Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund
The Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation) was the largest and the most active anti-Semitic federation in Germany after the First World War, and an organisation that formed a significant part of the völkisch movement during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), whose democratic parliamentary system it unilaterally rejected. Its publishing arm issued books that greatly influenced the opinions of Nazi Party leaders such as Heinrich Himmler. After the organisation folded in around 1924, many of its members eventually joined the Nazis. The Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund was originally called the Deutscher Schutz- und Trutzbund when it was founded in February 1919 in Bamberg for the purpose of "fighting" Judaism during a meeting of the Alldeutscher Verband ("All-German League"). The director of Deutscher Schutz- und Trutzbund was Alfred Roth, and its secret chairman was Konstantin von Gebsattel, who was appointed on 1 October 1919 by Ernst von Hertzberg Lottin. Its advisory board included Ernst Anton Franz von Bodelschwingh, Theodor Fritsch, August Gebhard, Paul Lucius, Ferdinand Werner, Julius Friedrich Lehmann and Georg von Stössel. Its meeting place was originally in Duisburg, in Alfred Roth's house, but was later moved to Hamburg, where it joined several such other organizations. It merged with the Reichshammerbund and about a month later with the Deutschvölkischer Bund, the organization that had succeeded the Deutschvölkische Partei. The organisation's manifesto was Wenn ich der Kaiser wär ("If I Were the Kaiser"), which was written by All-German League President Heinrich Claß in which he expressed identitarian and nationalist views. His slogan was "Germany for the Germans". Julius Friedrich Lehmann, a Munich publisher, helped promote the organisation's ideas, and in October 1918, Claß called for a coup d'etat. The organisation agitated against the Weimar Republic, and by 1923, it had just under 180,000 members. The organisation used as its symbols a blue cornflower and a swastika.
