Wilhelm Stapel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1882-10-27)27 October 1882 Kalbe, Germany |
| Died | 1 June 1954(1954-06-01) (aged 71) |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen (PhD) |
| Known for | Pro-Nazi theologian |
Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Stapel (27 October 1882 – 1 June 1954), was a German Protestant and nationalist essayist. He was the editor of the influential antisemitic monthly magazineDeutsches Volkstum from 1919 until its shutdown by the Nazis in 1938.
While holdingcultural anti-semitic thesis that diverged from theracialist Nazi doctrines, and advocating for less harmful measures to be taken against Jews, Stapel nonetheless collaborated with many Nazi institutions and official figures. He spoke vehemently against the anti-NaziConfessing Church ofMartin Niemöller andKarl Barth, and defended the policy of Reich BishopLudwig Müller. At the same time Stapel was committed to the policy of Reichsminister of Church Affairs (Reichskirchenminister)Hanns Kerrl, to whom he served as an advisor.
After 1945, Stapel despised the newGerman Federal Republic and, in 1949, called for a boycott of theBundestag elections. He died in Hamburg in 1954 at the age of 71, largely unnoticed from the public.
Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Stapel was born on 27 October 1882 inKalbe, the son of aPrussian watchmaker.[1][2] He soon became a journalist under the influence ofFriedrich Naumann in 1903. In 1905 he graduated from high school (Abitur), before joiningFerdinand Avenarius' magazineDer Kunstwart in November 1911.[1] The same year, he earned a PhD inart history at theUniversity of Göttingen, after a doctoral thesis under the supervision ofEdmund Husserl titledDer Meister des Salzwedeler Hochaltars. Nebst einem Überblick über die gotischen Schnitzaltäre der Altmark ("The Master ofSalzwedel's high altar. In addition to an overview of theGothic carved altars of theAltmark").[3][4]
From 1903 to 1914, Stapel was a left-wing liberal but also an aggressive nationalist. He abominated in his articles what he called "Wilhelmian histrionics" and bourgeois materialism.[1] The patriotic experience ofWWI turned Stapel into a right-winger and a supporter ofLudendorff'sannexations programme in Poland. Adopting theVolksgedanke ("thought of the folk") as the essence for his political theories, he became, from 1919 until its shutdown by the Nazis in 1938, editor in chief ofDeutsches Volkstum ("German folkdom"), a nationalist and antisemitic[5] monthly journal from Hamburg owned by the nationalist trade-union of German salesclerks (DHV).[1]
After the great electoral success of theNazi Party inSeptember 1930, Stapel published a few months later a small brochure titledSechs Kapitel über Christentum und Nationalsozialismus ("Six Chapters on Christianity and National Socialism"), and he welcomed the Nazis as an elementary and instinct-led (Volksinstinkt) movement.[2]
Stapel joined theDeutschen Christen in July 1933, to which he remained loyal even after the mass withdrawals of November 1933. He spoke vehemently against the anti-NaziConfessing Church ofMartin Niemöller andKarl Barth, this polemical dispute shaping numerous articles that appeared in the following years inDeutsches Volkstum.[2]
Stapel defended the policy of Reich BishopLudwig Müller and advocated for the introduction of theAryan paragraph in the Church, claiming that the Jewish Christians should organise themselves in their own church. At the same time he was committed to the policy of Reichsminister of Church Affairs (Reichskirchenminister)Hanns Kerrl, to whom he served as an advisor.[2] However, under pressure from the Nazi leadership in 1938, Stapel had to stop the publication of his monthly magazineDeutsches Volkstum.[5]
After 1945, Stapel despised the newGerman Federal Republic and, in 1949, called for a boycott of theBundestag elections. As late as 1953, he claimed the Bundestag was only an "aid institution for the relief of the occupying powers". The same critics can be found in various articles Stapel published in the magazineNation Europa in the early 1950s.[2]
In 1951, Stapel published the bookÜber das Christentum. An die Denkenden unter seinen Verächtern ("About Christianity. To the thinkers among its contemners"), dedicated to the newly electedPresident of the Federal Republic of Germany,Theodor Heuss, his former friend from theDer Kunstwart period.[2]
Stapel died inHamburg on 1 June 1954 at the age of 71, largely unnoticed from the public.[2]
Armin Mohler considered Wilhelm Stapel to be one of the most influential thinkers of theConservative Revolution.[6]
After the experience ofWWI, Stapel began to develop ideas of strong leadership against theWeimar Republic's parliamentary democracy, when he argued that this regime was unsuited to turbulent times and that "free, spontaneous, dominant personalities" were needed to make quick and responsible decisions.[7] In his essay, published in 1932 and respected at that time among German right-wing circles,Der christliche Staatsmann: Eine Theologie des Nationalismus ("The Christian Statesman: a Theology of Nationalism"), he tried to legitimise thechiliasticImperium Teutonicum he had long been advocated for.[2] In this sense, he stood entirely in the tradition that historianClemens Vollnhals has calledNationalprotestantismus ("National Protestantism"). Stapel had already published a specific theology of war in another essay,Ideen von 1914 ("Ideas of 1914"), where he wrote about his faith in a special divine mission for the German people.[2]
According to historian Roger Woods, Stapel's apparently grounded theories against the Weimar system should not obscure the fact that they were theorised as a response to the political dilemma of theConservative Revolution and their lack of programmatic detail. Stapel was above all a supporter of an "instinctive form of election" where he focused on the personalities of the candidates and "dismissed political programmes as largely produced for propaganda purposes".[8]
Writing aboutVolk andVolkstum when he defined Germans and Jews in broad generalisations, he however refused to useNazi concepts on race.[9] According to Stapel, theVolk was an "irrational, non-reflective, God-given entity" that one was not able to fully understand with concepts but could only experience.[10]
Inspired byOswald Spengler's thesis on the cultural confrontation between Jews as whom Spengler described as aMagian people versusEuropeans as aFaustian people, Stapel described Jews as a landless nomadic people in pursuit of an transnational culture (e.g. "international" versions of socialism, pacifism or capitalism) whereby they can integrate into Western civilisation by transgressing national cultural boundaries.[11] He saw the Jews as the typical expression of materialism and intellectualism that were draining Germans dry from their imagination and instinctive feelings. Although he dismissed German Christians that rejected theOld Testament or the Jewishness ofChrist, Stapel participated in spreading the idea thatChristian philosophy had nothing to say about racial discrimination and encouraged the Nazis in their creation of a "Positive Christianity".[12]
Nonetheless, Stapel never advocated physical maltreatment of the Jews or a full denial of their civil rights. He believed however that borders had to be drawn regarding the Jewish influence in Germany, as they should not be involved in politics, except on a case by case basis.[9] In 1932, he listed what measures he expected to be taken by the Nazis regarding theJewish question: "ousting unpatriotic Jewish journalists, barring Jews from the armed forces, and creating a separate educational institutions and courts for the Jews".[12]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)