Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany by Jonathan Petropoulos

Author:Jonathan Petropoulos [Petropoulos, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-05-18T04:30:00+00:00

Princes, the SS, and the Holocaust

The SS was a magnet for aristocrats.467 Indeed, there are too many to list here. But to offer one indication of this phenomenon, a cursory glance at the SS roles reveals the membership of over seventy barons (Freiherrn), ranging from the influential Karl von Eberstein (1894–1979), who served as Himmler’s chief of staff, and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (1912–77) to Günther von Reibnitz (1894–1983)—the father of Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, the current Princess Michael of Kent.468 One might also recall the princes noted earlier, which included members of the Houses of Hohenzollern, Mecklenburg, Thurn-und-Taxis, Lippe, Braunschweig, and Auersperg.469 While several members of the high aristocracy had appointments that were largely honorific, others were leading figures in the SS. The fact remains that Himmler, while holding ambivalent views about aristocrats, conceived his order as “a new knighthood” and liked to surround himself with nobles.470 He told one meeting of the Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer-SS, “to fulfill its mission, the SS required as members the best elements of society, ‘genuine military tradition, the bearing and breeding of the German nobility, and the creative efficiency of the industrialist, always on the basis of racial selection.’”471 The Reichsführer-SS conceived his order as a Blutadel (blood nobility) and drew upon the resources and traditions of the aristocracy.472

Heinrich Himmler had been raised in proximity to princes. His father had served as a tutor for the Wittelsbach family—having been an employee of Prince Arnulf von Bayern and supervisor of his son, Prince Heinrich.473 Putzi Hanfstaengl, who was also a student of the senior Himmler, described him as “a terrible snob, favoring the young titled members of his class and bearing down contemptuously on commoners.”474 The future Reichsführer-SS spent his youth in a staunchly pro-Wittelsbach milieu (the family even moved to Landshut in 1913—“the administrative seat of the Wittelsbach dukes” with an Altstadt whose style one historian described as “mediaeval splendour”).475 Prince Heinrich von Bayern agreed to serve as Heinrich Himmler’s godfather.476 In 1917, Himmler received 1,000 Marks as a gift from the chamberlain of his late-godfather—Prince Heinrich having been killed in battle the previous year—that Himmler used to pay his way into the elite officers training program of the First Bavarian Infantry. Indeed, the young man reported for training at Regensburg on 1 January as a Fahnenjunker (officer trainee—a word with strong aristocratic connotations).477 While Himmler did not remain a monarchist—especially after Prince Rupprecht refused to support the Nazis in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 (Himmler had helped man the barricades at the War Ministry in Munich)—he continued to admire many aspects of aristocratic life, including the connectedness to history, the martial heritage, and the sense of honor and duty. He created a pseudoknightly order at a castle called the Wewelsburg, made plans for an ideological school in Schloss Grünwald near Munich (the birthplace of, in his words, “Ludwig der Bayern, a great German Kaiser”), and exhibited a fixation with the founder of the Saxon dynasty, King Heinrich I (“the Fowler”) (875–936)—a conqueror of the Slavs.

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