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TheWirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung (Economic Reconstruction Organization) was aMunich-based counterrevolutionary conspiratorial group formed in the aftermath of theGerman occupation of Ukraine in 1918 and of theLatvian Intervention of 1919. It brought togetherWhite Russianémigrés and early GermanNazis who aimed to overthrow the governments of Germany and the Soviet Union, replacing them with authoritarian régimes of the far right.Aufbau was also the name of the organization's periodical.[1]
The organization was founded in 1921 by GeneralVasily Biskupsky and the political writerMax Erwin von Scheubner-Richter. The future top Nazi functionariesAlfred Rosenberg andArno Schickedanz served as officers within Aufbau[2] According to the historian Michael Kellogg, the Aufbau Vereinigung was a vital influence on the development of Nazi ideology in the years before theBeer Hall Putsch of 1923 as well as financing the NSDAP with, for example, funds from monarchists and businessmen, such asHenry Ford.[3]
Prominent Aufbau members were involved in terrorist activities and collaborated withOrganisation Consul in the assassinations of GermanForeign MinisterWalther Rathenau and Russian émigréVladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (who shielded the actual target, theConstitutional Democratic leaderPavel Milyukov) in 1922.[4]
After the death of Scheubner-Richter in theBeer Hall Putsch, Aufbau rapidly declined, and notions ofLebensraum andSlavic inferiority, naturally unpopular with the Russians, gained a stronger hold on the Nazi movement.[5]
Kellogg claims that the long-term influence of Aufbau played a large role in the theorization of thefinal solution and in Hitler's decision to divert troops away from Moscow towards Ukraine in 1941.[6]
Prominent members of Aufbau included:
