Jewry above Everything, '" Rosenberg's colleague Eckart argued that Jewish Bolsheviks threatened to conquer Germany as they had Russia. First he outlined the supposed Jewish campaign for world domination. To begin with, the "Jewish-contaminated press" had incited the peoples of the world to wage war. In the ensuing conflagration, Germany had defeated Imperial Russia so that "Jewish Bolshevism" could take root there. Jewish subversion in Germany had led to the '''Glorious Revolution' with almost nobody but Hebrews at the head." Eckart argued that there would soon arise "from the Neva to the Rhine, on the bloody ruins of the previous national traditions, a single Jewish empire, the most Christian-slaughtering dictatorship of the Jewish world savior Lenin and his Elias, Trotskii-Braunstein!"82

In an article in a May 1922 edition of the Volkisch Observer,"A New World War in Sight!", Eckart again warned of international Jewry's impending destruction of Germany. He lamented that a Jew, Germany's Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (who was soon afterwards assassinated as part of a right-wing conspiracy in which Aufbau members participated), had officially recognized the Soviet Union. Eckart asserted that this act had "nothing to do with the German or the Russian peoples," but rather had been coordinated by "all the Jews of the world." He warned,"Israel stands directly in front of its ancient goal: just several months, and Jewish Bolshevism will have destroyed the German nationality, the only opposition that could pit itself against the 'people of God' on its path to (lawless) world rule."83 Here Eckart portrayed the Germans as the last bulwark against Jewish efforts to eliminate the best of the Gentiles through bloody Bolshevism.

Drawing upon Eckartian and Aufbau thought, Hitler claimed that "Jewish Bolshevism" threatened to eliminate Germany's national, spiritual, and intellectual leadership. In the second essay that he wrote for the Volkisch Observer,"Is the Establishment of a Volkisch Newspaper that Seizes the Broad Masses a National Necessity?", which appeared in January 1921, he compared German conditions with those in Bolshevik Russia. He claimed that the Jews were inciting the masses for the "final blow against ... what we call the state" in Germany. "like in Soviet Russia." With the destruction of the state, he meant the eradication of the nation's leading elements. He concluded his essay by stressing: "World history mercilessly takes revenge for neglected necessities. Look at Russia."84 Hitler viewed the perceived Jewish annihilation of the leading Russian nationalists as a harbinger of what evils threatened to occur in Germany through the ruthless Jewish drive to power.

In one of his clearest anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic warnings, Hitler asserted in an April 1922 speech that Bolshevism under Jewish Commissars meant "bagging the intellectual head of the nation, that is, bringing it to the scaffold." He emphasized: "As in Russia, exactly so with us." He then asked where National Socialists could look for assistance. He asserted,"The left ... cannot help," whereas "the right would like to help," but it could not do so since it had "still not grasped that it is not necessary to be an enemy of the Jew to be dragged to the scaffold by him one day in accordance with the Russian model." The right had failed to understand that all that was necessary to be executed was "to have a head and not to be a Jew."85 Hitler believed that his movement alone, which fused certain nationalist and socialist ideas, could ward off the threatened "Jewish Bolshevik" annihilation of the nationalist German intelligentsia. In the conclusion of his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler went beyond his warnings that "Jewish Bolsheviks" threatened to eradicate nationalist Germans. He asserted that the Jews by their very nature worked to destroy the national intelligentsias of all peoples through Bolshevism in order to achieve world rule. He asserted of "the Jew,"

His ultimate goal is denationalization, the muddled half-breeding of the other peoples, the lowering of the racial level of the most superior, as well as the domination of this racial mush through the extermination of the volkisch intelligentsias and their replacement by the members of his own people. The result of the Jewish world struggle will hence always be bloody Bolshevization, which is in reality the destruction of the peoples own intellectual upper strata so that he himself is able to rise to become the master of humanity.86


In this telling passage, Hitler combined volkisch German and anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic White emigre beliefs. He expressed volkisch thought by warning of imperiled racial purity through the agency of the Jews. By labeling what he regarded as the deliberate Jewish "half-breeding" of other peoples along with the elimination of their leading elements as "Bolshevization," he also demonstrated the considerable degree to which events in the Soviet Union as interpreted by Aufbau White emigres and Eckart had captured and held his imagination. Hitler offered a meta-historical narrative of "the Jew" as the agent of "bloody Bolshevization," which sought to destroy the "volkisch intelligentsias" of all peoples in order to enable Jewish world domination.

In the early 1920s, Hitler's colleagues Eckart and the Aufbau ideologues Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, and Rosenberg dearly regarded the Jews as a mortal threat, but they did not publicly propose exterminating Jews along the lines of the National Socialist policy that became known as the Final Solution. As noted in Chapter Three, Eckart favored incarcerating leading Jews in Germany.87 In an early article in In Plain German, he also suggested expelling the Jews from Germany. He queried,"If we were rid of them, would we not at least have the advantage over earlier times of not having to see, hear, or smell them any more?"88 In another early article in In Plain German, Eckart sympathized with expelling the Jews from Germany when he made a play on words regarding a German town that had no Jews: "Incidentally, no Jews in Lorch? Hark!" (Ubrigens - keine Juden in Lorch? Horch!).89

Despite all his warnings against "Jewish Bolshevism," Scheubner-Richter did not propose sweeping anti-Semitic measures in the pages of Aufbau Correspondence or the Volkisch Observer. Scheubner-Richter's colleague Vinberg made some vague anti-Semitic threats in his 1922 work, Russia's Via Dolorosa. He warned the Jews,"You are dancing on a volcano! ... The peoples who have been deceived by you will get their bitter revenge against you and pay you back for your crimes!" In another passage, he asserted: "The end of Jewish-Masonic rule is approaching! A new Russia will arise and ruthlessly smash its enemies down."90 Vinberg did not specify precisely what he meant by this, but he clearly had menacing intent.

Vinberg's Aufbau colleague Rosenberg wished to implement severe restrictions against the Jews. He recommended measures similar to those that the far right Union of the Russian People had advocated in 1906 or that the volkisch leader Heinrich Class had proposed in his 1912 work, If I Were the Kaiser. In the above-mentioned August 1921 article in the Volkisch Observer,"The Pogrom against the German and the Russian Peoples," Rosenberg called for the "complete removal of the Jews from all posts, offices, public agencies, leading economic authorities, and cultural institutions." He warned: "If this does not take place, then the pogrom against the German people will follow that against the Russian one."91

Rosenberg made similar anti-Semitic demands in the final installation of his essay,"Anti-Semitism: An Economic, Political, National, Religious, and Moral Necessity," which appeared in the August 21, 1921 edition of the Volkisch Observer. He demanded,"Out with the Jews from all parties." He further advocated "the proper assessment of all Eastern Jews, the strictest supervision of the indigenous ones, the closing of Zionism that pursues English-Jewish policy, the confiscation of its monies and the expulsion of its members to their English saints or to the Promised Land." He cautioned: "If this does not take place, then none of the generations still living today has the prospect of ever again living in the German fatherland."92

Eckart and Aufbau ideologues did not propose physically exterminating the Jews in the early 1920s, and they lacked the power to carry out a large-scale slaughter of Jews at the time in any case. Rosenberg did, however, learn from what he regarded as the typical "Jewish Bolshevik" methods of extermination. He helped to form the chilling concept that Hitler's National Socialist state later put into practice during World War II, namely that eliminating a nation's intelligentsia rendered the people as a whole easy to dominate.

While castigating what he regarded as the bloody "Jewish Bolshevik" extermination of the Russian national intelligentsia, Rosenberg also found a certain method to this madness. (We have already seen in the previous chapter that Rosenberg's Aufbau superior Scheubner-Richter learned from Bolshevik methods of subversion followed by strict centralization and militarization.) Rosenberg noted in his 1922 work, Plague in Russia!,"If one robs a people of its intellectual blossom, then it is, as a people, actually no longer in existence. Then only the masses remain, which, if one knows their instincts, are usable for anything, at least for a while."93 In his 1923 Protocols book, he emphasized that "Jewry" could establish a dictatorship over a people "only with the assistance of the directionless masses who have been robbed of their national intelligentsia," as had been the case in Bolshevik Russia". While he loathed "Jewish Bolsheviks," Rosenberg nonetheless learned from the ruthless methods of the eradication of political foes that he attributed to them.
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Re: The Russian Roots of Nazism, by Michael Kellogg

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Part 2 of 2

APOCALYPTIC ANTI-JUDEO-BOLSHEVISM

In addition to regarding Bolshevism as an extremely dangerous, concrete political threat, White emigre Aufbau ideologues depicted the far right crusade against threatened "Jewish Bolshevik" chaos in religiously inspired apocalyptic terms. They warned of a terrible nationalist struggle against Bolshevism similar to the battle between Christ and Anti-Christ dealt with in the biblical Book of Revelation. They cast the anti-Bolshevik fight in terms of Aryan, most notably German and Russian, versus Jew. Eckart and his pupil Hitler drew from the apocalyptic dimension of anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic White emigre Aufbau thought.

Of the leading Aufbau ideological trio of Scheubner-Richter, Rosenberg, and Vinberg, the last possessed the most pronounced religious outlook. Vinberg, who was described as an "extremely religious" man, tended to view events from a theological standpoint.95 He regarded the National Socialists as upholders of Christianity. In a May 1923 letter, he praised the Volkisch Observer as a "courageous newspaper that so openly supports the spiritual traditions of Christian Germany."96 Vinberg cast his support of Grand Prince Kirill Romanov for the Tsarist throne in religious terms as well. He wrote in the pro-Kirill Vestnik russkago monarkhicheskago obedineniia v Bavarii (Bulletin of the Russian Monarchical Union in Bavaria) that he edited: "We are still in satanic darkness, surrounded by ant-Christian forces." He exhorted White emigres to further the "great cause of Russia's salvation."97

Like the mystically inclined Imperial Russian author Sergei Nilus, who had played a crucial role in popularizing The Protocols of the Elders o/Zion, Vinberg viewed Jews as a satanic and apocalyptic force. In his work Russia, Via Dolorosa, he had the "Zionist wise men" declare: "You should finally recognize that our way is that of evil, the way of proud, all-conquering, ruthless Satanism." In another passage, he asserted of "the Jews," "The entire world is now in the clutches of these Anti-Christs." Vinberg expressed a mystical vision of triumph over these "Anti-Christs." He described a dream of his in which a "holy, wonderful ray ... penetrates this infinite darkness that shrouds our tormented homeland and leaves it trembling before the inevitable reckoning of the Day of Judgment." Here Vinberg referred to the positive aspect of the Book of Revelation, namely the prospect of ultimate salvation for the just, which is often overlooked in light of Revelation's gripping description of chaos and destruction.

Vinberg referred to Revelation in another section of Russia, Via Dolorosa. After warning "you master Jews" in Russia,"We do not like your government at all" he stressed:

The time will never come in which we will be one with you. Pick up our holy Book of Revelation and read in it what Saint John says. Then you will understand that we are faithful Christians and that we will never bow before your triumph ... We will certainly be destroyed in the struggle with you, as you are still just too strong, but not those who will come after us. In the end you too will be destroyed, for we already feel the victory of our swords and firmly believe that the truth cannot be desecrated by falsehood forever. The light must finally penetrate the darkness and triumph over evil.98


Vinberg thus held out the prospect of eventual Christian victory over the satanic Jewish Anti-Christs who directed Bolshevism.

Aufbau's leader Scheubner-Richter did not exhibit a mystical sense of religiosity to the extent that Vinberg did. He did, however, consistently treat the Bolshevik persecution of Orthodox Christian leaders in his newspaper articles, and he demonstrated a sound sense of broad Russian religious sentiments inside Soviet borders. In a July 1923 edition of Aufbau Correspondence, he noted that ever more sects had formed in the Soviet Union "in which religious fanaticism is paired with political and religious anti-Semitism." These sects believed that the ":Anti-Christ' had climbed down to the earth and had seized possession of the holy Kremlin, and ... all crop failures and all other afflictions came to the Russian people since it continued to tolerate the rule of the Anti-Christ in the holy Kremlin."99 While he did not personally share these views literally, Scheubner-Richter nonetheless presented them in a sympathetic light.

Scheubner-Richter used apocalyptic imagery in his calls to arms, as in an article for the Volkisch Observer in September 1923,"Germany's Bolshevization." He stressed that "volkisch Germany" knew that it had to fight against the "Jewish International" to decide the "fate of Europe, yes, perhaps the fate of the entire world." This struggle would determine whether "national culture, volkisch individuality, and Christianity" would persevere or whether they would be "melted together in an international mush."100 Here Scheubner-Richter portrayed nationalist Germans as the protectors of order and light against approaching "Jewish Bolshevik" chaos and darkness.

Scheubner-Richter's colleague Rosenberg increasingly opposed Christian Churches as institutions, but he nonetheless favored certain self-sacrificing elements of Christianity in the vein of the volkisch thinkers Richard Wagner and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.101 Rosenberg ended his first book, The Trail of the Jew through the Ages, by calling for the dawning of the "day of Christian-Germanic thinking." He also demanded apocalyptically. "The Christian spirit and the filthy Jewish spirit must be separated; the Bible is to be split up with a sharp cut as Christ and Anti-Christ."102 Here he presented a dichotomy between the redeeming Germanic spirit and the sinister Jewish essence.

Rosenberg treated "Jewish Bolshevism" with the language of a biblical scourge. In his book Plague in Russia!, for instance, he asserted,"A frenzy, an indescribably cynical sadism, an insanity" was "raging in the East." Faced with this menace, the possible outcomes for Europe were either that "the West sinks in bloody smoke," or "a purposeful minority of German men alter course with ruthless determination."103 In his 1923 Protocols work, Rosenberg asserted that Russia offered an "example of the most monumental sort of ... Jewish world destruction."104 Rosenberg thus attributed a sinister and apocalyptic influence on world affairs to the Jews.

Rosenberg's colleague and Hitler's mentor, Eckart, used apocalyptic language when discussing the Jewish peril, which he specifically related to conditions in the Soviet Union. Eckart used the Book of Revelation in treating the menace of "Jewish world rule" as begun in Russia. In a March 1919 article in In Plain German, Eckart used the Book of Revelation as a warning of impending Jewish destruction. He emphasized:

All in all it is about Jewish world rule. It began in Russia, now it is our turn. They cry out,"Dictatorship of the proletariat," but what is meant is the "dictatorship over the proletariat," better said, over all non-Jews ... How does it go in the Apocalypse, reworked by me? Seven-headed from the pool/ Has the beast climbed up / And the old dragon gave him / Strength to vanquish simple-mindedness / Gave him tongues to all peoples / So that he speaks great things / And with cunning blasphemies / Traps his victims twice. 105


In a February 1920 article in In Plain German, Eckart stressed that once again "the Russian chaos" threatened Christendom, this time driven by "Israel's vengeful spirit." He quoted Revelation 6:8,"And I looked, and behold, a pale horse & his name that sate on him was Death, and hell followed with him: and power was given unto them, over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, & with hunger, and with death, and with the beastes of the earth.'" Eckart applied this biblical prophecy to the current political situation. He asserted,"With the beasts of the earth. With the bestialized masses of the Russian people ... over mountains of corpses."106 Eckart lamented Jewry's destructive role in Russia, which he tied in with apocalyptic notions.

Finally, Eckart warned of "Jewish Bolshevism" apocalyptically in a May 1922 article in the Volkisch Observer. He claimed that "national Russia" stood ready to send the "murderous riffraff' of Jewish Bolsheviks and their "bestial following ... into hell." Therefore the "pan-Jew is moving heaven and earth" to bring about the "apocalyptic break-in of Jewish Bolshevism ... into the long-since tottering European cultural world!"107 Eckart regarded "Jewish Bolshevism" as a demonic apocalyptic force that threatened to destroy all of Europe.

Influenced by Eckart, Rosenberg, Scheubner-Richter, and Vinberg, Hitler used the horrible state of affairs in the Soviet Union as the primary example of what he regarded as the Jewish proclivity for apocalyptic devastation. In a July 1922 speech, he asserted,"The Jew" destroyed only to "collapse himself with the destruction." He named the Soviet Union as the best example of this calamitous process. He maintained,"The Jew ... must extend each and every thing internationally. How long? Until the entire world lies in ruins and drags him himself down into the ruins. Today this has been virtually, nay completely, achieved in Russia." In Hitler's mind, the horrendous conditions in the Soviet Union demonstrated the ultimately fatal consequences of the irredeemably materialist and world-destroying Jewish essence.

In this speech, Hitler asserted that Bavaria had an anti-Bolshevik "mission" against the Jewish "scourge of God" whereby it could "perhaps hinder this conflagration of the East from spreading further in Europe so that the Jewish world scourge finally will be checked and the deliverance of European culture in the face of this Asiatic horde will come again."108 In his political views, Hitler espoused Aufbau and Eckartian notions of "Jewry" as an apocalyptic force that threatened to cause the catastrophic downfall of Germany and the rest of Europe. He pledged to fight against the "Jewish would scourge" with all of his strength.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler expressed his apocalyptic belief that the Jews threatened to destroy the world through the spread of Bolshevism, and he promised to fight against Jewry. He maintained: "If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men." He asserted,"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."109 Hitler adopted Aufbau and Eckartian conceptions of "Jewish Bolshevism" as an apocalyptic force that threatened to ruin Germany and even the entire world, and he promised to struggle against this dark menace.

CONCLUSION

In the early years of the Weimar Republic, the leading Aufbau ideological trio of Max von Scheubner-Richter, Fedor Vinberg, and Alfred Rosenberg, acting in conjunction with the prominent volkisch theorist Dietrich Eckart, played a fundamental role in shaping National Socialist ideology. In warning against the horrors of "Jewish Bolshevism," these "four writers of the apocalypse" expressed a particularly virulent form of White emigre conspiratorial and apocalyptic anti-Semitic thought that radicalized early National Socialist beliefs. Hitler learned a great deal from the conspiratorial-apocalyptic anti-Semitic views of Scheubner-Richter, Vinberg, Rosenberg, and Eckart, as he had not been an anti-Semite and had considered himself a socialist well into 1919.

Drawing inspiration from the anti-Semitic ideas of the Imperial Russian author Fedor Dostoevskii, the four writers of the apocalypse argued that a vast Jewish world conspiracy, which manipulated both predatory finance capitalism and bloodthirsty Bolshevism, threatened to ruin Germany and even the world. The four colleagues maintained that Bolshevism was an almost strictly Jewish phenomenon. They stressed that "Jewish Bolshevism" had killed millions upon millions of Russians through war, disease, starvation, and misrule and, what was worse, had systematically eliminated the Russian nationalist intelligentsia. "Jewish Bolsheviks" threatened to destroy the best Germans in the near future as well.

While the ideological quartet clearly viewed international Jewry that controlled finance capitalism and Bolshevism as a mortal danger to Germany, they did not propose physically exterminating Jews, and at least one of them, Rosenberg, learned from "Jewish Bolshevik" atrocities. Eckart variously favored imprisoning leading Jews in Germany and expelling all Jews from Germany. Scheubner-Richter did not advocate large-scale anti-Semitic measures in either Aufbau Correspondence or the Volkisch Observer. Vinberg made some imprecise threats against Jewry. Rosenberg proposed removing Jews from all leading public positions. While he despised Bolshevism, Rosenberg nonetheless perceived a certain logic in what he regarded as the "Jewish Bolshevik" method of physically exterminating political enemies.

The Aufbau and Eckartian warnings of "Jewish Bolshevism" as the most menacing manifestation of an international Jewish finance conspiracy that sought to achieve world domination, but inevitably had to lead to world destruction, imparted an apocalyptic anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic missionary spirit and drive to Hitler's National Socialist movement. Although Aufbau ceased to act as a powerful political force in 1923 and Eckart died that same year, as we shall see, Aufbau left a considerable anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic ideological legacy to Hitler after 1923, and it also provided a substantial political, financial, and military heritage to the National Socialist Party.
________________
 
Notes:
 
1 National Socialist Party leadership,"Grundsatzliches Programm der national-sozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei," Volkischer Beobachter, July 19, 1922, 1.
 
2 James Webb, The Occult Establishment (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976), 175.
 
3 Henri Rollin, L'Apocalypse de notre temps: Les dessous de la propagande allemande d'apres des documents inedits (Paris: Gallimard, 1939), 168.
 
4 "Dietrich Eckart," Volkischer Beobachter, March 23, 1923. 5.
 
5 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 22.
 
6 Brigitte Hamann, Hitler’s Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators (Munich: Piper, 1996), 239-241, 499, 500.
 
7 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 66; Eberhard Jackel, Hitler’s Weltanschauung, trans. Herbert Arnold (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1969), 117.
 
8 "Protokoll aufgenommen am 22. Dezember 1939 mit Hans Mend, Reitlehrer und Verwalter auf Schloss Eltzholz Berg hei Starnberg a/See, ehemals Ulan im kgl. bayer. x. Ulanenregiment zugeteilt als Ordonnanzreiter im Oktober 1914 dem Inf. Rgt. 'List.' Seit Juni 1916 befordert zum Offizier - Stellvertreter und zugeteilt dem 4. bayer. Feldartillerieregiment, Munitionskolonne 143 (Tankabwehr). Bei der Truppe bekannt als der 'Schimmelreiter, '" BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung, number 3231, 3.
 
9 Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (London: Penguin Press, 1998), 118, 120.
 
10 Hans Mend,"Protokoll aufgenommen am 22. Dezember 1939," BHSAM/AK, Handschriftensammlung. number 3231, 4.
 
11 Otto-Ernst Schuddekopf, Linke Lcute von rechts: Die nationalrevolutionaren Minderheiten und der Kommunismus in der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960), 31.
 
12 Fedor Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands: Teil I: Die Ursachen des Ubels, trans. K. von Jarmersted (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1922), 150, 153.
 
13 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 25.
 
14 Alfred Rosenberg, Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten (Munich: Deutscher Volks-Verlag, 1920), 1, 81, 82.
 
15 Rosenberg,"Das Verbrechen der Freimaurerei: Judentum, Jesuitismus, deutsches Christentum: VIII. Deutsches Christenturn," Auf gut deutsch: Wochemchrift fur Ordnung und Recht, February 28, 1921.
 
16 "Die Pest in Russland," Volkischer Beobachter, July 5, 1922, 2.
 
17 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland! Der Bolschewismus. seine Haupter, Handlanger und Opfer (Munich: Deutscher Volks-Verlag, 1922), 39.
 
18 Alarich,"Dostojewski (geb. 1821) und die Judenfrage, ~ Der Nationalsozialist, July 14, 1921, 2, 3.
 
19 Fedor Dostoevskii, Tagebuch eines Schriftstellers, trans. E. K. Rahsin (Munich: Piper, 1992), 641.
 
20 "Dostojewski als Politiker und Prophet," Volkischer Beobachter, January 27, 1923, 3.
 
21 Rosenberg,"Schicksalswende in London!", Volkischer Beobachter, March 6, 1921, 2.
 
22 Rosenberg,"Hochfinanz und Weltrevolution: Uberblick," Volkischer Beobachter, August 4, 1921, I.
 
23 Dietrich Eckart/Rosenberg,"Zwischen den Schlichern," Auf gut deutsch, March 5, 1920.
 
24 Rosenberg,"Der judische Bolschewismus," Volkischer Beobachter, November 26, 1921, I.
 
25 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 32.
 
26 Rosenberg, Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die Judische Weltpolitik (Munich: Deutscher Volks-Verlag, 1923), 45, 98, 101.
 
27 Werner Maser, Der Sturm auf die Republik: Fruhgeschichte der NSDAP (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1973), 332.
 
28 Hitler, speech on January 29, 1923, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, eds. Eberhard Jackel and Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), 824.
 
29 Rosenberg,"Wesen, Grundsatze und Ziele der N.S.D.A.P.," Der Nationalsozialist, September 1, 1923, I.
 
30 Eckart, '''Jewry uber alles, '" Auf gut deutsch, November 26, 1920, 5.
 
31 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 28.
 
32 Max von Scheubner-Richter,"Der Katastrophe entgegen!", Wirtschafts-politische Aufbau-Korrespondenz uber Ostfragen und ihre Bedeutung fur Deutschland, September 6, 1922, 2.
 
33 Scheubner-Richter,"Deutschlands Bolschewisierung," Volkischer Beobachter, September 21, 1923, I.
 
34 Hitler, speech on June 22, 1922, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 645.
 
35 Hitler, speech on September 28, 1922, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 697.
 
36 Hitler, speech on January 18, 1923, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 796.
 
37 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 326, 622, 623.
 
38 Hitler, Hitler’s Zweites Buch: Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), 153, 154.
 
39 Scheubner-Richter,"Judenverfolgungen in Sowjetrussland," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, October 25, 1922, 2; Scheubner-Richter,"Der Umfall des Patriarchen Tichon," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, July 27, 1923, I.
 
40 Scheubner-Richter,"Weltpolitische Umschau," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, July 13, 1923, 1.
 
41 Scheubner-Richter,"Nansen verteidigt den Boischewismus," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, April 19, 1923, 4.
 
42 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 5, 20, 26.
 
43 Johannes Baur, Die russische Kolonie in Munchen, 1900-1945: Deutsch-russische Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 279; Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), 116.
 
44 Rosenberg,"Die russische-judische Revolution," Auf gut deutsch, February 21, 1919.
 
45 Rosenberg, Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten, 117.
 
46 Rosenberg,"Hochverrat der deutschen Zionisten auf Grund ihrer eigenen Eingestandnisse erlautert, I," Auf gut deutsch. March 31, 1921.
 
47 Rosenberg,"Der Pogrom am deutscben und am russischen Volke," Volkischer Beobachter, August 4, 1921, 3.
 
48 Rosenberg,"Die judische Canaille: Stephan Grossmanns Verhohnung des deutschen Volkes," Volkischer Beohachter, April 14, 1923, I.
 
49 Rosenberg,"Hochverrat der deutschen Zionisten auf Grund ihrer eigenen Eingestandnisse erlautert, II."
 
50 Eckart,"Der Herr Rabbiner aus Bremen," Auf gut deutsch, November 11, 1919.
 
5l Eckart,"Die Schlacht auf den Katalaunischen Feldern," Auf gut deutsch, February 20, 1920, 12.
 
52 Eckart,"'Jewry uber alles.'''
 
53 Eckart,"Vor dem Glockenschlag zwolf," Volkischer Beobachter, August 14, 1921, I.
 
54 Eckart,"Das 'siegreiche' Proletariat unter Standrecht," Volkischer Beobachter, October 26, 1921, 1.
 
55 Hitler, speech on August 6, 1920, Samtfiche Aufzeichnungen, 172.
 
56 Hitler,"Der volkische Gedanke und die Partei," Volkischer Beobachter, January 1, 1921, I.
 
57 Hitler,"Staatsmanner oder Nationalverbrecher," Volkischer Beobachter, March 15, 1921, 2.
 
58 "Die 'Hetzer' der Wahrheit: Rede des Pg. Adolf Hitler in der Versammlung vom 12. April 1922 im Burgerbraukeller zu Munchen," Volkischer Beobachter, April 22, 1922, 7.
 
59 DB report from November 11, 1922, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond7, opis 1, delo 386, reel 2, 160.
 
60 Hitler, notes for a speech on November 2, 1922, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 713, 716.
 
61 Scheubner-Richter,"Judenverfolgungen in Sowjetrussland," 2.
 
62 Rosenberg,"Der Pogrom am deutschen und am russischen Volke," 3.
 
63 Rosenberg, Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die Judische Weltpolitik, 81.
 
64 Hitler, speech on August 19, 1921, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 458.
 
65 Scheubner-Richter,"Kirchenplunderung," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, April 14, 1922, 2.
 
66 Scheubner-Richter,"Die dritte Internationale an der Arbeit," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, June 7, 1923, 1.
 
67 Rosenberg,"Der Pogrom am deutschen und am russischen Volke," 3.
 
68 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 23, 25.
 
69 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 78.
 
70 Eckart,"Wovor uns Kapp behuten wollte," Auf gut deutsch, April 16, 1920.
 
71 Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (Chico. CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 119-121.
 
72 Eckart,"Die Schlacht auf den Katalaunischen Feldern."
 
73 Hitler, notes for a speech on December 8, 1920, Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 275.
 
74 "Freistaat oder Sklaventum? Rede des Pg. Adolf Hitler in der Versammlung der nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei vom 28. Juli 1922 im grossen Saale des Burgerbraukellers in Munchen," Volkischer Beobachter, August 16, 1922, 6.
 
75 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 326.
 
76 Hitler, Hitler’s Zweites Buch, 156, 158, 221.
 
77 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 28.
 
78 Scheubner-Richter,"Der Bolschewismus sprungbereit!," Aufbau-Korrespondenz, September 29, 1923, 2.
 
79 Rosenberg,"Schicksalswende in London!", 3.
 
80 Rosenberg, ''Antisemitismus: Eine wirtschaftliche, politische, nationale, religiose und sittliche Notwendigkeit, (Schluss)," Volkischer Beobachter, August 21, 1921, 3.
 
81 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 93.
 
82 Eckart, '''Jewry uber alles, '" 2.
 
83 Eckart,"Ein neuer Weltkrieg in Sicht!", Volkischer Beobachter, May 17, 1922, I.
 
84 Hitler,"Ist die Errichtung einer die breiten Massen erfassenden Volkischen Zeitung eine nationale Notwendigkeit?" Volkischer Beobachter, January 30, 1921, I, 3.
 
85 "Die 'Hetzer' der Warheit," 7.
 
86 Hitler, Hitler’s Zweites Buch, 221.
 
87 Eckart's questioning at the AGM on July 10, 1920, RGVA (TsKhIDK), fond 567, opis 1, delo 2496, 17.
 
88 Eckart,"Der Baccalaureus," Auf gut deutsch, October 23, 1919, 10.
 
89 Eckart,"Trotz alledem!", Auf gut deutsch, July 11, , 1919, 11.
 
90 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 112, 222.
 
91 Rosenberg,"Der Pogrom am deutschen und am russischen Volke," 3.
 
92 Rosenberg, ''Antisemitismus, (Schluss)," 3.
 
93 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 23.
 
94 Rosenberg, Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die Judische Weltpolitik, 112.
 
95 Josefine Trausenecker's testimony included in a PDM report to the BSMI from March 30, 1922, BHSAM, BSMI 22, number 71624, fiche 4, 14.
 
96 Vinberg,"Der wackere Zentralverein," Volkischer Beobachter, May 9, 1923, 3.
 
97 Vinberg, editorial, Vestnik russkago monarkhicheskago obedineniia v Bavarii, April 7, 1923. 2, 3, GARF.
 
98 Vinberg, Der Kreuzesweg Russlands, 2, 18, 25, 116.

99 Scheubner-Richter,"Der Umfall des Patriarchen Tichon," 2.
 
100 Scheubner-Richter,"Deutschlands Bolschewisierung," I.
 
101 Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1972), 82.
 
102 Rosenberg, Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten, 162, 163.
 
103 Rosenberg, Pest in Russland!, 74.
 
104 Rosenberg, Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die Judische Weltpolitik, 41.
 
105 Eckart,"Das Karnickel," Auf gut deutsch, March 28, 1919.
 
106 Eckart,"Die Schlacht auf den Katalaunischen Feldern."
 
107 Eckart,"Das bayerische Orakel von Genua," Volkischer Beobachter, May 24, 1922, I.
 
108 "Freistaat oder Sk;aventum?" 6, 8.
 
109 Hitler, Mein Kampf 65.
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