Talk:Theodor Duesterberg

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Was Hitler ever president of Germany?

Yes, he was president from 1934-45 after Hindenburg had died. 134.76.62.65 18:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It might be more accurate to say that the offices of Chancellor and President were merged into a single office in 1934, upon President von Hindenberg's death. That single office was Fuhrer, and Hitler was the only person who ever held it, from the time of its formation, until his death in 1945.KevinOKeeffe (talk) 15:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

"Excessive anti-Semitism"

This article claims without any source that Duesterberg was opposed the NSDAP`s "excessive anti-Semitism". I am not aware of any book other then Duesterberg`s own self-justifying 1949 book that says Duesterberg was opposed to anti-Semitism in any way or form. Duesterberg was an anti-Semitic fanatic who played a large role in getting the Stahlhelm to adopt its "Aryan clause" in 1924, which are hardly the actions of a man opposed to anti-Semitism. As far as I am concerned, it is a bit of poetic justice that the anti-Semitic fanatic Duesterberg should be revealed to have a Jewish grandfather in 1932, and that he in turn was subjected by the Nazis to the same sort of anti-Semitic insults that he himself had long inflicted on German Jews. A man obsessed with excluding others on the grounds of racial purity was the victim of the same racism and standards of racial purity that he long so vehemently championed. Anyhow, what is meant here by "excessive anti-Semitism"? That is ok to hate Jews a bit, but not excessively? Any sort of anti-Semitism like all forms of racism is wrong, period. A number of articles on German conservatives in the Weimar often talk about "Nazi excesses", which to my mind is somewhat troubling as it seems to suggest the whole idea of Jew-hatred is basically sound and ok and the National Socialists just got a little carried away by trying to exterminate every single Jewish man , woman and child in the world. So genocide is bad, but Duesterberg was right to hate the Jews as he did not do so "excessively". It is true that when Duesterberg like almost everybody else in German National People's Party the spoke of a "solution" to the "Jewish question", he meant only disemancipation, not genocide, but difference between him and the NSDAP is only relative. Moreover, in the Weimar period, which we are talking about, the Nazis themselves only wanted Jewish disemancipation. The Nazis never spoke of genocide of the Jews during the Weimar period because the idea had not occurred to them yet. So in the Weimar period there is no real difference between the DNVP and the NSDAP about the sort of "solution" to the "Jewish question" that they were seeking. Moreover, by presenting Duesterberg as a "reasonable" anti-Semite who did not engage in "excessive anti-Semitism" really white washes Duesterberg and the rest of the German conservatives who loved to bash the Jews. It is precisely because the right and proper Germans like Duesterberg engaged in Jew-bashing that anti-Semitism was a belief that good, respectable Germans could openly proclaim without shame or ridicule. It would be unfair to blame Duesterberg for the Holocaust, but certainly he helped with such measures like the "Aryan clause" of 1924 in creating the climate of opinion that made the Holocaust possible. Having said that much, the Shoah was not inevitable. A climate of opinion only makes policy choices possible, not inevitable which is a point that needs to be stressed. Hitler had a choice, he embarked upon genocide in 1941 because he wanted to, not because he had to. This article does not address this issue of how Duesterberg helped to create a climate of anti-Semitism in the 1920s at all, instead telling us that Duesterberg was opposed to "excessive anti-Semitism". A prominent German historian named Andreas Hillgruber once presented a counter-factual scenario in 1984 that if the DNVP and the Stahlhelm came to power in 1933 without the NSDAP, that all of the anti-Semitic laws passed in Germany between 1933-38 would have still been passed, but there would had been no extermination of the Jews, which is about right as far as one can tell about these sorts of things. This page should not be white-washing Duesterberg, the DNVP or the Stahlhelm, which were all very deeply anti-Semitic. If nobody objects, I will take that line out.--A.S. Brown (talk) 22:10, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I cut the following out: "Many in the traditional nationalist-right were discomforted with the NSDAP's excessive anti-Semitism and its near-socialist views (especially that of the SA, the Strasser brothers, etc.)."

• The Harzburger front broke up because Hitler had problems with the DNVP, not the other way around.
• The line about "excessive anti-Semitism" is problematic as I have explained above.
• Otto Strasser left the NSDAP in 1930, so it is wrong to talk about like he was still in the NSDAP in 1931 or 1932.
• True, there some concerns by conservatives about the Nazi left wing, but not enough to stop Duesterberg from campaigning with Hitler in the 1929 Young Plan referendum or sharing the stage with Hitler in October 1931 when the Harzburger Front was founded. Moreover, General Kurt von Schleicher whom I believe might qualify as part of the "traditional nationalist-right" was a very good friend to Gregor Strasser, so this line exaggerates the extent of this rift. --A.S. Brown (talk) 05:46, 25 November 2016 (UTC)