The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945 (New Studies in European History)

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The significance of substantial White émigré influences on Hitler’s Weltanschauung has become more apparent since Brigitte Hamann convincingly argued in her 1996 work, Hitlers Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators ( Hitler’s Vienna: Apprentice Years of a Dictator), that Hitler was not yet anti-Semitic during his “hunger years” in Vienna from 1908 to 1913. He even defended the Jews in intense political arguments with those who denounced them. 11 Hamann’s book refutes the earlier historical consensus which had contended that Hitler developed an acutely anti-Semitic world-view during his time in Vienna. 12 Experts said this history makes it easy for the Russian media to draw connections between real Nazis and modern far-right groups to give the impression that the contemporary groups are larger and more influential than they are. Prominent White émigré Aufbau members who influenced Hitler’s political and military strategies as well as his anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic Weltanschauung (world-view) included First Lieutenant Max von Scheubner-Richter, General Vladimir Biskupskii, Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, Lieutenant Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, Colonel Fedor Vinberg, and Alfred Rosenberg. Scheubner-Richter de facto led Aufbau until he was shot fatally while marching with Hitler and General Erich von Ludendorff during the disastrous Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923. Hitler subsequently asserted that Scheubner-Richter alone of the “martyrs” of the failed undertaking had proved irreplaceable. 1

The Nazi notion of Slavs as inferior served as a legitimisation of their desire to create Lebensraum for Germans and other Germanic people in eastern Europe, where millions of Germans and other Germanic settlers would be moved into once those territories were conquered, while the original Slavic inhabitants were to be annihilated, removed or enslaved. [198] Nazi Germany's policy changed towards Slavs in response to military manpower shortages, forcing it to allow Slavs to serve in its armed forces within the occupied territories in spite of the fact that they were considered "subhuman". [199] No less important is the role of neo-Nazis and other right-wing figures in Russia’s onslaught against Ukraine. Nazism emphasised German nationalism, including both irredentism and expansionism. Nazism held racial theories based upon a belief in the existence of an Aryan master race that was superior to all other races. The Nazis emphasised the existence of racial conflict between the Aryan race and others—particularly Jews, whom the Nazis viewed as a mixed race that had infiltrated multiple societies and was responsible for exploitation and repression of the Aryan race. The Nazis also categorised Slavs as Untermensch (sub-human). [153] While Aufbau clearly played a formative role in shaping early anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic National Socialist ideology, the historian Walter Laqueur has minimized the heritage that Aufbau left to National Socialism after 1923. In his work Russia and Germany, Laqueur asserts that National Socialism did not need White émigré support after it had become a mass movement in the course of the 1920s. While National Socialist–White émigré collaboration did decrease markedly in the aftermath of the failed Hitler/Ludendorff Putsch of November 1923, Aufbau nonetheless bequeathed a powerful political, financial, military, and ideological legacy to National Socialism. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was pressured to abdicate the throne and flee into exile amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, initially supported the Nazi Party. His four sons, including Prince Eitel Friedrich and Prince Oskar, became members of the Nazi Party in hopes that in exchange for their support, the Nazis would permit the restoration of the monarchy. [47] Hitler dismissed the possibility of a restored monarchy, calling it "idiotic." [48] Wilhelm grew to distrust Hitler and was appalled at the Kristallnacht of 9–10 November 1938, stating, "For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German." [49] The former German emperor also denounced the Nazis as a "bunch of shirted gangsters" and "a mob … led by a thousand liars or fanatics." [50]Some have pointed out the far right received only 2% of the vote in Ukraine’s 2019 parliamentary elections, far less than in most of Europe. Others have drawn attention to Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the efforts of the Ukrainian state to protect minorities like Crimean Tatars and LGBTQ+ people, who are subject to brutal persecution in Russia.

Russian authorities only admitted to possessing files looted from Germany and declassified them in 1991 after the Soviet Union had collapsed. Historians were allowed to investigate the huge archival collection at the Center for the Preservation of Historical-Documentary Collections, which had become part of the Russian State Military Archives by the time I examined materials there in 1999–2001. 35 I was temporarily denied access to the former Center in March 2001, likely as part of the chilled American–Russian relations that arose after the February 2001 arrest of the FBI operative Robert Hanssen as a double agent for both the Soviets and the Russians. 36

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This cooperation expanded in the aftermath of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004. To insulate Russia against the contagion of pro-democracy protest, the Kremlin transformed Moving Together into a more ambitious project called “Nashi”, or “Ours”. Historians should discard the notion of a linear German Sonderweg (special path) that led directly to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The American scholar Daniel Goldhagen in particular presents an overly simplistic version of the Sonderweg thesis in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners. He asserts, “The Holocaust was a sui generis event that has a historically specific explanation,” notably “enabling conditions created by the long-incubating, pervasive, virulent, racist, eliminationist antisemitism of German culture.” Instead of focusing solely on alleged German peculiarities in the vein of Goldhagen, historians should understand the genesis and development of National Socialism in the context of cross-cultural interaction between defeated groups from World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution: alienated völkisch (nationalist/racist) Germans and vengeful White émigrés. While the National Socialist movement largely developed in a völkisch framework, many White émigrés made crucial political, military, financial, and ideological contributions to National Socialism. The origins of this relationship date to the late 1990s, when Russia was shaken by a wave of racist violence committed by neo-Nazi skinhead gangs. After Putin’s accession to the presidency in 2000, his regime exploited this development in two ways. Putin’s weaponisation of neo-Nazis was always a risky strategy, but it was not irrational. Unlike mainstream nationalists, who tend to support the idea of free elections, neo-Nazis reject democratic institutions and the very idea of human equality. For a dictator dismantling democracy and constructing an authoritarian regime, they were ideal accomplices. I stress Aufbau’s pivotal role in guiding National Socialists and White émigrés in a joint anti-Entente, anti-Weimar Republic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-Semitic struggle. While National Socialism developed largely in the framework of the völkisch movement, White émigré Aufbau members significantly influenced Hitler’s political, military, and ideological views. Aufbau shaped early National Socialist strategies for combating both the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union. The conspiratorial organization under Scheubner-Richter, who served as Hitler’s close counselor and foreign policy advisor, sought to form an international alliance headed by nationalist and even National Socialist Germans and Russians (actually Russians, Ukrainians, and Baltic peoples) against the Entente, the Weimar Republic, and “Jewish Bolshevism.” Aufbau goaded a doomed putsch against the Weimar Republic under Hitler and Ludendorff. Finally, Aufbau warned the early National Socialist movement that “Jewish Bolshevism” posed an apocalyptic danger that threatened to engulf Germany, Europe, and even the entire world.

Sitzung des Ausschusses zur Untersuchung der Vorgänge vom 1. Mai 1923 und der gegen Reichs- und Landesverfassung gerichteten Bestrebungen vom 26. September bis 9. November 1923 (Sitting of the Committee for the Investigation of the Events of May 1, 1923 and of the Efforts from September 26 up to November 9, 1923 that Were Directed Against the National/State Constitution). Further information: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, German Christians (movement), German Faith Movement, Kreuz und Adler, Positive Christianity, Religious aspects of Nazism, Anti-Masonry §Nazi_Germany_and_occupied_Europe, and Religious views of Adolf Hitler Members of the German Christians organisation celebrating Luther Day in Berlin in 1933. A speech is given by Bishop Hossenfelder. Hitler in 1935 with Cesare Orsenigo, the Catholic Church's nuncio to Germany The first trial of the Nazis in Europe, which took place in Kaunas in 1935. The accused claimed that the Klaipėda Region should be part of Germany, not Lithuania, and spread propaganda, prepared for an armed uprising. [158]According to Goebbels, the conquest of Lebensraum was intended as an initial step [165] towards the final goal of Nazi ideology, which was the establishment of complete German global hegemony. [166] Rudolf Hess relayed to Walter Hewel Hitler's belief that world peace could only be acquired "when one power, the racially best one, has attained uncontested supremacy". When this control would be achieved, this power could then set up for itself a world police and assure itself "the necessary living space. [...] The lower races will have to restrict themselves accordingly". [166] Racial theories