Dietrich Eckart, Rosenberg, and the White Russian Influence on  Nazi Ideology, P.1

Aufbau linked important volkisch Germans, most notably Hitler and General Ludendorff, whom Scheubner-Richter introduced to each other in the framework of Aufbau, with prominent White émigrés. Important White émigré members of Aufbau included First Secretary Scheubner Richter himself, Vice President Biskupskii, Deputy Director Schickedanz, Ukrainian faction leader Poltavets-Ostranitsa, Vinberg, Shabelskii-Bork, Taboritskii, Rosenberg, and Rosenberg’s collaborator in Eckart’s newspaper In Plain German, Kursell. In addition to serving in Aufbau, Scheubner Richter, Schickedanz, Kursell, and Rosenberg played active roles in the National Socialist Party. Aufbau’s second secretary, the German Max Amann, also served as the National Socialist Party secretary.

After it consolidated itself into a powerful conspiratorial force in the first half of 1921 under Scheubner-Richter’s de facto leadership, Aufbau tried and failed to unite all White émigrés behind Grand Prince émigrés Romanov in league with National Socialists. Aufbau hoped to lead all White émigrés in Europe in an anti-Bolshevik crusade that would replace Soviet rule with nationalist Russian, Ukrainian, and Baltic states. Instead of unifying all White émigrés, Aufbau engaged in bitter internecine struggle with the Supreme Monarchical Council under the former Union of the Russian People faction leader Nikolai Markov II. The Council supported Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, who had close ties to the French government, for Tsar. Markov II’s Council sought to reestablish Imperial Russia in its former borders with French military assistance. Aufbau detested the Council’s pro-French undertakings to such a degree that it entertained a hazardous tactical alliance with the Red Army.

To further complementary right-wing German and Russian interests, Hitler assisted the pro- Grand Duke Kirill (Cyril) Vladimirovich / Aufbau in its struggle with Markov II’s Supreme Monarchical Council. For its support, Kirill granted Hitler’s National Socialist Party considerable subsidies in the context of the German–Russian national cause.

Hitler asserted in a January 1942 conversation that Eckart had shone "like the polar star" for him. (1) In August 1921 on Hitler's personal invitation, Eckhart became editor-in-chief of the National Socialist publishing organ. As a result Eckhart increasingly passed the editorship his own two newspapers “Auf gut deutsch” and the “Voekischer Beobachter” over to Leading Nazi ideologist Rosenberg. And Rosenberg de facto took over the leadership of the the Voelkischer Beobachter on May 10, 1923, when he noted that he had assumed the editorship of the paper, which came out under his name. (2)

In a first accurate study about the financial backers the early Nazis and A. Hitler, Wolfgang Zdral, Der finanzierte Aufstieg des Adolf Hitler’s” (Sept. 2002) dedicates a whole chapter to Dietrich Eckart.

The seizure of power of Benito Mussolini's Fascist movement in Italy helped to galvanize the increasing militancy of the Vereinigte twerlandische Verbande Bayerns, as demonstrated in an article that Scheubner-Richter wrote in the November 1, 1922 edition of Aufbau-Korrespondenz, "The Fascists as Masters in Italy." Scheubner-Richter stressed that Communism could only be defeated through its own methods, noting. "that which the German Freikorps did half-heartedly 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 expressed the wish that the -principle that the Fascists represent" would also become "universal and self-evident in Germany. 

In the period of Hitler's close collaboration with Aufbau in the early 1920's, not only did Aufbau in general and Scheubner-Richter and Biskupskii in particular guide Hitler's political decision making in favor of combined National Socialist/White 6mlgr~ operations to overthrow the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union, Aufbau ideologues in conjunction with the volkisch publicist Dietrich Eckart influenced Hitler's anti-Semitism.

Hitler further revered Scheubner-Richter by charging his widow, Mathilde, with creating the National Socialist Party Archives in August 1926 in collaboration with Heinrich Himmler. Scheubner-Richter's activities in Aufbau also eventually helped to pave the way for friendly relations between National Socialist Germany and Hungary. Soon after Hitler became the German Chancellor in January 1933, the night wing Hungarian Minister-President Gyula Gombos ordered his ambassador in Berlin to visit the Fuhrer as soon as possible: 

“on my behalf. pass my best regards and wishes.... Recall I that ten years ago, on the basis of our common principles and ideology, we were In contact via Mr. Scheubner-Richter....Tell Hitler my firm belief that the two countries have to cooperate in foreign and domestic Policy.” 

Already in the fall of 1922, Scheubner-Richter served as Hitler's chief advisor on foreign policy matters and as one of his closest counselors In general. 134 A Munich Police report from November 1922 argued that since the primary, National Socialist foreign policy advisor represented the interests of a White Russian group, he was bound to act according to the desires of his constituency, and it was questionable if he could mesh White Russian interests with nationalist German concerns. The report noted that the steenng of National Socialist foreign policy through a representative of exile Russian interests gave rise to serious reservations both in Germany and abroad. 

For his part. Walther Nicolai, the head of the anti-Bolshevik intelligence service that collaborated with Aufbau, noted the great degree to which Scheubner-Richter influenced Hitler's political ideas. He also observed that Hitler had his home away from home at Scheubner-Richter's house and honored Mrs. Mathilde Scheubner- Richter like his mother, while she adored him. Nicolai valued Scheubner-Richter highly as a clever and politically talented man, but he nevertheless feared that he lacked the necessary grasp of German conditions due to his formative experiences in the Russian Empire.

In their foreign policy, Scheubner-Richter and his indispensable colleague Biskupskil called for a Joint Aufbau/National Socialist policy of re-establishing a Habsburg dynasty in Austria, with Colonel Karl Bauer, a political terrorist and Aufbau's contact man in Vienna, working towards this goal. Aufbau leadership organized combat groups in Austria under the direction of officers from Bavaria and worked to include the South Tyrol in the Austrian state. The next goal of Aufbau represented the reestablishment of the Wittelsbach dynasty in Bavaria as a step towards giving Germany a monarchical state system. After this, Aufbau policy planned to bring about the union of Austria and Hungary under the Habsburg crown.

Finally as we have seen in the previous two articles in this series on SESN, Aufbau foreign policy that set the tone of National Socialist strategy sought to detach huge regions from the Soviet Union and to establish friendly governments there. Specifically, Aufbau envisioned the establishment of Baltic, Southern, 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 including the Don, Kuban. and Terek Cossack nations, and it represented the most important of the planned official Party philosopher. 

Before the establishment of the “Aufbau” Vereinigung in late 1920, the collaboration between Eckart and Rosenberg in the context of Eckhart’s Newspaper In Plain German.” Formed the crux of the fusion between voelkisch-redemptive German and White Russian world conspiratonial-apocalyptic anti-Semitic thought, where "positive" notions of Germanic spiritual and racial superiority fused with more negative visions of impending "Jewish Bolshevik" destruction supported by Jewish finance capitalists.

From November 1919 until the summer of 1920, the scope of Hitler's anti-Semitic arguments broadened considerably, a change that be attributed to his early ideological apprenticeship under Dietrich Eckart and his assistant Rosenberg.' Eckart, who, incidentally, cited Vinberg's Bolshevik atrocities, possessed a mystic nature that easily seized upon the White Russian theme of "Jewish Bolshevism" in an apocalyptic framework.(3)

The Voelkischer Beobachter praised Eckart on what turned out to be his final birthday for serving as the "champion and intellectual forerunner of the National Socialist movement.(4) This assertion represented not empty praise. but an apt description of Eckart's key role in the genesis of National Socialist ideology.

Hitler later made the remark that the early Voelkischer Beobachter might as well have been titled the "Munchner Beobachter-Baltic Edition.(5)

Dietrich Eckart’s colaboraters, Vinberg and the leader of Aufbau, Scheubner-Richter. consistently upheld the concept of the secret collaboration of finance capitalism and Bolshevism in the hands of world Jewry. An article in the February 1922 edition of Atiffiats-Korrespondenz, for instance. used Rosenbergian language in asserting that "there has never been a greater mockery or a greater world-fraud: the alliance of the red and the golden Internationals at the expense of every national economy and national policy.”(6) 

Scheubner-Richter wrote an essay in a similar vein for a September 1923 edition of Atilbazi-Korrespondenz, "The Boishevization of Germany," which appeared with a few editorial changes in the Voelkischer Beobachter as "Germany's Bolshevization." He argued that "French chauvinism as the bailiff of international finance," like "Russian Bolshevism," in reality represented a "tool in the hands of the Jewish International.(7) 

The above thus placed Germany in the center of a worldwide conspiracy led by Jewish high finance that manifested itself in the twin threats of the French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in the West and Bolshevik subversion from the East.

 

White Russians and Nazi Ideology P.2

Introduction: A Russian Connection

In this series of lectures I will discuss a number of early influences on the rise of Hitler and the early Nazi party.

Hitler's Secret "Protocols" P.1
The Protocols of the Wise Elders of Zion,  were not fabricated in Paris, but within Imperial Russia between April 1902 and August 1903. The earliest versions of the Protocols contain pronounced Ukrainian features, whereas later ones were given French overtones in order to lend them the appearance of credible accounts from abroad.

Hitler's Secret "Protocols" P.2
General Vladimir Biskupskil, who went on to collaborate closely with Hitler in the context of the Aufbau Vereinigung in postwar Munich, played a leading role in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army. "Conservative revolutionaries" in Imperial Germany and Russia established detailed anti-Western, anti-Semitic ideologies in the months leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. The largely internally-orientated voelkisch model focused on alleged Germanic racial and spiritual superiority through a heightened capacity to negate the will heroically, whereas the more externally- fixated Russian version offered apocalyptic visions of concrete political struggle between Russians at the head of all Slavs and perceived Jewish world-conspirators.

Hitler’s Source P.1
The Protocols did provide anti-Semitic arguments that strongly influenced the ideology of the National Socialist movement, going through 33 editions by the time Hitler came to power and becoming the most widely-distributed work in the world after the Bible. The National Socialist regime did not reprint the Protocols after the outbreak of World War II, though, perhaps precisely due to the Protocols' parallels with both brutal National Socialist occupation policies in Eastern Europe and public pacification efforts domestically.

Hitler’s Source P.2
Anticipating Tsarist pretender Kirill's arrival in Germany, General Ludendorff worked to establish an intelligence service for Kirill in early April 1922. He asked Walther Nicolai, who had served him as the head of the German Army High Command Intelligence Service during World War one, to use his considerable experience and connections to establish a reliable pro-Kirill intelligence service for the struggle against Bolshevism.

The German Kaiser's Confident P.1
By 1937 the NSDAP, the Wehrmacht, and, to a lesser extent, German society accepted Ludendorffs ideology. In the regime and the Wehrmacht he had tacit allies who helped to legitimize and propagate Deutsche Gotterkenntnis. Those who sympathized with him and his ideology existed at all levels of the Nazi hierarchy. Although today he may be forgotten, and although his memorial shrine in Tutzing may be neglected, Erich Ludendorff was one of the most important Germans of the twentieth century.

The German Kaiser's Confident P.2
The Ludendorffs (now Hohe Warte) advocated a return to traditional rural German culture since they believed that the demands of modem capitalist society had tom the German people from the soil, causing them to forget their heritage and ensuring their submission to finance and industrial capital. The Ludendorffs' ideology paralleled similar intellectual developments among Conservative Revolutionaries.

The Ideologists and First Financiers of Hitler P.1
Before the establishment of the “Aufbau” Vereinigung in late 1920, the collaboration between Eckart and Rosenberg in the context of Eckhart’s Newspaper In Plain German.” Formed the crux of the fusion between voelkisch-redemptive German and White Russian world conspiratonial-apocalyptic anti-Semitic thought, where "positive" notions of Germanic spiritual and racial superiority fused with more negative visions of impending "Jewish Bolshevik" destruction supported by Jewish finance capitalists.

The Ideologists and First Financiers of Hitler P.2
By 1923, Hitler had thoroughly internalized Aufbau’s and the people around it, assertions, of the nature of socialism and its most aggressive variant Bolshevism as mere tools of Jewish finance capitalism to enslave European peoples…

Dietrich Eckart, Rosenberg, and the White Russian Influence on Nazi Ideology, P.1
The ensuing military conflagration, Eckart continued, had led to the destruction of Imperial Russia so that "Jewish Bolshevism" could take root there. He also warned that there would arise "from the Neva to the Rhine, on the bloody ruins of the previous national traditions, a single Jewish empire.

Dietrich Eckart, Rosenberg, and the White Russian Influence on Nazi Ideology, P.2
Hitler in his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf, further expounded upon the Aufbau/Eckartian theme of the "Jewish Bolshevik" annihilation of the leading elements of Russian society as a precedent for further Jewish atrocities. He argued that "Jewry exterminated the previous foreign upper strata with the help of Slavic racial instincts."

The "Final" Solution Before WWII, P.1
Hitler continued to express a view of history whereby Jews pitted Germans and Russians against each other after 1923. As witnessed in his unpublished 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf. He argued of "the Jew's" drive to dominate the European peoples that he -methodically agitates for world war" with the aim of "the destruction of inwardly anti-Semitic Russia as well as the destruction of the German Reich. which in administration and the army still offered resistance to the Jew."

The "Final" Solution Before WWII, P.2
That which Jewry once planned against Germany and all peoples of Europe. this must (Jewry) itself suffer today, and responsibility before the history of European culture demands that we do not carry out this fateful separation (Schicksalstrennung) with sentimentality and weakness, but with clear, rational awareness and firm determination.” (Rosenberg 1941 press release dealing with his public assumption of the position of  State Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.)

Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.1
Like the mystical inclined author Sergei Nilus, who had played a crucial role in popularizing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Vinberg viewed Jews as a satanic force.

Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.2
Hitler asserted that "liberalism, our press, the stock market, and Freemasonry" together represented nothing but "Instrument[s] of the Jews."

Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.3
By the time of Ludendorfrs death, Deutsche Gotterkenninis had become for Nazis a legitimate Weltanschauung. Ludendorff's vision of a totalitarian society unified in the face of external and internal threats was nearly identical to the Weltanschauung of Nazism.

 

1) Adolf Hitler. Hitler's Table Talk 1941-44. His Private Conversations, trans. Norman Cameron and R. K Stevens. second ed-, 1973, 217.

2) Voelkischer Beobachter, March 10, 1923, 1.

3) Dietrich Eckart, "Die Schlacht auf den Katalaunischen Feldern.- Auf gut Deutsch, February 20. 1920.

4) “Dietrich Eckart”, Voelkischer Beobachter. March 23. 1923. 5.

5) See, for instance, the February 17 and 22. 1923 editions of the Voelkischer Beobachter, also; Hitler Table Talk 649.

6) "Russische Landwirtschaft." Aufbau-Korrespondenz. February 24, 1922. 2.

7) Scheubner- Richter. "Die BoIschewisierung Deutschlands.” Aufbau-Korrespondenz. September 21. 1923. 2: Scheubner- Richter. "Deutschlands Bolschewisierung,” Voelkischer Beobachter, September 21. 1923.

 

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