Who Is Ludolf Haase?
Ludolf Haase was founder of the Gottingen branch of the NSDAP when it formed in 1922. Haase, a student in the prestigious Gottingen university administered the branch in Northern Germany until 1925, although he was not always the official leader due to his bourgeoise background and pursuit of working class support. Paul Madden considers that it was his energy that kept this branch of the party together in between Hitler’s failed Putsch and his release from prison. As a result he was able to carve a significant amount of influence in the area and within the party. His ‘devotion’ to Hitler as well as his skills in expanding the NSDAP in the Gottingen vicinity led to him being appointed Gauleiter in 1925 by Strasser on Hitler’s appointment, a position he held until October 1928. Haase had a hostile relationship with the Munich leadership throughout Hitler’s time in prison. The source of this hostility was the leadership’s alliance with the DVFP who sought to gain power through parliamentary means. Such a proposal was said to ‘appall’ him due in part to the DVFP’s dominance over the NSDAP in the north but also due to his disgust at the abhorrent nature of parliamentarianism.
The source of Haase’s hostility with the leadership was their alliance with the DVFP who sought to gain power through parliamentary means. Such a proposal was said to ‘appall’ him due in part to the DVFP’s dominance over the NSDAP in the north but also due to his disgust at the abhorrent nature of parliamentarianism. Anti- democratic ferment found a receptive audience in universities such as Gottingen, and Haase was certainly receptive to these views. He had an evident deep-rooted hatred for democracy, which manifested in a series of stern letters sent to right-wing leaders including Ludendorff and Rosenberg regarding the necessity of a ‘break with Berlin’, a reference to the location of the Reichstag. He saw parties such as the DVFP as ‘corrupted by the influence of the parliamentary air in Berlin’. Thus, we can see in his article in the Nazi official newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, a scathing and highly racial attack on democracy as a system of ‘Jewry’.
Haase’s Political Message
The timing of Haase’s article, ‘National Socialism and democracy’, is very significant as it coincides with Hitler’s decision to attempt to gain power through the legal means of democracy. Hitler, having returned from prison, staked all his efforts on ensuring his leadership. In return, he left key policy direction in the hands of other NSDAP leaders such as the Strasser brothers. Feuchtwanger, states:
‘Most northern Nazis were against getting involved with parliamentary politics, but for the proletarian socialist orientation’.
Haase, despising democracy, was of this mould. By 1926 Haase, along with the majority of his Gottingen branch, were disenchanted by the insanity of pursuing power through legal means. The context of the source, therefore, is significant. It was published during a period of decay and resentment in the Gottingen branch where members had left in their droves. The article was also written in a time of unprecedented popularity for social democracy and the Weimar system. Thus, there was the prediction, which turned out to be correct, that the Nazis would not fair well in the Reichstag elections of May 1928.
“National Socialism and Democracy”
The article itself contains a vehement and highly racial attack on the German political system after World War One. The post-war outbreak of communist ‘red flag’ sentiment is immediately associated with the ‘Jewish liberators’ an introduction to a constant theme in the article depicting Jews at the forefront of the systems of socialism and democracy. It is common for Nazi commentators to associate communism with Jews. The distorted myth that Jews were inextricably linked with communism was central to the Nazi programme. Haase uses the post-war chaos in Germany, including revolution and foreign occupation to condemn the Jewish systems of socialism and democracy. In describing Germany’s ‘collapse’ Haase highlights the strife of the ‘Pan-German’ people, stating not even a ‘Negro tribe’ would tolerate the level of political deprivation experienced under Germany’s brief Communist experience. Anti-semitism had its political uses, it allowed Nazis to attribute what Stackelberg describes as the ‘natural social developments of liberal and Labor movements to a Jewish conspiracy’.
Similarly, democracy is perceived by Haase as a seriously flawed system dominated by Jews. One of the key reasons for this is the existence of ‘economic helotism’. Helotism is a sociopolitical system whereby a certain class or race is subjected to oppression. Haase uses the term economic helotism to describe what he sees as Jewish domination over the economy resulting in the subjection of the German race. Consequently, democracy is inherently flawed as Jews have a stranglehold on the country’s economy and therefore its political system also.
However, the article does not solely focus on race and particularly the role of Jews in explaining the depraved nature of democracy. Central to Haase’s argument is the concept that even men of the same race are not equal:
‘Even the members of one and the same race are quite different from one another’.
The fundamental principle of democracy, that all men are equal, is fundamentally flawed from Haase’s perspective. This view is central to National Socialist philosophy and one of their key sources of (often misguided) inspiration, Nietsche. Nietsche, saw democracy as a form of decay proposing:
‘A hierarchy must emerge with a clear distinction between those who give orders and those who obey’.
Here it is possible to locate one of the key sources of National Socialist philosophy on the art of ruling. Although the above statement was intended for the pursuit of reason rather than politics, Nazis such as Haase had a stringent belief in the inequality of man and endeavored to install this belief through a new radical political system.
Haase’s proposed cure for what he perceives as the endemic social and racial decay of democracy is saved for the final two paragraphs. Earlier Haase described many German parliamentarians as coming from the ‘most mongrelised nooks of our fatherland’. The remedy is the combination of two processes. Firstly the recognition that people are not equal and should be judged on their abilities ‘according to German values’. Secondly he calls for the breeding of a ‘Nordic-type German race’ one pure and reminiscent of ancient German races and political structures such as the Hanse. This view was consistent with Volkisch ideology, which was intolerant of the process of democracy due to its resulting multiculturalism and racial mixing, which threatened the German-Nordic race. This ‘remedy’ for what Haase believes is wrong with democracy simultaneously dismisses the viability of democracy as a means of government and calls for the establishment of a ‘racial state’.
Dissatisfaction With Nazism
Haase’s intention was, arguably, to make a stand against the Nazi Party’s decision to pursue power through legal means. Haase contends in his article that democracy in Germany particularly, is a system of lunacy due to the influence of Jews and the racially diverse nature of the country. The timing of the article in February 1927 follows Hitler’s decision in 1926 to try and enter parliament, which as aforementioned was met with despondency by Haase. Writing in the Volkischer Beobachter, the official paper of the Nazi Party, shows that his intended audience is likely to have been other members of the NSDAP as in 1927 the paper had a relatively small following with only 14000 papers in circulation. The continual emphasis on the degradation caused by Jewry is consistent with Volkisch ideology but it may have been an attack on the party’s attempt at gaining legitimacy within the Weimar system. “National Socialism and Democracy is a prime example with early dissatisfaction by Nazi radicals regarding the pursuit of power through democracy.
This document is useful for the historian as it shows that the Nazi Party was not an entirely cohesive, uniformed organization at this period. Haase’s article displays that there were prominent members in the NSDAP ranks who opposed the pursuit of power through democratic means. It also displays the irony of the Nazi’s successful rise to power through a system, which they inherently despised. It also confirms that Nazi philosophy predominantly focused on what it was against rather than what it was for. This article goes into great detail about the horrors of Jewry and democracy yet in reply offers an extremely vague alternative based on an archaic view of the German race.
Sources:
- Madden and Muhlberger, The Nazi Party.
- David Jablonsky, the Nazi Party in dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit. (London, Frank Cass, 1989)
- Ludolf Haase, National Socialism and Democracy
- Feuchtwanger, E. J. From Weimar to Hitler, (London, Macmillan, 1993)
- Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler’s Germany, origins, interpretations, legacies (London, Routledge, 1999).
- Roger Woods, The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic (London, Macmillan, 1996).
Patrick Skinner - I'm a political writer interested mainly in international relations as well as UK and Australian Politics. I also enjoy writing a broad ...
Join the Conversation