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The Consensus on Defense and Weimar Prussia's Civil Service
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2008
Extract
The impact of the Reichswehr's program of clandestine armament on Weimar Germany's civil society is a phenomenon largely overlooked by post-war historiography. Not only did it fail to identify the wide support enjoyed by the illegal preparations for a general mobilization on the national and local levels, but it also failed to address the question why the officials collaborated with the Reichswehr under the aegis of “national defense” at all. The reasons for both omissions are easy to find. While the role played by civilians within the militarization of society has been largely ignored (due to the historiographical dominance of the interpretation model of the army as an autonomous “state within the state”), the few authors who recognized its importance considered a more detailed analysis of civilian dispositions to be dispensable in view of the well-known nationwide anti-Versailles sentiment.
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References
1 This is true even in the recent relevant study by Jun Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz in der Weimarer Republik 1918–1933. Die geheime Aufrüstung und die deutsche Gesellschaft (Freiburg i.Br.: Rombach, 2002).
2 This question was not even posed in the most profound analysis of civil-military relations in the realm of the clandestine armament to date, written by Michael Geyer, “Der zur Organisation erhobene Burgfrieden,” in Militär und Militarismus in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Klaus-Jürgen Müller and Eckhardt Opitz (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1978), 15–100, since Geyer was primarily interested in the patterns of action by the military.
3 See especially Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955); furthermore Thilo Vogelsang, Reichswehr, Staat und NSDAP. Beiträge zur deutschen Geschichte 1930–1932 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1962); Wolfgang Sauer, Die Mobilmachung der Gewalt (Cologne, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1974).
4 This is especially true for the ideological, yet source-saturated works from the GDR-historiography. See, for example, Hermann Rahne, Mobilmachung. Militärische Mobilmachungsplanung und -technik in Preußen und im Deutschen Reich von Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin: Militärverlag der DDR, 1983).
5 Hagen Schulze, Otto Braun oder Preußens demokratische Sendung (Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, and Vienna: Propyläen, 1977), especially 602–18.
6 Bernhard R. Kroener, “Mobilmachungsplanungen gegen Recht und Verfassung. Kriegsvorbereitungen in Reichsheer und Wehrmacht 1918–1939,” in Erster Weltkrieg—Zweiter Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich. Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in Deutschland, ed. Bruno Thoß and Hans-Erich Volkmann (Paderborn [et al.]: Schoeningh, 2002), 57–77.
7 See Horst Möller, “Die preußischen Oberpräsidenten in der Weimarer Republik als Verwaltungselite,” in Die preußischen Oberpräsidenten 1815–1945, ed. Klaus Schwabe (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1985), 183–217.
8 Schulze, Otto Braun, 610.
9 Georg G. Iggers, “Zur ‘Linguistischen Wende’ im Geschichtsdenken und in der Geschichtsschreibung,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 21 (1995): 557–570, 564.
10 Christian Jansen, “Einleitung. Die Militarisierung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Der Bürger als Soldat. Die Militarisierung europäischer Gesellschaften im langen 19. Jahrhundert: Ein internationaler Vergleich, ed. Christian Jansen (Essen: Klartext, 2004), 9–23.
11 Carl von Rotteck, Ueber Stehende Heere und Nationalmiliz (Freyburg: Herder, 1816).
12 Jansen, “Einleitung,” 15.
13 See Jürgen Keddigkeit, “Der Landesverteidigungsausschuß und die provisorische Regierung der Pfalz im Frühjahr 1849,” in Die Pfalz und die Revolution 1848, ed. Hans Fenske (Kaiserslautern: Inst. für Pfälzische Geschichte und Volkskunde, 2000), 3–62.
14 Frank Becker, “Auf dem Weg zu einer ‘Kulturgeschichte der Ideen’? Deutung der Einigungskriege und bürgerlicher Militarismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich,” in Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit. Beiträge für eine erneuerte Geistesgeschichte, ed. Lutz Raphael (Munich: Oldenbourg 2006), 267–288, 281.
15 August Bebel, Nicht stehendes Heer, sondern Volkswehr! (Stuttgart: Dietz, 1898), 45.
16 Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2005).
17 See, for example, the booklet Sozialdemokratie und Landesverteidigung, ed. Bezirksvorstand d. Provinz Brandenburg (Berlin: Vorwärts, 1915).
18 Oberst a. D. Zimmermann, “Milizheere. Die Heere der französischen Republik im Kriege,” Vierteljahrshefte für Truppenführung und Heereskunde 10, no. 4 (1913): 694–731.
19 About this discussion, see Oliver Stein, Die deutsche Heeresrüstungspolitik 1890–1914. Das Militär und der Primat der Politik (Paderborn [et al.]: Schoeningh, 2007).
20 Hugo Friedrich von Freytag-Loringhoven, Geschultes Volksheer oder Miliz? Kriegslehren aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Berlin: Mittler, 1918).
21 About the revisionism and militarism of Weimar's military elite, see Detlef Bald, Der deutsche Offizier. Sozial- und Bildungsgeschichte des deutschen Offizierkorps im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1982), 85–100; Wolfram Wette, Gustav Noske. Eine politische Biographie (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1987).
22 See especially Geyer, “Der zur Organisation erhobene Burgfrieden.”
23 For the concept Scharnierbegriff, see Matthias Weipert, “Mehrung der Volkskraft.” Die Debatte über Bevölkerung, Modernisierung und Nation 1890–1933 (Paderborn [et al.]: Schoeningh, 2006), 17.
24 Jens Flemming, “Die Bewaffnung des ‘Landvolks.’ Ländliche Schutzwehren und agrarischer Konservatismus in der Anfangsphase der Weimarer Republik,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen (1979): 2, 7–36, 22.
25 Furthermore, the Upper Silesian home guard units were funded from the Reich budget between 1920 and 1922. Peter-Christian Witt, “Zur Finanzierung des Abstimmungskampfes und der Selbstschutzorganisationen in Oberschlesien 1920–1922,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 13 (1973): 1, 59–71, 60–1.
26 An example for Upper Silesia: the Commander of the Second Cavalry Division to the District President in Oppeln, July 24, 1923. Wojewódzkie Archiwum Panstwowe w Opolu (hereafter WAP Opole), Oberpräsidium zu Oppeln, no. 1893, 7.
27 The Public Prosecutor of the Reich (Oberreichsanwalt), indictment against the police officer Theophil Borkowski, March 22, 1933. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 110, 110–137, 125–6.
28 The district administrator in Kreuzburg to the province president of Upper Silesia, re: Smuggling of Arms to Poland, March 6, 1925. WAP Opole, Oberpräsidium zu Oppeln, no. 1035, 198.
29 Conan Fischer, The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
30 Jeffrey T. Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany (Cambridge [et al.]: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
31 Address of the Reichspräsident Ebert, February 12, 1923. Ursachen und Folgen, vol. 5, document. 1022, 69.
32 The Prussian Minister of the Interior to the Minister of the Reichswehr, April 23, 1923. AdSD, NL Severing, Folder 225, cited in Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 114.
33 On the Ruhr funds, see Hans Meier-Welcker, Seeckt (Frankfurt a.M.: Droste, 1967), 351; Werner Rahn, Reichsmarine und Landesverteidigung 1919–1928 (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1976), 410–4.
34 Information from the then-Lieutenant Colonel in the Reichswehr ministry Joachim von Stülpnagel to Hermann Foertsch, February 19, 1952. Archiv des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ), ZS 309.
35 Geyer, “Der zur Organisation erhobene Burgfrieden,” 30–1.
36 For a new case study about the Schwarze Reichswehr see Bernhard Sauer, Schwarze Reichswehr und Fememorde. Eine Milieustudie zum Rechtsradikalismus in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin: Metropol, 2004).
37 For a conceptualization of the term Bellizismus for modern history, see Jörn Leonhard, Bellizismus und Nation. Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750–1914 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008). In this article the term Bellizismus and its derivations are used mainly to replace the concept of “militarism,” which, due to its proximity regarding content and semantics to the institutionalized military, is especially unsuitable for the period of the radically disarmed Weimar Republic.
38 Robert Breuer, “Die schwarze Reichswehr,” in Deutsche Republik 1, no. 22 (1927): 11–2, 11. Breuer was a department manager in the Reichszentrale für Heimatdienst.
39 Ferdinand Friedensburg, Lebenserinnerungen, vol. 1 (Bonn: Athenäum Verlag, 1969), 161.
40 Regarding the negotiations, see Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 107–22.
41 Quoted in ibid., 109.
42 Schulze, Otto Braun, 610; Johannes Hürter, Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehrminister am Ende der Weimarer Republik (1928–1932) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993), 130; Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 290–304.
43 Schulze, Otto Braun, 610.
44 The members of the Reichstag Otto Wels and Hermann Müller Franken to the Minister of the Reichswehr, December 2, 1926. AdR, Die Kabinette Marx III und IV, vol. 1, no. 138.
45 Memorandum of basic comments of Colonel von Schleicher about the position of the Reichswehr concerning the political situation, December 1926. Quoted in Vogelsang, Reichswehr, document 3, 413.
46 Bernhard Rausch, Deutsche Wehrkraft, deutsches Schicksal (Munich: Milavida-Verlag, 1926), 32.
47 On the “codification” of the civil-military cooperation on armament by “guidelines” and “agreements,” see my forthcoming article “Der kodifizierte Verteidigungskonsens. ‘Richtlinien’ und ‘Weisungen’ über den Grenz- und Landesschutz von 1929,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 56, no. 3 (2008).
48 See the agreement between the province presidencies in Schneidemühl and Stettin with the Army District Command in Berlin as an attachment to the letter from the Commander in the Army District III to the president of the Border Province Posen-West Prussia November 30, 1923. WAP Poznan, Oberpräsidium Schneidemühl, no. 112, 30–35.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Regierungsrat Duvigneau, President of the border province of Posen-West Prussia, to Captain Fromm, Army District Command III, October 18, 1923. Draft. WAP Poznan, Oberpräsidium Schneidemühl, no. 112, 28–9, 28.
52 Note for the File, January 31, 1924. WAP Poznan, Oberpräsidium Schneidemühl, no. 112, 39.
53 This ambivalence becomes especially obvious in the memoirs of leading social democratic politicians, who oscillated between legitimating their own collaboration with the military and condemning the armament measures of the latter as having been fatal for German society and constitutional order. See, for example, Carl Severing, Mein Lebensweg, vol. 2, Im Auf und Ab der Republik (Cologne, 1950), 7, 54.
54 Andreas Hillgruber, “Militarismus am Ende der Weimarer Republik und im Dritten Reich,” in Großmachtpolitik und Militarismus im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Andreas Hillgruber (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1974), 37–52.
55 GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, passim.
56 Report about the counterintelligence conference concerning the coastal area, June 22, 1927. WAP Szczecin, Rep. 65a, Rejencja Szczecińska, no. 12082, 13–25.
57 See as an example the process of registration of young men fit for military service by the Rastenburg district administrator. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 110, 125–6.
58 Notes of the discussion between the president of the border province of Posen-West Prussia and the Army District Command concerning the directives from May 23, 1929. WAP Poznan, Oberpräsidium Schneidemühl, no. 112, 219–232, 231. See furthermore a report about the organization of border defense in Pomerania in connection with the economic crisis containing information regarding civil-military collaboration in the previous years. Implications of the economic development in the border regions on the military situation. Undated [Spring 1931], BA, R 43 I, no. 725, 191–200.
59 Extensive correspondence regarding these service papers with information about the handling in the neighboring provinces can be found in WAP Poznan, Oberpräsidium Schneidemühl, no. 114. For an example for such a certification, see the identification card of the Feldjägerorganisator (organizer for a clandestine military service) Gustav Richter, in ibid., 35.
60 See, for example, the correspondence regarding the national protection officer from Perleberg/Brandenburg Carl Siebel, a former member of the infamous “Organization Consul,” in BLHA, Rep. 2A I Pol, no. 1095.
61 Further examples in ibid.
62 As Michael Geyer has suggested with his figure of an “expansion of the military in state and society” caused by the “industrialization of warfare.” Michael Geyer, Aufrüstung oder Sicherheit. Die Reichswehr in der Krise der Machtpolitik, 1924–36 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), 6. See, in addition, the critique of Johannes Hürter on the thesis of Geyer in Hürter, Reichswehrminister, 127, footnote 227.
63 The province president of Pomerania to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, December 23, 1928. Secret. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 229–34, 229.
64 Regarding Reichswehr manpower planning in the second half of the 1920s, see Geyer, Aufrüstung, 188–228.
65 The comment of the Army Chief General Lieutenant Heye in a cabinet meeting in February 1927 that the Prussian officials would have rescinded their cooperation after violations of the “guidelines” by the Reichswehr (Cabinet meeting, February 26, 1927. AdR, Marx III and IV, vol. 1, 555) does not accord with the facts, as is shown in the records of the subordinate Prussian authorities. Rather, the officer tried to use this remark to exert pressure on the government to cause it to accept responsibility for clandestine armament.
66 Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 310–9.
67 Adolf von und zu Gilsa (1876–1945) held office between 1910 and 1928 as district administrator for Kirchhain. Thomas Klein, Leitende Beamte der allgemeinen Verwaltung in der preußischen Provinz Hessen-Nassau und in Waldeck 1867–1945 (Darmstadt: Hessische Historische Kommission [et al.], 1988), 127.
68 “Hakenkreuzler-Putsch. Ein Landrat suspendiert,” Tempo, November 29, 1928.
69 “Landrats-Skandal in Kirchhain. Hakenkreuzler spielen unter dem Schutz des Landrats Soldaten!,” Vorwärts, November 29, 1928.
70 See, for example, “Der Hakenkreuzler-Skandal in Hessen-Kassel. Nationalsozialisten wollen die Reichswehr hineinziehen,” Tempo, December 5, 1928.
71 The district president in Kassel to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, November 30, 1928. GStA PK, I.HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 132–134, 134.
72 See Vogelsang, Reichswehr, 57; Carsten, Reichswehr, 330–332; Schulze, Otto Braun, 612; Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 319.
73 Transcript of the questioning of the district administrator Adolf von und zu Gilsa, December 2, 1928. StA Marburg, 165, No. 3940, 96–7, 96.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid., 97.
77 The term Feldjäger refers to an infantry unit founded by Frederick II of Prussia, the Feldjägercorps, consisting exclusively of current and prospective forest officers (“Jäger”) and thereby especially skilled for combat in forested areas.
78 Joachim von Stülpnagel, 75 Jahre meines Lebens [1955]. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (hereafter BA-MA), N 5, no. 27, 206.
79 For this concept, see Wilhelm Deist, “Die Reichswehr und der Krieg der Zukunft,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 45 (1989): 1, 81–92.
80 On the foundation of the Feldjäger service, see also Gerd Krüger, “‘Ein Fanal des Widerstandes im Ruhrgebiet’: Das ‘Unternehmen Wesel’ in der Osternacht des Jahres 1923. Hintergründe eines angeblichen ‘Husarenstreichs,’” Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für Soziale Bewegungen 24 (2000): 95–140, 98–9.
81 Regarding the Feldjäger service in general, see the excessive aide memoir of its founder, Lieutenant-Colonel von Voß, from April 1928. BA-MA, RH 2/418.
82 Von Voss and his comrades established a nation-wide network of Feldjäger groups; in 1928 in Pomerania alone it consisted of twenty groups with altogether 160 men. Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 277.
83 Richard von Winterfeld (1884–1965) held office as district administrator in Frankenberg between 1921 and 1934. Klein, Leitende Beamte, 238.
84 Record of the interview of the police officer Richard Wagler, December 2, 1928. Copy. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 157–8.
85 Ibid., 157.
86 Extensive information contains the testimony of the former Feldjägerorganisator Gustav Richter, undated [May 1928] in GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 12–104.
87 Transcript of the questioning of the district administrator Adolf von und zu Gilsa, December 2, 1928. StA Marburg, 165, No. 3940, 96–7.
88 Records of the interview of Richard Koch, November 28, 1928. StA Marburg, 165, no. 3940, vol. 1, 72–3, 73.
89 Testimony of the former Feldjägerorganisator Gustav Richter, undated [May 1928] in GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 12–104, 96.
90 The President of the Board of Audit of the Reich to the Reichswehr minister, to the attention of Major Fromm, re: Council for the Clandestine Expenses of the Reichswehr ministry, October 22, 1928. Secret. BA-MA, RH 15, no. 4, 138–148, here 144.
91 Even though his true motives remain unknown, his choice of words is telling enough. The police president in Kassel to the district president in Kassel, December 6, 1928. Urgent, Secret. StA Marburg, 165, no. 3940, vol. 1, 106–108, 107.
92 “. . . damit er wieder mehr ans Arbeiten komme und es mit der Wirtschaft wieder aufwärts gehe . . .” The district administrator in Kirchhain to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, December 10, 1928. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, no. 4843, 112–15, 112.
93 Wolfram Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933. Die Verschränkung von Milieu und Parteien in den protestantischen Landgebieten Deutschlands in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1996), 55.
94 In fact, Hesse was one of the early NSDAP strongholds in Weimar Prussia. Eike Hennig, ed., Hessen unterm Hakenkreuz. Studien zur Durchsetzung der NSDAP in Hessen (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1983).
95 The district administrator in Kirchhain (see footnote 92 above).
96 Records of the questioning of the mill owner Heinrich Bossenberger, November 15, 1928, Copy. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 120.
97 The Prussian Head Forester Matthies, Head Forester's House Neustadt, to the district president in Kassel, November 16, 1928. StA Marburg, 165, no. 3940, 42.
98 The prominent republican Friedensburg was transferred to the North Hessian town of Kassel in the fall of 1927 after having served under Police President Albert Grzesinski as deputy police chief of Berlin. Having been forced to resign from his post in spring 1933, he survived the “Third Reich” in “inner emigration.” He was arrested in 1934 and detained in the main Gestapo prison in Prinz-August-Straße, Berlin, not least because of his behavior during the Kirchhain Affair. After World War II he was a prominent conservative politician (Deputy Mayor of Berlin 1946–1951) and an internationally renowned mining expert (he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Detroit and Columbia University, New York). Friedensburg, Lebenserinnerungen; for his biography, see Volker Depkat, Lebenswenden und Zeitenwenden. Deutsche Politiker und die Erfahrungen des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), especially chapter III.2.
99 As a former East Prussian district administrator and as such, a participant in the institutionalized consensus on defense in the east, Friedensburg could speak from his own experience. Depkat, Lebenswenden, 375.
100 The Prussian Minister of the Interior to the Minister for the Reichswehr, December 14, 1928, draft. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, Nr. 112, 225–28, 226.
101 Note for the file about the visit of Colonel Ritter von Mittelberger, October 12, 1928, Copy. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 213–17, 214.
102 The 3rd Cavalry Division activated Col. Cord von Brandis after Richard Koch had reported the situation.
103 Note for the File, November 17, 1928. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 127.
104 Friedensburg, Lebenserinnerungen, 253.
105 Ibid., 170–1. Friedensburg was a descendent of a Silesian bourgeois family with a strong liberal tradition; his grandfather had participated in the revolution of 1848. The importance of the concepts of national defense and military preparedness for German nineteenth-century liberalism has been suggested above. Furthermore Grzesinski had held office as the chairman of the Kassel Workers and Soldiers Council during the revolution 1918/1919.
106 Note for the File, November 17, 1928. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 127.
107 Ibid.
108 The district president in Kassel to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, re: Treatment of the press (Pressebehandlung) concerning the incidents in the district of Kirchhain, December 19, 1928, draft. StA Marburg, 165, no. 3940, 186–189.
109 Yet, he was not successful in this realm. Eventually the questioned article was published, see “Adolf Hitlers Geist in Kirchhain,” in Kasseler Volksblatt, December 1, 1928.
110 Depkat, Lebenswenden, 259, 271, 275, 284. To a much greater extent than his predecessor Carl Severing, Grzesinski tried to change the character of the bureaucracy by promoting convinced democrats such as Friedensburg and by taking resolute measures against the anti-republican national camp.
111 Ibid., 284.
112 The Prussian Minister of the Interior to the Prussian Prime Minister, November 6, 1926. AdR, Die Kabinette Marx III und IV, vol. 1, no. 163, app. 2, 470–483, here 472.
113 Ibid.
114 Michael Wildt, “‘Volksgemeinschaft’ als politischer Topos in der Weimarer Republik,” in NS-Gewaltherrschaft. Beiträge zur historischen Forschung und juristischen Aufarbeitung, ed. Alfred Gottwaldt (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 2005), 23–39, 23.
115 Vogelsang, Reichswehr, 52; Schulze, Otto Braun, 612; Nakata, Der Grenz- und Landesschutz, 305–6.
116 The extension of the program of national protection had become possible after the withdrawal of the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission in the beginning of 1927.
117 Memorandum for the State Secretary in the Chancellery of the Reich, re: Reichswehr-matters, December 4, 1928. Bundesarchiv (hereafter BA), R 43 I/725, 64.
118 “Die Vorgänge im Kreis Kirchhain, Landrat von Gilsa zur Disposition gestellt,” Amtlicher Preußischer Pressedienst, November 29, 1928.
119 GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 127.
120 The Prussian Minister of the Interior (see footnote 100 above), 227.
121 Yet, the military elite was also ready to sacrifice one of them (the officer responsible, Colonel Werner von Blomberg, the first Reichswehr minister of the Third Reich) in order to secure civil-military cooperation. Von Blomberg was saved only by the chief of the army command Lieutenant General Wilhelm Heye, who himself offered his resignation. Carsten, Reichswehr, 330–2.
122 Record of the conference in the Chancellery of the Reich regarding Military Matters, December 22, 1928. Copy. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 243–47.
123 The Bavarian alternate representative to the Reichsrat to the Bavarian Foreign Ministry, re: National Defense Matters, March 4, 1929. BayHStA, MA, no. 104593, unpaged.
124 Abstract from the Conference of the Ministers, Matter under Consideration: Matters of the Armed Forces. April 26, 1929. BA, R 43 I/725, 131–32.
125 Vogelsang, Reichswehr, 162.
126 See especially Thoughts about the War of the Future by Lieutenant-Colonel Joachim von Stülpnagel from February 1924. BA-MA, RH 2/417; Hillgruber, “Militarismus.”
127 The district president in Kassel to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, re: Participation of Prussian Civil Servants in the National Defense Lectures of the Reichswehr, October 23, 1930. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 469–70.
128 Friedensburg, Lebenserinnerungen, 181.
129 The Prussian Minister of the Interior to the district president in Kassel, re: Participation of Prussian Civil Servants in Lectures, November 7, 1930. GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77, Tit. 4043, no. 112, 471.
130 The district president in Kassel to Mr. Pappenheim, Editor of the Volksstimme, Schmalkalden, January 22, 1929. Draft. StA Marburg, 165, Nr. 3940, 219.
131 Quotation in Depkat, Lebenswenden, 375.
132 Geyer, Aufrüstung, 438–49.