The Aufbau Vereinigung (Reconstruction Organisation) was a

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 ...

-based counterrevolutionary conspiratorial group formed in the aftermath of the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918 and of the Latvian Intervention of 1919. It brought together White Russian émigrés and early German

Nazis 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) in N ...

who aimed to overthrow the governments of Germany and the Soviet Union, replacing them with authoritarian régimes of the far right. The group was originally known as Die Bruecke (The Bridge). ''Aufbau'' was also the name of a periodical it brought out. The Aufbau (Economic-Political Society for Aid to the East) was founded in 1921 by General Vasily Biskupsky and the political writer Max von Scheubner-Richter. The future top Nazi functionaries

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 ...

and Arno Schickedanz would serve for a time in the office of the organisation. According to Michael Kellogg, the Aufbau Vereinigung was a vital influence on the development of Nazi ideology in the years before the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 as well as financing the NSDAP with, for example, funds from

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

. It gave

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 ...

the idea of a vast Jewish conspiracy, involving a close alliance between international finance and

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, ...

and threatening disaster for mankind. Recent research on Hitler's early years in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(1905-1913) appears to have shown that his

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

was at that time far less developed than it became under the new influences. Aufbau members became involved in terrorist activities, including the assassinations of German Foreign Minister

Walther Rathenau Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician. During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...

and Russian émigré

Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (russian: Влади́мир Дми́триевич Набо́ков; 21 July Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._8_July.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S._8_July">Old_Style_an ...

(both in 1922). After the death of Scheubner-Richter in the putsch, Aufbau rapidly declined, and notions of

Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...

and Slavic inferiority, naturally unpopular with the Russians, gained a stronger hold on the Nazi movement. The long-term influence of Aufbau has been traced in the implementation of the

final solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

and in Hitler's disastrous decision to divert troops away from Moscow towards Ukraine in 1941.Kellogg p279 Prominent members of Aufbau included: *

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 ...

(a Baltic German from the Russian Empire) *

(a Baltic German from the Russian Empire) * Fyodor Vinberg (Russian officer) * Piotr Shabelsky-Bork (Russian officer) *General Vasily Biskupsky (Russian officer) *

Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914 ...

* Max Amann *

Boris Brasol Boris Leo Brasol (aka Boris Lvovich Brasol) (or Brazol) (March 31, 1885 - March 19, 1963), lawyer and literary critic, was a White Russian immigrant to the United States. Biography Boris Brasol was born in Poltava, Ukraine (then part of Imperial ...

(Russian émigré)

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20100615191931/http://ils.unc.edu/mpact/mpact.php?op=show_tree&id=7004 {{Authority control Anti-communist organizations Early Nazism (–1933) Russian Civil War Counter-revolutionaries