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Historian of the Hohenzollern dispute: "The Crown Prince went to bed with every opponent of the Weimar Republic"

2019-11-26T15:08:04.451Z


The Hohenzollern demand a million compensation. Crucial in the dispute is the role of the family during the Nazi era. Historian Karina Urbach explains the status quo in the game of nobility against state - and why she thanks Jan Böhmermann.



After the end of the First World War, Hohenzollern Emperor Wilhelm II had to abdicate and renounce the German nobility in August 1919 to all standing privileges. The Weimar Republic ended the era of the aristocracy and seized also the state part of the Hohenzollern fortune.

But because it was not easy to separate what belonged to the state and what of the family personally, a contract between the state of Prussia and the Hohenzollern family conceded dozens of castles, villas, and plots of land and 15 million marks.

It remained open, however, to whom the art treasures in the Berlin summer palace Monbijou should belong, since 1877 a museum. What survived the war was given to GDR museums. Many of the castles, mansions and land left to the family took away the Soviet occupying power.

Dan Komoda

Karina Urbach

It was only after German reunification that the ownership issue became acute again. Since 2013, representatives of the Hohenzollern have been conducting secret negotiations with the Federation and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg on an out-of-court settlement. The family demands works of art and books, as well as a right to live in Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, or alternatively in two other houses. The dispute also involves compensation of 1.2 million euros for expropriated lands. A lawsuit before the Administrative Court Potsdam, started years ago, was initially suspended, but now it is to be continued on the initiative of the state of Brandenburg.

Historian Karina Urbach (born 1969) conducts research in Princeton and is an expert in the relationship between Europe's aristocracy and the National Socialists.

SPIEGEL: Ms. Urbach, in court is decisive whether the Hohenzollern "National Socialism" have made a "significant boost" - because then their compensation claims would be void. Opinions from four historians on this question were secret until Jan Böhmermann recently published them. Do historians have to thank him for that?

Urbach: Böhmermann has done an incredible service to our field. He has shown to a broad public how relevant history can be - and allows us to finally discuss the opinions.

SPIEGEL: So far, the reports have been 2: 2. Both Stephan Malinowski and Peter Brandt come to the conclusion that the Hohenzollerners used their prestige in favor of the National Socialists and thereby provided them with a "significant boost". Christopher Clark, on the other hand, describes Crown Prince Wilhelm only as a marginal figure who did not decisively promote the Nazi regime - he also says: "The man was a bottle". And Wolfram Pyta even explains Wilhelm as Hitler's opponent. How can historians arrive at such different assessments?

Urbach: In the history of the 20th century, there is hardly a central theme in which we historians would not come to different conclusions. There is nothing surprising about that. We constantly exchange and criticize each other, so we are used to differences in interpretation. It is therefore very good to have all the reports on the table. Now we can finally start with the right work.

SPIEGEL: The content of the reports by Malinowski, Clark and Brandt has been known for some time. That a fourth exists was unknown for a long time. Has Wolfram Pyta found new sources for his report in the Hohenzollern commission? Does his argument convince you?

Urbach: Pyta is one of the connoisseurs of the Weimar Republic. In his Hindenburg biography of 2007, he still saw Crown Prince Wilhelm as an opportunist who worked closely with Hitler until 1933 - an absolutely correct assessment. In the report, he now describes a "cross-front": The Crown Prince had tried together with General Kurt von Schleicher to prevent Hitler's seizure of power. To put it bluntly, in my opinion, the Crown Prince went to bed with every opponent of the Weimar Republic in order to come to power: in spring '32 with Hitler, in autumn / winter '32 with Schleicher, at the end of January '33 with Hitler. The Crown Prince himself wrote in 1934 that he had supported Hitler all the time because Schleicher simply was not strong enough. The short Schleicher Liebelei does not exculpate the Crown Prince. And Schleicher was of course no democrat, but one of the gravediggers of the Weimar Republic.

SPIEGEL: The "time" quoted Georg Friedrich Prince of Prussia, today's head of the Hohenzollern, as follows: "The Crown Prince has sometimes strayed from the path, but he was not a supporter of Hitler He has moved on the conservative, right margin." Would you let this interpretation go through in a student homework?

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Hohenzollern contra state: From the tribe Take

Urbach: There is a good book about displacement mechanisms in families with the title "Grandpa was not a Nazi". Prince of Prussia certainly does not need my teachings, but I would advise a student to do so: First, define the word "support" and support a party through concrete political action, advertising, and symbolic politics. Then I would ask the student to give the names of all those who sat in the Cabinet on January 30, 1933, and also to count exactly how many were NSDAP members and how many conservatives. Now he should check in the lexicon the word "coalition", in addition to the names of Papen, von Hindenburg, Hugenberg and the terms Stahlhelm and DNVP. Furthermore, he should look at the merger of SA and Stahlhelm, commenting on the electoral call of the Crown Prince for Hitler at the end, as well as the marching pictures of the Crown Prince next to Ernst Röhm and Heinrich Himmler.

SPIEGEL: And if the history student continues to argue that Crown Prince Wilhelm did not support Hitler?

Urbach: Then I would suggest a change of subject.

SPIEGEL: You have searched US archives for sources on relations between Hohenzollern and Nazis. What role do your results play?

Urbach: You are another stone in the mosaic. So far, only a handful of historians have dealt with it. The now available reports have expanded our picture. My source finds complement Stephan Malinowski's and Peter Brandt's reports.

SPIEGEL: They also show that ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II and Crown Prince Wilhelm expressed themselves anti-Semitic. Is that sufficient proof that the Hohenzollerners gave the regime a "significant boost"?

Video: Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor

Video

DPA

Urbach: No, that alone is not a proof. One could be a convinced anti-Semite and still not support the National Socialists. Anti-Semitism was only a part of Nazi ideology, but - in addition to anti-parliamentarism and anti-Bolshevism - an important bridge between conservative and National Socialist groups. Wilhelm II was from 1918 convinced anti-Semite. His son, the Crown Prince, had some acquaintances from the Jewish upper classes, but when the regime demanded of him, he sharply attacked Jews in a newspaper article. So he obviously made the National Socialism feed, he made propaganda for it at home and abroad. The Crown Prince was still a media star, so Hitler's support was priceless PR aid, and Hitler himself was enthusiastic about it. After the Crown Prince declared publicly in April 1932 that he would vote for him in the presidential election, "a smiling" Hitler told the British "Daily Express": "I greatly appreciate this act of the Crown Prince." She was completely spontaneous, and he got along with it publicly placed in the line of patriotic German nationalists. "

SPIEGEL: August Wilhelm, brother of the Crown Prince, was SA member. After the SA was smashed in 1934 and it became clear that the National Socialists would not reintroduce the monarchy, the public support of the Hohenzollern for the Nazis faded. Was the family at a distance at this time?

Urbach: After the National Socialists had consolidated in 1934, they no longer needed the Hohenzollern for their PR purposes. Until then, the family hoped for a "Mussolini solution" - just like in Italy they wanted an arrangement between "leader" and monarchy. That had failed in 1934, but they refused to recognize it and did not break away from the regime. Hitler's foreign policy remained too seductive, William II and the Crown Prince were clearly 100 percent behind it: four weeks after his eldest son had fallen on the Western Front, wrote the Crown Prince on June 25, 1940 his "leader" a euphoric congratulatory telegram on the victories the Wehrmacht. Only the most fanatical parents could handle such a thing.

SPIEGEL: Emperor grandson Louis Ferdinand was previously considered irreproachable and is said to have been close to the conspiratorial circle of July 20. Now you also attest to him Nazi closeness. Why?

Urbach: So far nobody has seriously dealt with Louis Ferdinand. At first he was inspired by the regime and became critical after the war started. As a resistance, you can hardly call him. He had contact with resistance groups who were very much hoping for him, but at the end he gave them a basket on the instructions of his father. He has done no favor with the monarchical resistance. After the war, Louis Ferdinand was very adept at staging the family, writing about his proximity to the resistance and making sure that an obelisk was set up for William II in Israel (although he knew what his grandfather had really been from the Jews since 1918 held); In a great action he had the bones of Frederick the Great surrounded. That was a very effective history policy.

SPIEGEL: Hohenzollern emperor Wilhelm II was the head of state when, during the colonial era, German soldiers committed the genocide against the Herero in what is now Namibia. The German state has always refused compensation to Herero descendants, but negotiates with the Hohenzollern. Jan Böhmermann combines both topics. Is that legitimate - or almost anti-noble propaganda?

Urbach: Lawyers and historians will say that you can not mix that. But Böhmermann has asked an interesting question. He asks us to think beyond the cold legal criteria about the political and moral dimensions of compensation and damage, of perpetrators, victims and guilt - and to classify the currently very small-scale debate in the larger contexts of the 20th century.

SPIEGEL: The Hohenzollern debate can seem like this noble family demands the privileges of the day before yesterday. An attempt to explore the limits of the possible?

Urbach: I do not want to speculate, but it's amusing, as the English press reports. The Times wrote: What if the British monarchy had lost the First World War and abdicated King George V if fascists had us in another war? And then, in the 21st century, Prince Charles suddenly appears, demands our national painting collection, and wants to move into Buckingham Palace. One suspects: The British would reject it. And what would the French say if the Bourbons threatened to dispose of the Louvre?

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2019-11-26

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