Dietrich Eckart (; 23 March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German ''
völkisch'' poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the
German Workers' Party
The German Workers' Party (german: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National Soc ...
, the precursor of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
. Eckart was a key influence on
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
in the early years of the Party, the original publisher of the party newspaper, the ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' ("Völkisch Observer"), and the lyricist of the first party anthem, ''
Sturmlied'' ("Storming Song"). He was a participant in the failed
Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and died on 26 December of that year, shortly after his release from
Landsberg Prison
Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, af ...
, from a heart attack.
Eckart was elevated to the status of a major thinker upon the establishment of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in 1933, and was acknowledged by Hitler to be the spiritual co-founder of
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
, and "a guiding light of the early National Socialist movement."
Early life
Eckart was born on 23 March 1868 in
Neumarkt, about 20 miles southeast of
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
in the
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...
, the son of Christian Eckart, a royal
notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...
and lawyer, and his wife Anna, a devout
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Eckart's mother died when he was ten years old and he was
expelled from several schools. In 1895, his father died, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart soon spent.
Eckart initially studied law at
Erlangen
Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhab ...
, later medicine at the
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and was an eager member of the fencing and drinking
Student Korps. He decided in 1891 to become a poet, playwright, and journalist. Diagnosed with
morphine
Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a pain medication, and is also commonly used recreationally, or to make other illicit opioids. T ...
addiction and nearly stranded, he moved to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
in 1899. There he wrote a number of plays, often autobiographical, and became the protégé of Count Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler (1858–1922), the artistic director of the
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
Royal Theatre. After a duel, Eckart was incarcerated at the
Passau Oberhaus.
As a playwright Eckart had success with his 1912 adaptation of
Henrik Ibsen's ''
Peer Gynt'', which played for more than 600 performances in Berlin alone. Although Eckart never had another theatrical success like ''Peer Gynt'', and blamed his numerous failures on the influence of Jews in German culture, that one play not only made him wealthy, it gave him the social contacts that he later used to introduce Hitler to dozens of important German citizens. These introductions proved to be pivotal in Hitler's rise to power. Later on, Eckart developed an ideology of a "genius superman", based on writings by the ''
Völkisch'' author
Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels
Adolf Josef Lanz (19 July 1874 – 22 April 1954), also known under his pseudonym as Fascism, fascist agitator Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, was an Austrian political and racial theorist and occultist, who was a pioneer of Ariosophy. He was a former ...
and by philosopher
Otto Weininger
Otto Weininger (; 3 April 1880 – 4 October 1903) was an Austrian philosopher who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1903, he published the book ''Geschlecht und Charakter'' (''Sex and Character''), which gained popularity after his suici ...
. Eckart saw himself following the tradition of
Heinrich Heine,
Arthur Schopenhauer and
Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius (9 July 1677), born Johann Scheffler and also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest and physician, known as a mystic and religious poet. Born and raised a Lutheran, he adopted the name ''Angelus'' (Lati ...
. He also became fascinated by the
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
doctrine of
''Maya'', or illusion.
From 1907 Eckart lived with his brother Wilhelm in the
Döberitz mansion colony west of the Berlin city limits. In 1913 he married Rose Marx, an affluent widow from
Bad Blankenburg
Bad Blankenburg () is a spa town in the district of Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 6 km southwest of Rudolstadt, and 37 km southeast of Erfurt. It is most famous for being the location of the first kinderga ...
, and returned to
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
.
Eckart's adaptation of ''Peer Gynt''
In Eckart's five-act version of Ibsen's piece, the play became "a powerful dramatisation of nationalist and antisemitic ideas", in which Gynt represents the superior Germanic hero, struggling against implicitly Jewish "trolls". In Ibsen's original play, Peer Gynt leaves Norway to become the "king of the world", but through his selfish and deceptive actions his body and soul are ruined, and he returns to his native village in shame. Eckart, however, sees Gynt as a hero who challenges the trollish, i.e. Jewish, world. His transgressions are therefore noble, and Gynt returns to reclaim the innocence of his youth. This conception of the character was influenced by Eckart's hero, Otto Weininger, who led him to see Gynt as an antisemitic genius. In this racial allegory, the trolls and
Great Bøyg represent Weininger's concept of "Jewishness".
Eckart later wrote to Hitler –in a copy of the play he presented to him shortly after Hitler became the Nazi Party Fuhrer– that "
ynt'sidea of becoming the king of the world should not be taken literally as the 'Will to Power'. Hidden behind this is a spiritual belief that he will ultimately be pardoned for all his sins." He counseled Hitler that in his quest to be the "German Messiah" his ends justified the means he used, so he need not be concerned about employing violence or other transgressions of societal norms because, like Gynt, he would be forgiven for his sins. In his introduction to the play, Eckart wrote "
t is by
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
German nature, which means, in the broader sense, the capability of self-sacrifice itself, that the world will heal, and find its way back to the pure divine, but only after a bloody war of annihilation against the united army of the 'trolls'; in other words, against the
Midgard Serpent
In Germanic cosmology, Midgard (an anglicised form of Old Norse ; Old English , Old Saxon , Old High German , and Gothic ''Midjun-gards''; "middle yard", "middle enclosure") is the name for Earth (equivalent in meaning to the Greek term , "inhab ...
encircling the earth, the reptilian incarnation of the lie."
Antisemitism and foundation of the German Workers' Party (DAP)
Eckart was not always an
antisemite. In 1898, for instance, Eckart wrote and had published a poem extolling the virtues and beauty of a Jewish girl. Before his conversion to antisemitism, the two people he admired most were the poet
Heinrich Heine and Otto Weininger, who were both Jews. Weininger, however, had converted to Protestantism, and has been described as a "
self-hating Jew
Self-hating Jew or self-loathing Jew, transliterated in Hebrew as auto-antisemitism, is a term which is used to describe Jews whose views are perceived as antisemitic. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book ('' ...
" eventually espousing antisemitic views. Eckart's admiration for Weininger may have played a part in his conversion.
In December 1918, Eckart founded, published and edited the antisemitic weekly ''Auf gut Deutsch'' ("In plain German")– with financial support from the
Thule Society
The Thule Society (; german: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the ''Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum'' ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and '' Völkisch'' group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, n ...
– working with
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
, whom he called his "co-warrior against Jerusalem", and
Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder (27 January 1883 – 24 September 1941) was a German civil engineer, a self-taught economist, and one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and its economic theoretician. It was one of his lectures, delivered in 1919, that d ...
. A fierce critic of the
German Revolution and the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
, he vehemently opposed the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, which he viewed as treason, and was a proponent of the so-called
stab-in-the-back legend (''Dolchstoßlegende''), according to which the
Social Democrats
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
and
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
were to blame for Germany's defeat in the war.
Eckart's antisemitism was influenced by the publication ''
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...
'', which had been brought to Germany by
"white Russian" ''emigrés'' fleeing the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
. The book purported to outline the international Jewish conspiracy for control of the world, and many right-wing and ''völkisch'' political figures believed it to be a true account.
After living in Berlin for many years, Eckart moved to Munich in 1913, the same year that Hitler moved there from
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. In January 1919, he,
Feder,
Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler (13 June 1884 – 24 February 1942) was a German far-right political agitator for the Völkisch movement in the 1920s. He founded the pan-German and anti-Semitic German Workers' Party (DAP), the antecedent of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) ...
and
Karl Harrer
Karl Harrer (8 October 1890 – 5 September 1926) was a German journalist and politician, one of the founding members of the ''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' ( German Workers' Party, DAP) in January 1919, the predecessor to the ''Nationalsozialistische ...
founded the ''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (
German Workers' Party
The German Workers' Party (german: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National Soc ...
, or DAP), which to increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, in February 1920 changed its name to the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers Party, or NSDAP); more commonly known as the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
. Eckart was largely responsible for the party buying the ''Münchener Beobachter'' in December 1920, when he arranged for the loan which paid for it. The 60,000 Marks came from German Army funds available to General
Franz Ritter von Epp, and the loan was secured with Eckart's house and possessions as collateral, and Dr. Gottfried Grandel, an
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ...
chemist and factory owner who was Eckart's friend and a funder of the Party, as guarantor. The newspaper was renamed the ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' and became the party's official organ, with Eckart as its first editor and publisher. He also created the Nazi slogan ''
Deutschland erwache'' ("Germany awake"), and wrote the lyrics for the anthem based on it, the ''Sturm-Lied''.
In 1921 Eckart promised 1,000 Marks to everyone who could cite one Jewish family whose sons had served longer than three weeks at the front during the First World War. The Hannover rabbi
Samuel Freund Samuel Freund (born 24 September 1868 in Gliwice, Gleiwitz; died 28 June 1939 in Hannover) was the senior rabbi of Hannover and the ''Landrabbiner'' for the German state of Lower Saxony.
Life
The son of businessman Isidor Freund and his wife Cae ...
named 20 Jewish families who met this condition and sued Eckart when he refused to pay the reward. During the trial, Freund named 50 more Jewish families with up to seven veterans, among whom were several which lost up to three sons in the war. Eckart lost the case and had to pay.
Eckart and Hitler
Eckart was instrumental in creating the persona of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
as one of the future dictator's most important early mentors, and was one of the first propagators of the "
Hitler Myth". Their relationship was not simply a political one, as there was a strong emotional and intellectual bond between the two men, an almost symbiotic relationship. It was Eckart who gave to Hitler his philosophy of the necessity of overcoming "soulless Jewishness" as the basis for a true German revolution, unlike the false
revolution of 1918. Although the need to present himself as a self-made man prevented him from publicly writing or speaking about the debt he owed to Eckart, in private Hitler acknowledged Eckart as having been his teacher and mentor, and the spiritual co-founder of Nazism.
The two first met when Hitler gave a speech before the DAP membership in the winter of 1919. Hitler immediately impressed Eckart, who said of him "I felt myself attracted by his whole way of being, and very soon I realized that he was exactly the right man for our young movement." It is probably Nazi legend that Eckart said about Hitler on their first meeting "That's Germany's next great man –one day the whole world will talk about him." Although not a member,
[Not only was Eckart not a member of the Thule Society, he also never formally joined either the German Workers Party (DAP) or the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Ullrich (2017), pp.105-107] Eckart was involved at the time with the Thule Society, a secretive group of occultists who believed in the coming of a "German Messiah" who would redeem Germany after its defeat in World War I. He began to see in Hitler the possibility that he was that person.
Eckart, who was 21 years older than Hitler, became the father-figure to a group of younger ''volkisch'' men, including Hitler and
Hermann Esser
Hermann Esser (29 July 1900 – 7 February 1981) was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist, Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper, ''Völkischer Beobachter'', a Propaganda Leader, and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the ...
, and acted as mediator between the two when they clashed, telling Esser that Hitler, whom he esteemed as the DAP's best speaker, was the far superior man. He became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and helping to establish theories and beliefs of the Party. He lent Hitler books to read, gave him a trench coat to wear, and made corrections to Hitler's style of speaking and writing. Hitler was to say later "Stylistically I was still an infant." Eckart also schooled the provincial Hitler in proper manners, and regarded Hitler as his ''protégé''.
Hitler and Eckart had many things in common, including their interest in art and politics, that both thought of themselves primarily as artists, and both were prone to depression. They also shared that their early influences were Jewish, a fact which both preferred not to speak about. Although, unlike Hitler, Eckart did not believe that Jews were a race apart, by the time the two met, Hitler's goal was "the total removal of the Jews", and Eckart had expressed the opinion that all Jews should be put on a train and driven into the Red Sea. He also espoused that any Jew who married a German woman should be jailed for three years, and executed if he repeated the crime. Paradoxically, Eckart also believed that the existence of humanity depended on the antithesis between Aryans and Jews, that one could not exist without the other. In 1919, Eckart had written that it would be "the end of all times ... if the Jewish people perished."
Eckart provided Hitler with ''entré'' into the Munich arts scene. He introduced Hitler to the painter Max Zaeper and his salon of like-minded antisemitic artists, and to the photographer
Heinrich Hoffmann. It was Eckart who introduced
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
to Hitler. Between 1920 and 1923, Eckart and Rosenberg labored tirelessly in the service of Hitler and the party. Through Rosenberg, Hitler was introduced to the writings of
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
, Rosenberg's inspiration. Both Rosenberg and Eckart were influential with Hitler on the subject of Russia. Eckart saw Russia as Germany's natural ally, writing in 1919 that "German politics hardly has another choice than to enter an alliance with a new Russia after the elimination of the Bolshevik regime." He felt strongly that Germany should support the Russian people in their struggle against the "current Jewish regime", by which he meant the Bolsheviks. Rosenberg also counseled Hitler along these lines, with the two men providing Hitler with the intellectual basis for his Eastern policy, which was then made practical by
Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter
Ludwig Maximilian Erwin von Scheubner-Richter ( Lettish: ''Ludvigs Rihters'') ( – 9 November 1923) was a Baltic German political activist and an influential early member of the Nazi Party.
Scheubner-Richter was a Baltic German from Russia ...
.
In March 1920, at the behest of
Karl Mayr
Captain Karl Mayr (5 January 1883 – 9 February 1945) was a German General Staff officer and Adolf Hitler's immediate superior in an army Intelligence Division in the Reichswehr, 1919–1920. Mayr was particularly known as the man who intro ...
–the German General Staff officer who had first introduced Hitler to politics– Hitler and Eckart flew to Berlin to meet
Wolfgang Kapp
Wolfgang Kapp (24 July 1858 – 12 June 1922) was a German civil servant and journalist. A strict nationalist, he is best known for being the leader of the Kapp Putsch.
Early life
Kapp was born in New York City where his father Friedrich Kapp ...
and take part in the
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
, as well as to forge a connection between Kapp's forces and Mayr. Kapp and Eckart knew each other - Kapp had donated 1,000 Marks in support of Eckart's weekly magazine. However, the trip was not a success: Hitler, who wore a false beard, was afraid of heights and got airsick on the way –it was his first airplane flight– and when they arrived in Berlin, the ''putsch'' was already collapsing. Nor did they create a positive impression with the Berliners: Captain
Waldemar Pabst
Ernst Julius Waldemar Pabst (24 December 1880 – 29 May 1970) was a German soldier and political activist, involved in right-wing and anti-communist activity in both his homeland and Austria. As a serving officer Pabst gained notoriety for orde ...
is said to have told them "The way you look and talk –people are going to laugh at you."
Eckart introduced Hitler to wealthy potential donors connected to the ''
völkisch'' movement. They worked together to raise money for the DAP in Munich, using Eckart's contacts, but did not have great success. In Berlin, however, where Eckart was better connected with the rich and powerful, they raised considerable funds, including from senior officials of the
Pan-German League. Together, they made frequent trips to the capital. During one of them, Eckart introduced Hitler to his future etiquette tutor, socialite
Helene Bechstein
Helene Bechstein née Capito (26 May 1876 – 20 April 1951) was a German socialite and businesswoman. She was an etiquette tutor for Adolf Hitler and was the wife of Edwin Bechstein, the owner and later majority shareholder of C. Bechstein, a lea ...
, and it was through her that Hitler began to move among the upper class of Berlin.
In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the Nazi Party in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival
German Socialist Party
The German Socialist Party (German: ''Deutschsozialistische Partei'', DSP) was a short-lived German nationalist, far-right party during the early years of the Weimar Republic. Founded in 1918, its declared aim was an ideology that would combine ...
(DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party, so Eckart –who had lobbied the committee not to lose Hitler– was asked by the Party leadership to talk with Hitler and relay the conditions in which Hitler would agree to return to the Party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the conditions that the party headquarters would remain in Munich, and that he would replace
Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler (13 June 1884 – 24 February 1942) was a German far-right political agitator for the Völkisch movement in the 1920s. He founded the pan-German and anti-Semitic German Workers' Party (DAP), the antecedent of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) ...
as party chairman and become the party's dictator, its "Fuhrer". The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July 1921.
Eckart would also advise Hitler about the people who had gathered around him and the Party, such as the virulently antisemitic
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the ''Gauleiter'' (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the '' Reichstag'', the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virul ...
, the publisher of the quasi-pornographic ''
Der Stürmer
''Der Stürmer'' (, literally "The Stormer / Attacker / Striker") was a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published from 1923 to the end of the Second World War by Julius Streicher, the '' Gauleiter'' of Franconia, with brief suspensions ...
''. Hitler was repelled by pornography and disapproved of Streicher's sexual activities; he also was distressed by the many intra-party fights that Streicher managed to start. According to Hitler, Eckart told him on multiple occasions "that Streicher was a schoolteacher, and a lunatic to boot, from many points of view. He always added that one could not hope for a triumph of National Socialism without giving one's support to a man like Streicher."
For a time, before Alfred Rosenberg took over the role, Eckart –along with
Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder (27 January 1883 – 24 September 1941) was a German civil engineer, a self-taught economist, and one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and its economic theoretician. It was one of his lectures, delivered in 1919, that d ...
– was considered to be the Nazi Party's "philosopher."
Growing apart
The more confidence that Hitler felt in himself, to a large extent due to Eckart's mentoring, the less that he needed Eckart as a mentor, which resulted in the relationship cooling off.
In November 1922, Eckart and the party's chief fund-raiser outside of Germany, Emil Gansser, made a trip to
Zurich, Switzerland to see
Alfred Schwarzenbach
Alfred Schwarzenbach (born 8 October 1941) is a Swiss equestrian. He competed in two events at the 1972 Summer Olympics
The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (germ ...
, a rich entrepreneur in the silk industry. The trip was arranged by Hitler's deputy,
Rudolf Hess, who used family connections. While no detailed records of the meeting survive, a repeat visit –with Hitler along as well– was made the following year. This trip was not successful. Hitler made a speech to German expatriates, right-wing Swiss officers, and several dozen Swiss businessmen, but it, and the next day's private meeting, was a fiasco. Hitler blamed Eckart's lack of social graces for the failure of the trip.
After publishing a slanderous poem about
Friedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 187128 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in office in 1925.
Ebert was elected leader of the SPD on t ...
, the President of Germany at the time, Eckart ducked an arrest warrant by escaping in early 1923 to the
Bavarian Alps near
Berchtesgaden, close to the German-Austrian border, under the name "Dr. Hoffman". In April, Hitler visited him there at the Pension Moritz in
Obersalzberg
Obersalzberg is a mountainside retreat situated above the market town of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, Germany. Located about south-east of Munich, close to the border with Austria, it is best known as the site of Adolf Hitler's former mountain resi ...
, and stayed with him for a few days as "Herr Wolf". It was Hitler's introduction to the area where he would later build his mountain retreat, the ''
Berghof''.
Hitler had recently replaced Eckart as the publisher of ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' with Alfred Rosenberg, although he softened the blow by making it clear that he still regarded Eckart highly. "His accomplishments are everlasting!" Hitler said, he just was not constitutionally able to run a big business like a daily newspaper. "I would not be able to do it, either," according to Hitler, "I have been fortunate that I got a few people who know how to do it. ... It would be as if I tried to run a farm! I wouldn't be able to do it." Nevertheless, tensions between Hitler and Eckart began to appear. Not only were there personal disagreements about the behavior of each towards a woman, but Hitler was annoyed that Eckart didn't believe that a ''putsch'' launched in Munich could turn into a successful national revolution. "Munich is not Berlin," Eckart said, "It would lead to nothing but ultimate failure."
Despite his own role in promoting Hitler as a genius and messiah, in May 1923 he complained to
Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl, another of Hitler's mentors, that Hitler had "megalomania halfway between a Messiah complex and Neroism" after Hitler had compared himself to Jesus throwing the money-changers out of the temple.
Motivated by his temporary annoyance at Eckart, and by Eckart's impracticality in operational matters, Hitler began attempting to run the party without Eckart's assistance, and when forced to use Eckart again as a political operative, the results were disappointing. Hitler began to see Eckart as a political liability due to his disorganization and his increased drinking. Hitler, however, did not discard or sideline him, as he had with other early comrades who had stood in his way. He stayed close to Eckart intellectually and emotionally, and continued to visit him in the mountains. The relationship between the two men was not simply a political one.
On 9 November 1923, Eckart participated in the failed
Beer Hall Putsch. He was arrested and placed in
Landsberg Prison
Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, af ...
along with Hitler and other party officials, but was released shortly thereafter due to illness. He then went to Berchtesgaden to recuperate.
Hitler as genius and messiah
Eckart promoted Hitler as Germany's coming savior. Eckart's hero, Otto Weininger, had formulated a dichotomy in which genius and Jews were opposed. Genius, in Weininger's view, was the epitome of masculinity and non-materialism, while Jews were femininity in its purest form. Eckart took upon himself this philosophy, and considered that the role of genius was to rid the world of the baleful influence of Jews. Many parts of German society held similar views, and were looking for a savior, a "German Messiah", a genius to lead them out of the economic and political morass the country had fallen into as a result of the
Great Depression and the economic effects of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
that ended World War I.
Under Eckart's tutelage Hitler first began to think of himself as that person, a superior being. Because it was generally believed that geniuses were born and not made, he could not present himself as having been mentored by Eckart and others. Thus in ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler did not mention Eckart or Karl Mayr, or the others who had been instrumental in creating what the world was now meant to see as the natural genius, Adolf Hitler, the German Messiah.
Shortly after the Party purchase of the ''Völkischer Beobachter'' in December 1920, and Eckart's installation as editor, with Rosenberg as his assistant, the two men had begun to use the newspaper as a vehicle to disseminate this "
Hitler Myth", the notion that Hitler was a superior being, a genius who would be the divine German Messiah –the chosen one. The paper did not refer to Hitler as merely the leader of the Nazi Party; instead, he was "Germany's leader". Other newspapers in Bavaria began to call Hitler "the Bavarian Mussolini." This idea of Hitler's specialness began to spread, so that two years later, in November 1922, the ''
Traunsteiner Wochenblatt'' newspaper would look ahead to when "the masses of the people will raise
itlerup as their leader, and give him their allegiance through thick and thin."
Death
Eckart died in Berchtesgaden on 26 December 1923 of a heart attack. He was buried in Berchtesgaden's old cemetery, not far from the eventual graves of Nazi Party official
Hans Lammers
Hans Heinrich Lammers (27 May 1879 – 4 January 1962) was a German jurist and prominent Nazi politician. From 1933 until 1945 he served as Chief of the Reich Chancellery under Adolf Hitler. During the 1948–1949 Ministries Trial, Lammers was ...
and his wife and daughter.
Although Hitler did not mention Eckart in the first volume of ''Mein Kampf'', after Eckart's death he dedicated the second volume to him, writing that Eckart was "one of the best, who devoted his life to the awakening of our people, in his writings and his thoughts and finally in his deeds." In private, he would admit Eckart's role as his mentor and teacher, and said of him in 1942: "We have all moved forward since then, that's why we don't see what
ckartused to be back then: a polar star. The writings of all others were filled with platitudes, but if he told you off: such wit! I was a mere infant then in terms of style." Hitler later told one of his secretaries that his friendship with Eckart was "one of the best things he experienced in the 1920s" and that he never again had a friend with whom he felt such "a harmony of thinking and feeling."
Memorials
During the Nazi period, several monuments and memorials were created to Eckart. Hitler named the arena near the
Olympic Stadium
''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words ''Olympic Stadium'' as ...
in Berlin, now known as the
Waldbühne
The Waldbühne (''Woodland Stage'' or ''Forest Stage'') is a theatre at Olympiapark Berlin in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by German architect Werner March in emulation of a Greek theatre and built between 1934 and 1936 as the Dietrich-Eckar ...
(Forest Stage), the "Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne" when it was opened for the
1936 Summer Olympics. The 5th ''Standarte'' (regiment) of the ''
SS-Totenkopfverbände'' was given the honour-title ''Dietrich Eckart''. In 1937 the ''Realprogymnasium'' in
Emmendingen
Emmendingen (; Low Alemannic: ''Emmedinge'') is a town in Baden-Württemberg, capital of the district Emmendingen of Germany. It is located at the Elz River, north of Freiburg im Breisgau. The town contains more than 26,000 residents, which ...
was expanded and renamed the "Dietrich-Eckart secondary school for boys". Several new roads were named after Eckart. All of these have since been renamed.
Eckart's birthplace in
Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz was officially renamed with the added suffix "Dietrich-Eckart-Stadt". In 1934, Adolf Hitler inaugurated a monument in his honour in the city park. It has since been rededicated to
Christopher of Bavaria
Christopher of Bavaria (26 February 1416 – 5/6 January 1448) was King of Denmark (1440–48, as Christopher III), Sweden (1441–48) and Norway (1442–48) during the era of the Kalmar Union.
Biography
Coming to power
He was the son of John, ...
(1416–1448), King of Denmark, who was probably born in the town.
In March 1938, when
Passau commemorated Eckart's 70th birthday at
Oberhaus Castle, the Lord Mayor announced not only the creation of a Dietrich-Eckart-Foundation but also the restoration of the room where Eckart had been imprisoned. In addition, a street was dedicated to Eckart.
Ideas and assessments
Eckart has been called the spiritual father of Nazism,
and indeed Hitler acknowledged him as being its spiritual co-founder.
Eckart viewed World War I not as a holy war between Germans and non-Germans, as it was sometime interpreted toward the end of the conflict, but as a holy war between Aryans and Jews,
who, according to him, plotted the fall of the Russian and German empires. To describe this apocalyptic struggle, Eckart adopted extensive imagery from the legends of
Ragnarok and from the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...
.
In 1925, Eckart's unfinished essay ''Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegespräch zwischen Hitler und mir'' ("
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, ...
from
Moses to
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
: Dialogue Between Hitler and Me") was published posthumously. Margarete Plewnia considered the dialogue between Eckart and Hitler to be an invention by Eckart himself, but
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte (11 January 1923 – 18 August 2016) was a German historian and philosopher. Nolte's major interest was the comparative studies of fascism and communism (cf. Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism). Originally trained in philosophy, he was ...
, Friedrich Heer and
Klaus Scholder
Klaus Scholder (January 12, 1930 – April 10, 1985) was a German ecclesiastical historian, professor of history at the University of Tübingen.
Life
Scholder was the son of Erlangen professor of Chemistry Rudolf Scholder. After his high sch ...
think that the book – which was completed and published posthumously by Rosenberg, allegedly using Eckart's notes – reflects Hitler's own words.
Thus historian
Richard Steigmann-Gall
Richard Steigmann-Gall (Born October 3, 1965) is an Associate Professor of History at Kent State University, and the former Director of the Jewish Studies Program from 2004 to 2010.
Education
He received his BA in history in 1989 and MA ...
believed that "
hebook still remains a reliable indicator of
ckart'sown views."
Steigmann-Gall quotes from the book:
In Christ, the embodiment of all manliness, we find all that we need. And if we occasionally speak of Baldur
Baldr (also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, Baldr (Old Norse: ) is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was k ...
(a god in Norse mythology), our words always contain some joy, some satisfaction, that our pagan ancestors were already so Christian as to have an indication of Christ in this ideal figure.
Steigmann-Gall concluded that, "far from advocating a paganism or anti-Christian religion, Eckart held that, in Germany's postwar tailspin, Christ was a leader to be emulated." But historian Ernst Piper dismissed Steigmann-Gall's views about a relationship between the admiration of Christ by early members of the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
and a positive relationship with Christianity; Eckart fervently opposed the political Catholicism of the
Bavarian People's Party
The Bavarian People's Party (german: Bayerische Volkspartei; BVP) was the Bavarian branch of the Centre Party, a lay Roman Catholic party, which broke off from the rest of the party in 1918 to pursue a more conservative and more Bavarian parti ...
and its national ally the
Centre Party, supporting instead a vaguely defined "
positive Christianity
Positive Christianity (german: Positives Christentum) was a movement within Nazi Germany which promoted the belief that the racial purity of the German people should be maintained by mixing racialistic Nazi ideology with either fundamental or s ...
".
From the pages of ''Vőlkischer Beobachter'', Eckart tried to win over Bavarian Catholics to the Nazi's cause, but that attempt ended with the
Beer Hall Putsch, which put Nazis at odds with Bavarian Catholics.
Joseph Howard Tyson writes that Eckart's anti-Old Testament views show a strong resemblance to the early Christian heresy
Marcionism
Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system that originated with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around the year 144. Marcion was an early Christian theologian, evangelist, and an important figure in early Christian ...
.
[Tyson, Joseph Howard (2008) ]
Hitler's Mentor: Dietrich Eckart, His Life, Times, & Milieu
' iUniverse
In 1935
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
published the book ''Dietrich Eckart. Ein Vermächtnis'' ("Dietrich Eckart. A Legacy") with collected writings by Eckart, including this passage:
To be a genius means to use the soul, to strive for the divine, to escape from the mean; and even if this cannot be totally achieved, there will be no space for the opposite of good. It does not prevent the genius to portray also the wretchedness of being in all shapes and colors, being the great artist that he is; but he does this as an observer, not taking part, sine ira et studio, his heart remains pure. ... The ideal in this, just like in every respect whatsoever is Christ; his words "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one" show the completely divine freedom from the influence of the senses, the overcoming of the earthly world even without art as an intermediary. At the other end you find Heine and his race ... all they do culminates in ... the motive, in subjugating the world, and the less this works, the more hate-filled their work becomes that is to satisfy their motive, the more deceitful and fallacious every try to reach the goal. No trace of true genius, the very opposite of the manliness of genius ...[Rosenberg's original German text: "Genie sein heißt Seele betätigen, heißt zum Göttlichen streben, heißt dem Gemeinen entrinnen; und wenn das auch nie ganz gelingt, für das gerade Gegenteil des Guten bleibt doch kein Spielraum mehr. Das hindert nicht, dass der geniale Mensch die Erbärmlichkeiten des Daseins in allen Formen und Farben zeigt, als großer Künstler, der er dann ist; aber das tut er betrachtend, nicht selbst mitgehend, sine ira et studio, unbeteiligten Herzens. ... Das Ideal aber in dieser, wie überhaupt in jeder Beziehung ist Christus; das eine Wort "Ihr richtet nach dem Fleisch, ich richte niemand" offenbart die göttlichste Freiheit vom Einfluss des Sinnlichen, die Überwindung der irdischen Welt sogar ohne das Medium der Kunst. Am entgegengesetzten Ende aber steht Heine mitsamt seiner Rasse, ... gipfelt alles ... im Zweck, die Welt sich gefügig zu machen; und je mehr dies misslingt, desto hasserfüllter das Werk, mit dem das Ziel erreicht werden soll, desto listiger und verlogener aber auch jeder neue Versuch, ans Ziel zu gelangen. Vom wahren Genie keine Spur, gerade das Gegenteil seiner Männlichkeit ... ."]
Personality
Early Nazi adherent
Ernst Hanfstaengl
Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (; 2 February 1887 – 6 November 1975) was a German-American businessman and close friend of Adolf Hitler. He eventually fell out of favour with Hitler and defected from Nazi Germany to the United States. He lat ...
remembered Eckart as "a perfect example of an old-fashioned Bavarian with the appearance of a walrus." Eckart was described by journalist
Edgar Ansel Mowrer
Edgar Ansel Mowrer (March 8, 1892 – March 2, 1977) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and writer best known for his writings on international events.
Life and career
Born in Bloomington, Illinois to Rufus and Nellie née Scot ...
as "a strange drunken genius".
His antisemitism supposedly arose from various esoteric schools of
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...
, and he spent hours with Hitler discussing art and the place of the Jews in world history.
Samuel W. Mitcham
Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. is an American author and military historian who specializes in the German war effort during World War II and the Confederate war effort during the American Civil War. He is the author of more than 40 books and has collabo ...
calls Eckart an "eccentric intellectual" and "extreme antisemite" who was also a "man of the world" who liked "wine, women, and pleasures of the flesh."
Alan Bullock
Alan Louis Charles Bullock, Baron Bullock, (13 December 1914 – 2 February 2004) was a British historian. He is best known for his book '' Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'' (1952), the first comprehensive biography of Adolf Hitler, which influence ...
describes Eckart as having "violent nationalist, anti-democratic, and anti-clerical opinions, a racist with an enthusiasm for Nordic folklore and a taste for Jew-baiting" who "talked well even when he was drunk" and "knew everyone in Munich." According to
Richard J. Evans
Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
, Eckart, the "failed racist poet and dramatist" blamed his career's failure on Jewish domination of German culture, and defined as "Jewish" anything that was subversive or materialistic.
Joachim C. Fest describes Eckart as a "roughhewn and comical figure, with
thick round head,
nd apartiality for good wine and crude talk" with a "bluff and uncomplicated manner". His revolutionary goals were to promote "true socialism" and rid the country of "interest slavery". According to
Thomas Weber, Eckart had a "jovial but moody nature", while
John Toland
John Toland (30 November 167011 March 1722) was an Irish rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions o ...
describes him as "an original raffish man with a touch of genius", and "a tall, bald, burly eccentric who spent much of his time in cafes and beer halls giving equal attention to drink and talk." He was "a born romantic revolutionary ... a master of coffeehouse polemics. A sentimental cynic, a sincere charlatan, constantly on stage, lecturing brilliantly if given the slightest opportunity be it at his own apartment, on the street or in a café."
Works
"Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: A Dialogue Between Adolf Hitler and Me"English translation (PDF)
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
Online books by Dietrich Eckartim Katalog der
Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...
* Daniel Wosnitzka
Tabellarischer Lebenslauf von Dietrich Eckartim
LeMO
LEMO is an electronic and fiber optic connector manufacturer, based in Écublens, Switzerland. It is known for producing the push-pull connectors. LEMO connectors are used in medical, industrial, audio/visual, telecommunications, military, sc ...
(
DHM und
HdG)
''Bestand: ED 54: Eckart, Dietrich'' Im Archiv des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin (PDF, 42 KB).
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckart, Dietrich
German opinion journalists
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1868 births
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Christian fascists
People from Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz
Nazis who participated in the Beer Hall Putsch
Nazi Party officials
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
Thule Society members
German male poets
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German nationalists
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19th-century German dramatists and playwrights
19th-century German male writers
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