Product Code Database
The Naumann Circle (), also sometimes referred to as the Gauleiter Circle or the Naumann Affair, was an organization of former German adherents of the Nazi Party that was formed in the German Federal Republic (West Germany) several years after the end of the Second World War. It was founded and led by Werner Naumann, the last State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Between 1951 and early 1953, the organization attempted to infiltrate the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and two smaller parties to lay the groundwork for a possible return to power. British security forces disrupted the cabal by arresting Naumann and several of his associates in early 1953. Handed over to West German authorities, the accused were investigated but the charges ultimately were dismissed by the criminal court due to insufficient evidence.
Naumann soon began making contact with other former Nazi functionaries. It has been estimated that he developed a very wide network of contacts numbering perhaps as many as 1,000; his address book alone contained over 700 names. He set about organizing these contacts into an underground organization. His correspondence stressed the need for secrecy, and the organization made use of personal couriers, false addresses and code names. A series of regular monthly meetings began in February 1952.Baldow, Beate (2012) Episode oder Gefahr? Die Naumann-Affäre pages 84–86 Naumann's contacts were not limited to Germany, but also included many Nazis who had fled abroad via the ratlines, such as Otto Skorzeny in Spain and Eberhard Fritsch, Johann von Leers and Hans-Ulrich Rudel in Argentina. He maintained frequent contact with these émigrés and the US CIA reported that, although his plans had not yet progressed to the point that he could direct their activities, he could expect their support whenever he decided to openly enter into political activities.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Declassified CIA Document: The Naumann Circle: The Study of a Technique in Political Subversion
In the summer of 1952, Middelhauve presented to the state party conference in Bielefeld the so-called "German Program", which had been formulated largely with input from Naumann, Best, Fritzsche and Six. The text included revanchism ideas such as refusing to renounce the right of expelled Germans to return to their home territories, and also voiced objections to the Allies judgments of former soldiers.Peter Maxwill: Geheimaufstand der Gauleiter in Der Spiegel 15 January 2013. Middelhauve presented the program at the FDP federal party conference at Bad Ems in November 1952 but it was not adopted at the federal level, in order to forestall a split in the party. Nevertheless, Middelhauve emerged from the party conference strengthened when he was elected as one of two deputy party leaders. In the municipal elections of November 1952, some fifty former Nazi officials in North Rhine Westphalia were elected to office as candidates of the FDP.
Many observers were alarmed by the FDP's rightward shift. The Frankfurter Rundschau characterized the events at the party conference as the "intra-party January 30th of the FDP", referring to Adolf Hitler's 1933 assumption of power; France's Le Monde stated that the FDP was on the way to transforming itself into a "nationalist and reactionary movement of the extreme right". Nazis und Nationale Sammlung: Pflicht nach rechts in Antifaschistisches Infoblatt 59 (2003) The FDP, along with the DP, was viewed as part of an "extremist" bloc in an analysis by US intelligence officials.
A study by Michael Klepsch in 2009 examined a total of 451 state Landtag deputies in North Rhine-Westphalia who had been at least 18 years old at the end of the war. His findings revealed 41 men with past Nazi Party membership, among whom were full-time Party officials and members of the Allgemeine-SS or Waffen-SS. Eight served as parliamentary faction leaders and two became ministers in the state government. The proportion of former Nazis in the post-war years was particularly high in the FDP, with more than one in five FDP members of the state parliament having a Nazi past. Between 1955 and 1975, the FDP parliamentary faction was led by six former Nazis, including three SS men. Braunes Erbe In: Antifa Infoblatt 92, (2011)
The outlook was similar in the FDP party organizations in the states of Lower Saxony and Hesse. In Lower Saxony, the FDP state manager was , a former employee of the Propaganda Ministry and once the Hitler Youth leader of Upper Silesia. In Hesse, from December 1952 the DP state chairman was , the former Burgomaster and Nazi Party Kreisleiter of Offenbach am Main. Numerous former Nazi officials were active in both these parties as well as in the All German Bloc. All three parties also employed as organizers or candidates many former functionaries of the recently dissolved Socialist Reich Party.
The British acted on the basis of their reserved powers under the Occupation Statute. They alleged that Naumann and his associates were engaged in a plot to overthrow the German government and, thereby, endangered the security of the Allied troops. The British High Commissioner informed the Adenauer government, including federal FDP politicians Theodor Heuss (Federal President), Thomas Dehler (Federal Justice Minister) and Franz Blücher (Vice-Chancellor and FDP Chairman) about what the surveillance had uncovered. There was indignation at the perceived encroachment on German national sovereignty in the public and the press. The initial reaction by the German government was skepticism and a degree of hostility. Interior Minister Robert Lehr stated that the group was well known to the government, that it was numerically small and that it did not appear to the German authorities that intervention was called for.
On 5 August 1953, barely a week after his release, Naumann declared his intention to run for a seat in the Bundestag as a candidate of the right-wing Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) and he was supported by DRP Chairman Adolf von Thadden. Because of his incendiary rhetoric, Naumann was banned from speaking in Dortmund, Munich, Hesse and Hamburg, and was briefly arrested for violating the ban in Hamburg. Then, on 23 August, just two weeks before the election, the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, acting as a denazification tribunal, classified him as a Category II offender. As such, he was prohibited from belonging to any political party, engaging in any political activity, holding any political office, or working as an author, journalist or broadcaster for a period of five years. His nascent political career was thus effectively derailed.
Investigations continued and, on 29 June 1954, the German prosecutors determined that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution of Naumann and Bornemann on charges of leading an unconstitutional organization. At the same time, they concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support charges against the other six members of the group. Just over five months later, on 3 December 1954, the criminal court in Karlsruhe found that the evidence did not support the charge of "ringleadership in an anti-constitutional organization" and the criminal proceedings were dismissed. The court concluded that although the two defendants had espoused National Socialist and anti-constitutional ideas, their organization had no political effectiveness and the evidence did not demonstrate any results.
In the Bundestag election of 6 September 1953, the FDP won 9.5% of the vote, down from 11.9% in 1949 and they lost four seats. The DP won 3.25%, down from 4.0% and they lost two seats. The All-German Bloc, which was formed after the 1949 election, won 5.9% of the vote and entered the Bundestag for the first time. All three parties joined the center-right coalition of Adenauer's second administration. The DRP, the most right-wing entity and banned from participating in three of the nine states (Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Baden-Württemberg), won only 1.1% and lost all five of its seats.
On 23 September 1955, just over two years after the imposition of the 5-year political and civil prohibitions against Naumann, they were lifted by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, which determined that after the formal ending of the Allied occupation, the Allied Control Council directives that had vested the denazification authority in the state government were now deprived of effect. Despite this, Naumann never stood for election again, and he died in 1982.
|
|
