Socialist Reich Party Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlands | |
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| Abbreviation | SRP |
| Leader | |
| Founded | 2 October 1949 |
| Banned | 23 October 1952[2] |
| Split from | Deutsche Rechtspartei |
| Merged into | Deutsche Reichspartei[3] |
| Youth wing | Reichsjugend [de] |
| Paramilitary wing | Reichsfront |
| Membership | 10,300 (1951) |
| Ideology | Neo-Nazism |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Colours | Red Black |
| Party flag | |
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TheSocialist Reich Party (German:Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlands) was aWest German political party founded in the aftermath ofWorld War II in 1949 as an openlyneo-Nazi-oriented splinter from thenational conservativeGerman Right Party (DKP-DRP). The SRP achieved some electoral success in northwestern Germany (Lower Saxony andBremen), before becoming the first political party to be banned by theFederal Constitutional Court in 1952. They were allied with the French organization led byRené Binet known as theNew European Order.[5]
The Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was formed on 2 October 1949[6] inHameln byOtto Ernst Remer,Fritz Dorls, andGerhard Krüger after they had been excluded from the DKP-DRP. The SRP saw itself as a legitimate heir of theNazi Party; most party adherents were former NSDAP members. Its foundation was backed by formerLuftwaffeOberstHans-Ulrich Rudel.
Krüger was a member of theSA and holder of aGolden Party Badge while Remer helped suppress the20 July plot.[7]
The SRP had organisations similar to those operated by the Nazis such as theparamilitaryReichsfront led by Remer,Reichsjugendyouth wing (Hitler Youth), andFrauenbund (National Socialist Women's League).[8]
FR-Briefe was a private party newsletter that operated in the SRP's early days.Deutsche Reichszeitung, later renamedDeutsche Wacht, was acquired for the party's weekly newspaper in March 1950.[9]
Dorls had been elected to theBundestag in the1949 election as a member of theGerman Right Party (DRP).[6]Fritz Rössler, another DRP deputy, joined the party.[10] The SRP performed poorly in the 1950 elections held in Schleswig-Holstein, but received over 10% of the vote in two of the three districts it ran for in North Rhine-Westphalia.[11] In the 1951 elections the SRP received over 400,000 votes, worth around 11% of the vote, Lower Saxony and 7.7% in Bremen.[12] These results gave them 8 seats in theBürgerschaft of Bremen[13] and 16 seats in theLandtag of Lower Saxony. 12 of their deputies in Lower Saxony were former members of the Nazi Party.[14]
The West German government requested the SRP be banned on 16 November 1951, and theFederal Constitutional Court ruled in favor of banning the party on 23 October 1952.[15] Before the ban, Remer had compared the situation of the SRP with that of the early Christians, referred to High CommissionerJohn J. McCloy as "thePontius Pilate who had causedHerod [to] crucify the SRP", and declared that "if we should be banned, we shall descend into the catacombs".[16]
The party claimed ChancellorKonrad Adenauer was an American puppet and that Grand AdmiralKarl Dönitz was the last legitimatePresident of theGerman Reich, as he had been appointed byAdolf Hitler.[4] Itdenied the existence of the Holocaust, claimed that the United States built the gas ovens of theDachau concentration camp after the Second World War and that films ofconcentration camps were faked.[4] The SRP also advocated Europe, led by a reunited German Reich, as a"third force" against bothcapitalism andcommunism.[4] It demanded the re-annexation of theformer eastern territories of Germany and a "solution of theJewish question". According toKarl Dietrich Bracher, "SRP propaganda concentrated on a vague 'popular socialism' in which the old Nazis rediscovered well-worn slogans, and also on a nationalism whose championship of Reich and war was but a thinly disguised continuation of theLebensraum ideology".[17] The SRP also promoted thestab-in-the-back myth, structured itself in a very hierarchical manner reminiscent of theFührerprinzip, organized meetings that featured uniformed guards, and "succeeded temporarily in presenting Remer as the protector of the Third Reich against the 'traitors' of the resistance".[17]
According toMartin A. Lee, although the SRP wasanti-communist, it focused on criticizing Britain and the United States for "splitting their beloved Fatherland in two" and avoided criticism of theSoviet Union in the hope that a future deal could be made with the Soviets to reunite Germany.[18] The SRP took the stance that Germany should remain neutral in the emergingCold War and opposed the West German government'sAtlanticist foreign policy. In case of war between the Soviet Union and the West, Remer "insisted that Germans should not fight to cover an American retreat if the Russians got the upper hand in a war", and said that he would "show the Russians the way to theRhine" and that SRP members would "post themselves as traffic policemen, spreading their arms so that the Russians can find their way through Germany as quickly as possible".[19][20] Martin A. Lee alleges that these statements attracted the attention of Soviet officials, who became willing to fund the SRP for tactical reasons. According to Lee, for a few years in the early 1950s the SRP received Soviet funds while theCommunist Party of Germany did not, due to being purportedly viewed as "ineffectual".[21][22] The SRP viewed Israel as an "enemy power" in its foreign policy.[23]
One of the most significant pieces of evidence is the testimony of Otto Ernst Remer. In a 1997 interview, Remer admitted that he had received Soviet backing during his time in the party. Remer stated that he had met with KGB officials in East Berlin and had received financial and logistical support from the Soviet Union.[24] In addition to Remer's testimony, there are other sources of evidence that support the claim that the Soviet Union supported the SRP. For example, a 1953KGB memo outlines the agency's efforts to cultivate and support right-wing extremist groups in Germany, including the SRP. The memo states that the KGB's aim was "to create arightist movement that will weaken the position of the United States, weaken the position of the Atlantic bloc, and encourage the German population to seek a neutralist policy".[25][26] Similarly, the CIA's declassified "Family Jewels" documents reveal that the agency had evidence of Soviet funding for far-right groups in Europe, including the SRP.[27] HistorianMichael Burleigh, in his bookThe Third Reich: A New History, discusses the Soviet Union's alleged support for the SRP.[28] Additionally, the Gauck archives in Germany contain evidence of Soviet support for the SRP. The archives contain documents that show that the Stasi, the East German secret police, had frequent meetings with SRP officials and provided them with financial and logistical support.[24]
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Die Bundesregierung hat beim Bundesverfassungsgericht am 19. November 1951 den im Beschluß vom 4. Mai 1951 angekündigten Antrag gestellt. Sie behauptet, die innere Ordnung der SRP entspreche nicht demokratischen Grundsätzen, beruhe vielmehr auf dem Führerprinzip. Die SRP sei eine Nachfolgeorganisation der NSDAP; sie verfolge die gleichen oder doch ähnliche Ziele und gehe darauf aus, die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung zu beseitigen[On November 19, 1951, the federal government submitted the application announced in the decision of May 4, 1951, to the Federal Constitutional Court. It claims that the internal order of the SRP does not correspond to democratic principles but rather is based on the leader principle. The SRP is a successor organization to the NSDAP; they are pursuing the same or at least similar goals and aim to eliminate the free democratic basic order.]
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