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Socialist Reich Party

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Socialist Reich Party
Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlands
AbbreviationSRP
Leader
Founded2 October 1949
Banned23 October 1952[2]
Split fromDeutsche Rechtspartei
Merged intoDeutsche Reichspartei[3]
Youth wingReichsjugend[de]
Paramilitary wingReichsfront
Membership10,300 (1951)
IdeologyNeo-Nazism
Political positionFar-right
ColoursRedBlack
Party flag

TheSocialist Reich Party(German:Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlands) was aWest Germanpolitical party founded in the aftermath ofWorld War IIin 1949 as an openlyneo-Nazi-oriented splinter from thenational conservativeGerman Right Party(DKP-DRP). The SRP achieved some electoral success in northwestern Germany (Lower SaxonyandBremen), before becoming the first political party to be banned by theFederal Constitutional Courtin 1952. They were allied with the French organization led byRené Binetknown as theNew European Order.[5]

Origins[edit]

It was established on 2 October 1949 inHamelnbyOtto Ernst Remer,a formerWehrmachtmajor general who had played a vital role in defeating the20 July plot,Fritz Dorls,a former editor of theCDUnewsletter in Lower Saxony, andGerhard Krüger,leader of theGerman Student Unionunder the Third Reich, after they had been excluded from the DKP-DRP. The SRP saw itself as a legitimate heir of theNazi Party;most party adherents were former NSDAP members. Its foundation was backed by formerLuftwaffeOberstHans-Ulrich Rudel.

SRP leaders (left to right): Dorls, Remer, and Wolf von Westarp in August 1952

Views[edit]

The party claimed ChancellorKonrad Adenauerwas an American puppet and that Grand AdmiralKarl Dönitzwas the last legitimatePresidentof theGerman Reich,as he had been appointed byAdolf Hitler.[6]Itdenied the existence of the Holocaust,claimed that the United States built the gas ovens of theDachau concentration campafter the Second World War and that films ofconcentration campswere faked.[4]The SRP also advocated Europe, led by a reunited German Reich, as a"third force"against bothcapitalismandcommunism.[4]It demanded the re-annexation of theformer eastern territories of Germanyand a "solution of theJewish question".According toKarl Dietrich Bracher,"SRP propaganda concentrated on a vague 'popular socialism' in which the old Nazis rediscovered well-worn slogans, and also on a nationalism whose championship of Reich and war was but a thinly disguised continuation of theLebensraumideology ".[7]The SRP also promoted thestab-in-the-back myth,structured itself in a very hierarchical manner reminiscent of theFührerprinzip,organized meetings that featured uniformed guards, and "succeeded temporarily in presenting Remer as the protector of the Third Reich against the 'traitors' of the resistance".[7]

According toMartin A. Lee,although the SRP wasanti-communist,it focused on criticizing Britain and the United States for "splitting their beloved Fatherland in two" and avoided criticism of theSoviet Unionin the hope that a future deal could be made with the Soviets to reunite Germany.[8]The SRP took the stance that Germany should remain neutral in the emergingCold Warand opposed the West German government'sAtlanticistforeign policy. In case of war between the Soviet Union and the West, Remer "insisted that Germans should not fight to cover an American retreat if the Russians got the upper hand in a war", and said that he would "show the Russians the way to theRhine"and that SRP members would" post themselves as traffic policemen, spreading their arms so that the Russians can find their way through Germany as quickly as possible ".[9][10]Martin A. Lee alleges that these statements attracted the attention of Soviet officials, who became willing to fund the SRP for tactical reasons. According to Lee, for a few years in the early 1950s the SRP received Soviet funds while theCommunist Party of Germanydid not, due to being purportedly viewed as "ineffectual".[11][12]

One of the most significant pieces of evidence is the testimony of Otto Ernst Remer. In a 1997 interview, Remer admitted that he had received Soviet backing during his time in the party. Remer stated that he had met with KGB officials in East Berlin and had received financial and logistical support from the Soviet Union.[13]In addition to Remer's testimony, there are other sources of evidence that support the claim that the Soviet Union supported the SRP. For example, a 1953KGBmemo outlines the agency's efforts to cultivate and support right-wing extremist groups in Germany, including the SRP. The memo states that the KGB's aim was "to create arightistmovement that will weaken the position of the United States, weaken the position of the Atlantic bloc, and encourage the German population to seek a neutralist policy ".[14][15]Similarly, the CIA's declassified "Family Jewels" documents reveal that the agency had evidence of Soviet funding for far-right groups in Europe, including the SRP.[16]Other examples of this include a comment supposedly made by Wolf von Westarp that the West Comminission of East Germany´s rulingSocialist Unity Party,was a substantial patron of the party.[17]HistorianMichael Burleigh,in his bookThe Third Reich: A New History,discusses the Soviet Union's support for the SRP during the Cold War in extreme detail.[18]Additionally, the Gauck archives in Germany contain evidence of Soviet support for the SRP. The archives contain documents that show that the Stasi, the East German secret police, had frequent meetings with SRP officials and provided them with financial and logistical support.[19]

Election results[edit]

Campaign Token SRP (Sozialistische Reichspartei), obverse
The reverse shows a donation of 1 Mark

Dorls had been elected as a DKP-DRP deputy to theBundestagparliament in the1949 election.The SRP gained a second seat in parliament, when MPFritz Rössler(alias Dr. Franz Richter) joined the party in 1950. In May 1951 it won 16 seats in theLower Saxonystate assembly (Landtag) election, receiving 11.0% of the votes with strongholds in theStade region(21.5%;Verden district:27.7%). It included as a member the much decoratedLuftwaffeaceHeinz Knoke.In October 1951 it gained 7.7% of the votes inBremenand won 8 seats in the city'sBürgerschaftparliament.

Membership[edit]

The SRP had about ten thousand members. Affiliated associations were theReichsfrontparamilitaryorganisation and theReichsjugendyouth wing,which were banned by a decision of theFederal Minister of the Interioron 4 May 1951. On the same day, theWest German cabinetdecided to file an application to the Federal Constitutional Court to find the SRP anti-constitutional and to impose a ban. In anticipation of this judgment, the party dissolved itself on 12 September 1952, but this decision was not accepted by the Federal Constitutional Court.[20]Before the ban, Remer had compared the situation of the SRP with that of the early Christians, referred to High CommissionerJohn J. McCloyas "thePontius Pilatewho had causedHerod[to] crucify the SRP ", and declared that" if we should be banned, we shall descend into the catacombs ".[21]On 23 October 1952, according to Article 21 Paragraph 2 of theBasic Law,the Constitutional Court judged the party to be unconstitutional and forced its dissolution, prohibited the founding of any successor organizations, withdrew all Bundestag and Landtag mandates, and seized the party's assets (BVerfGE 2, 1).

Four years later, theCommunist Party of Germanywas also banned. They are still the only political parties withBundestagrepresentation to be outlawed by the Constitutional Court in the Federal Republic of Germany.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Rees, Phillip (1980).Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890.New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 215.ISBN0-13-089301-3.
  2. ^"Entscheidung der amtlichen Sammlung (BVerfG) E 2, 1"."Die Bundesregierung hat beim Bundesverfassungsgericht am 19. November 1951 den im Beschluß vom 4. Mai 1951 angekündigten Antrag gestellt. Sie behauptet, die innere Ordnung der SRP entspreche nicht demokratischen Grundsätzen, beruhe vielmehr auf dem Führerprinzip. Die SRP sei eine Nachfolgeorganisation der NSDAP; sie verfolge die gleichen oder doch ähnliche Ziele und gehe darauf aus, die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung zu beseitigen."( "On November 19, 1951, the federal government submitted the application announced in the decision of May 4, 1951, to the Federal Constitutional Court. It claims that the internal order of the SRP does not correspond to democratic principles but rather is based on the leader principle. The SRP is a successor organization to the NSDAP; they are pursuing the same or at least similar goals and aim to eliminate the free democratic basic order." )
  3. ^"Mitteilungen"[Report] (in German). Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Archived fromthe originalon 2008-05-16.Retrieved2009-09-16.
  4. ^abcLee, p. 50.
  5. ^Coogan, Kevin (1999).Dreamer of the day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International.Brooklyn, New York: Autonomedia. p. 400.ISBN1-57027-039-2.
  6. ^Martin A. Lee,The Beast Reawakens(Warner Books, 1998), p. 50.
  7. ^abKarl Dietrich Bracher,The German Dictatorship. The Origins, Structure, and Consequences of National Socialism(Penguin, 1991), p. 581.
  8. ^Lee, p. 58.
  9. ^Lee, p. 65.
  10. ^T. H. Tetens,The New Germany and the Old Nazis(London: Secker & Warburg, 1962), p. 78.
  11. ^Lee, pp. 74–75.
  12. ^Stephen E. Atkins.Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups,Greenwood, 2004.ISBN0-313-32485-9,978-0-313-32485-7.pp. 273–274
  13. ^Lee, Martin A. (2000-09-10)."Strange Ties: The Stasi and the Neo-Fascists".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved2023-04-11.
  14. ^Andrew, Christopher (2000).The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB(1st ed.).Basic Books.pp. 312, 323–325.ISBN9780465003129.
  15. ^Levenda, Peter (2014).The Hitler Legacy: The Nazi Cult in Diaspora: How it was Organized, How it was Funded, and Why it Remains a Threat to Global Security in the Age of Terrorism(1st ed.). Ibis Press. pp. 269–270.ISBN978-0892542109.
  16. ^Osborn, Howard (May 16, 1973)."Family Jewels"(PDF).CIA.
  17. ^Coogan, Kevin (1999).Dreamer of the day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International.Brooklyn, New York: Autonomedia. p. 401.ISBN1-57027-039-2.
  18. ^Burleigh, Michael (2001).The Third Reich: A New History(1st ed.).Hill and Wang.pp. 481–482, 494.ISBN978-0809093267.
  19. ^Lee, Martin A. (2000-09-10)."Strange Ties: The Stasi and the Neo-Fascists".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved2023-04-11.
  20. ^"Neo-Nazis Ban Party in Germany". The New York Times. 13 September 1952. p. 1.
  21. ^Lee,The Beast Reawakens,pp. 82–83.

External links[edit]

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