Finally, We Found True Camaraderie

The Hoover Institute recently released dozens of letters written by pre-1933 party members. The authors give some autobiographical details and explain why they joined the movement. Thank you to TPS forum member Gytrash who translated this one

I, Heinrich Dörnhaus, was born on the 8th of December 1910, the son of the colonial goods tradesman Heinrich Dörnhaus. From the 6th to the 10th year of school I went to elementary school and up until my 16th birthday I went to the municipal secondary school Mülheim-Ruhr. I then went to trade school in the neighbouring city Duisburg, as I wished to become a merchant. My strongest memories of my childhood years is the outbreak of the world war, especially the departure of my local 159. regiment. I can vividly remember how my father, at the advanced age of 42, was called to the flags. I can also remember some plane attacks against the local industrial area. The food shortage which strongly affected the industrial area did not affect me much as my fellow compatriots, thanks to my devoted parents.

I was much more affected by the pitiful end of the war, which delivered to us children, who only dreamed of victory, a terrible disappointment. We couldn’t understand why an army which had carried its victories forward into the enemy lands was suddenly supposed to be defeated. That this wonderful army, which had shown the greatest degree of patience and endurance, of heroism and defiance of death, had received a dagger in the back, was something I only found out and understood later. As I grew older I came to understand that the people in charge of the government were those traitors to their people who, with their subversive activities, had given the dagger to the mutineers.

How could it have been possible that the red revolt of 1918 would have left me untouched. Every day we expected our store to be looted. The great headquarters were in Mülheim, making matters worse. Even then I understood that there was a great rift dividing the German people. One side seemed to me to be the epitome of humanity, a world of criminals. In my youth I did not yet see the driving forces of this world. How glad we all were when the activities of these terrorists was stopped for the time being by the ‘Noskes’ [Freikorps commanded by Social Democrat Gustav Noske] and the Freikorps. I still remember exactly how the Freikorps ‘Schulz’ was cornered by the reds and had to leave Mülheim to its fate. The situation was hopeless.

The next few years were an ostensible calming of the situation, until one day the outermost warning sign of the occupation of the Ruhr was announced. I will never forget the hopeless mood that gripped the populace. Foes in the country! When the spell was broken, multiple people at different places in the city, young and old, started to sing the German national anthem and Die Wacht am Rhein. The German national anthem, which fell silent for a long time by an unjust occupation. I never felt as connected to my people as I did then during that time. Who wants to resent me for rejoicing over every successful attack against the Regiebahn [The French military operated the trains during the occupation as German train drivers were expelled from the Ruhr for joining the protests against the French] and occupying troops, why, I would loved to have participated.

I felt a pang in my heart every time a compatriot suffered undeservedly. Schlageter was ‘the hero’ to us boys [Albert Leo Schlageter, Freikorps member executed by the French for sabotage]. We enthusiastically sang the song: ‘O Frenchman, don’t cry, for you won’t get the coal’ et cetera. The seizure of the greater part of our schools by the occupation, which forced us to walk long distances to an emergency school, did not increase my sympathy for the intruders. But the occupation of the Ruhr came to an end, too.

But the experience planted the seed of resistance against such brutal force into the heart of every boy, including me. It’s no wonder then that new life was blossoming in the so-called Wehrverbände. Everyone had their programme. For me, one thing was certain: the flaccid government could never bring us salvation from this wretched state. But maybe the Wehrverbände could? So, joining a Wehrverband it was. But which one? Back the in Mühlheim besides the Stahlhelm there was the Jungdeutsche Orden. The programme of the latter seemed tempting, above all it seemed to be more revolutionary than the Stahlhelm.

What stopped me from joining either of these organisations was the fact that the ‘brothers’ did not foster their camaraderie, which I thought was essential for revolutionary fighting.

So, for the time being, I participated in sporting activities. In the meantime I had turned 18 and was carried away by the flow in these politically eventful times. I went to election meetings, of which there were many in the system’s time [System in this case means the time of the Weimar Republic]. Ahead of the 1929 elections I visited three election meetings: a German National People’s party meeting, a Zentrum meeting, and a meeting of the NSDAP. The speakers of the first two meetings gave the usual nice words and explanations of their programme. Of a tangible proposal as to how we will get out of our misery and bring our people to honour I heard nothing. The speaker of the new movement was entirely different. I wasn’t just gripped by his spirited speech, but also by his genuine commitment to the German people as a whole, whose greatest misfortune was its fragmentation into parties and classes. Finally a practical suggestion towards the renewal of the people. Destruction of the parties! Destruction of the classes! True Volksgemeinschaft [people’s community]! These are goals to which I could fully commit myself.

On that very same evening it was clear to me to whom I belonged: to this new movement. From it alone I could hope for the salvation of the German fatherland. Therefore I joined the Hitler Youth and found what I was searching for: true camaraderie. This was true for us: all for one, one for all. Persecution by the state and private people tightened the bonds our fellowship and made us stronger for fights. Soon I became the local group leader in the National Socialist Schoolchildren’s League, where I fought and led on the front lines. I experienced successes and setbacks. In one single year we had to become a secret organisation for four times. But even this could only improve our morale and our loyalty to the Führer.

Next to our proper duty, which was to get the youth for the new movement, we helped the party in their preparations and execution of the election campaigns, which wasn’t without danger for us teenagers, as we were in a communist stronghold. How our hearts pounded, for we had contributed out little bit to the huge election victory in September 1930, which gave the movement 107 mandates. With doubled fervour and ‘our helmets tightened’ we went to work. We were so profoundly convinced by the righteousness of the national socialist idea and of our Führer that even occasional setbacks in elections or the Stennes and Strasser revolts could not make us sway from our loyalty to the Führer. Even the venomous way of fighting of the communists and the system parties, who, by distributing pamphlets made customers boycott national socialist shop keepers, could not weaken my morale.

–by Heinrich Dörnhaus, written in 1934 and published in Theodore Abel’s Why Hitler Came into Power: An Answer Based on the Original Life Stories of Six Hundred of His Followers (1938)