Ernst Graf zu Reventlow

Ernst, Count Reventlow (August 18, 1869 – November 21, 1943) was a German naval officer, journalist and Nazi politician.

Early life

Ernst Christian Einar Ludwig Detlev graf zu Reventlow was born at Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, the son of Ludwig Reventlow, a Danish nobleman, and Emilie Julie Anna Louise Rantzau. Reventlow embarked upon a career in the German Imperial navy, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander, before his marriage to a Frenchwoman, Marie Gabrielle Blanche D'allemont, forced him to resign his commission. He then became a free-lance writer on naval issues, and later general politics, where he was highly critical first of the policies of Kaiser Wilhelm II and later of the Weimar Republic. In 1920 he founded his own newspaper, Der Reichswart (“Reich Guardian”), which was published until his death.

National Bolshevik period

In the immediate post-war period, a National Bolshevik idea came from Comintern agent Karl Radek postulating that a community of interests existed between German nationalists and the isolated Bolshevik regime in Russia. At first Reventlow denounced the “delusion of the so-called National Bolsheviks that Communism could turn towards nationalism,” [Ernst graff zu Reventlow, “Nationalbolschewismus,” Der Reichswart, I , #6 (1920), p. 8, cited by Klemens von Klemperer, “Germany's new conservatism; its history and dilemma in the twentieth century, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1957, p. 144.] but when Radek seized the occasion of the Ruhr occupation to deliver his Schlageter Oration before the Enlarged Executive Committee of the Comintern in 1923, Reventlow responded with sympathetic articles in Der Reichswart that were subsequently re-printed in the communist central organ Rote Fahne. This collaboration was short-lived, though it marks Reventlow clearly as a leftist. Later he was to Graf write approvingly of the KPD’s domestic policies in the Deutsches Tageblatt and to demand fifty-percent managerial control of any enterprise by the workers. [Dietrich Orlow, “History of the Nazi Party: 1919 - 1933,” University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1969, p. 96.] It is reported that Reventlow alone among the Nazi leaders was never booed when addressing crowds of workers. [Albert Krebs, “The infancy of Nazism: the memoirs of ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs, 1923-1933,” New Viewpoints, New York, 1976.]

DVFP and NSDAP involvement

In 1924 Reventlow and Albrecht von Graefe broke from the German National People's Party (DNVP) to form the German Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP) which was both more “Völkish” (racist/nationalistic) and socialistic than the conservative DNVP. Both men were elected to the Reichstag as DNVP deputies, though in May 1927 Reventlow quarreled with the more conservative Graefe and left the party to join the NSDAP (Nazi Party), bringing over his faction en bloc, including Bernhard Rust, Franz Stöhr, and Wilhelm Kube, each of whom were to enjoy prominent roles in the Nazi Party. This greatly improved the NSDAP position in northern Germany, where the DVFP had always been stronger than the NSDAP, and by the end of 1928 the DVFP had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist.

Reventlow’s group quickly allied themselves with the more socialistic wing of the NSDAP headed by Gregor Strasser which favored genuine socialistic measures and an alliance with the Soviets against the western democracies. Though a power in the party to the end, this group became less influential as Hitler turned to overt militarism and antisemitism after attaining power.

Reventlow was never liked nor trusted by Hitler, but his personal popularity was substantial and Hitler chose not to cross him but to ignore him. Reventlow was never given a high party office nor, after the seizure of power, was he given any government post. Though often critical of government policies, his was allowed to publish his newspaper, Der Reichswart, until his death in 1942.

Religious activism

Reventlow’s antisemitism was never racial, as was Hitler’s, but cultural, and this led to his involvement with the German Faith Movement. From 1934 to 1936, Reventlow served as deputy chairman of this semi-religious movement which postulated that every people “through its blood” developed its own religious knowledge. The movement was anti-Christian and tried to create a “species true faith” for Germany. [Count Ernst Zu Reventlow, “Where is God?,”“Friends of Europe” publications ; no. 47, London, 1937] Reventlow quickly became disillusioned with this however, returning to Christianity even before the German Faith Movement was suppressed by the government in 1937. Reventlow's active practice of Christianity continued to his death and was another factor keeping him from Hitler's favor.

Works (in English translation)

* “The Vampire of the Continent,” the Jackson Press, New York, 1916, with preface by George Chatterton-Hill
* “Where is God?” “Friends of Europe” publications ; no. 47, London, 1937
* “The Neutrals In This War,” Current History, a journal published by The New York Times, October 1915, p. 169-172.

References

See also

* Joseph B. Neville, Jr., “Ernst Reventlow and the Weimar Republic: A Völkish Radical Confronts Germany’s Social Question," Societas 7, 1977, pp. 229-251.
* Christian Zentner, and Friedemann Bedürftig, “Encyclopedia of the Third Reich,” Da Capo Press, New York City, 1997.
* Conan Fischer, “The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism,” St. Martin's Press, New York City, 1991.

External links

* [http://www.reventlow.dk/cgi-bin/igmget.cgi/n=reventlow?I8010/ Reventlow family genealogy]