Has-Ellison on Petropoulos, 'Royals and the Reich: the Princes Von Hessen in Nazi Germany'

H-German Has-Ellison on Petropoulos, 'Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany'

Review published on Friday, September 1, 2006

Jonathan Petropoulos. Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. xix + 524 pp. $37.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-516133-5.

Reviewed by J. Trygve Has-Ellison (University of Texas at Dallas)Published on H-German (September, 2006)

Making the Nazis Respectable

Jonathan Petropoulos's new monograph offers an explanation for a puzzling paradox of the Third Reich--the troubled relationship between the radical Nazi movement and the conservative representatives of the traditional order. In his monograph, Petropoulos chooses the brothers Prince Philip and Prince Christoph von Hessen as an example of this paradox in order to draw larger conclusions about the confluence of interest between the former ruling houses and the Nazi leadership. In addition, Petropoulos briefly examines the continued presence and influence of the princely families on modern-day Germany and draws some tentative conclusions about their significance for twentieth-century German history. One suspects that this work will be the opening salvo in a slew of new English-language case studies that explore the relationship of the old elite to the National Socialist movement, as well as their respective fates in the FRG and GDR; it may lay out a new course in Third Reich studies as well.

Petropoulos's monograph is one of many recent studies that have applied social historical methods to the nobility; like their Bielefeld counterparts, the new historians of the nobility use concepts originating with Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu, such as habitus or cultural capital, when discussing the distinctive milieu of the nobility. Although this approach is the starting point for Petropoulos, he departs from the model by teleologically relating the stories of Prince Philipp and Prince Christoph of Hessen. Petropoulos's work is particularly interesting because he was given access to the Hessen family private archive. The former princely families in what was the Bonn Republic still control their archives--written permission must be secured from the head of the royal household before research can commence. For research on the Bavarian Wittelsbachs fulfilling this requirement has been a simple process; for families who had members implicated in the policies of the Third Reich like the Hessen, Schaumberg and Waldeck, historians have rarely received access. That Petropoulos has managed to do so speaks to both changing social attitudes and Petropoulos's diplomatic abilities.

The work is divided into eight chapters with the following themes: the interconnectedness of the nobility from the Second Empire through the Great War; the Princes von Hessen during the Weimar Republic; Nazi high society; princely careers in the Nazi state; roles in an increasingly radical regime; miscalculation and misfortune; denazification and postwar justice; and rebuilding after the war.

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Has-Ellison on Petropoulos, 'Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany'. H-German. 09-30-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/35008/reviews/44778/has-ellison-petropoulos-royals-and-reich-princes-von-hessen-nazi Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-German

Petropoulos's main goal is to examine the reasons why members of the princely families became involved with the Nazi party and how they reacted to its increasingly criminal behavior (pp. 3-4). As Petropoulos shows, a greater statistical percentage of the higher nobility joined the Nazi party than almost any other occupational group or social class (p. 5)--if one counts the former ruling houses as an occupational group or a social class (historically dubious in both cases). Nonetheless, Petropoulos has identified a significant fact--that members of the highest social strata, those who enjoyed the greatest prestige within German society, joined the Nazi party in large numbers. The motives for accommodation with the NSDAP varied between individuals, families, confessions and generations. Broadly speaking, Catholic families were more resistant to the blandishments of the Nazi elite than their Protestant cousins, and the younger cohort of princes who came of age during World War I or the Weimar Republic were far more likely to embrace National Socialism as the solution to Germany's problems than the older generation (p. 6). Most joined in 1932 or later. Many were drawn in by Hitler's personal magnetism, rather than party ideology. All of those who did join did so for similar reasons: resentment over their dispossession; fear of Bolshevism; hope of restoration; securing of the family fortune; patriotic and idealistic sentiments; and--not least--the hope that the Nazis would solve contemporary social problems by uniting the masses behind a patriotic program that would steer them away from attempts to expropriate princely wealth and property.

The Princes von Hessen were picked as the primary example because of their close relationship to the English royal family. After all, Englishness was a virtual inoculation against the fascist disease--or not (if we think of the Duke of Windsor, Sir Oswald Mosley or Randolph Churchill). This work, in many ways, is a portrayal of the "fascist gentleman." Princes Philip and Christoph "possessed considerable ability and combined a commitment to their illustrious family with a love of country. Indeed, their gravitation to National Socialism was motivated by certain idealism. [They] embodied contradictory qualities and cannot be portrayed in an entirely negative or, conversely, entirely positive light" (pp. 14-15). In fact, the princes' connection to the English royal family and their sympathetic personal qualities make their attraction to the movement even more compelling as a case study. These were cultivated, well traveled and educated men with a sense of humor--not the sort of people who would enthusiastically sing a verse from the "Horst Wessel Lied." It is just this dichotomy, that internationally-connected and cultivated individuals could support a criminal regime; could continue to have Jewish friends while espousing official antisemitism; could continue warm and close relationships with family members from Great Britain and Russia while advocating Germany’s global dominance; could appreciate the great art works of Europe and yet help Hermann Göring and Adolph Hitler loot these same works, that gives Petropoulos's work its greater significance.

The princes' road to National Socialism was often tortuous. The von Hessen, like many noble families, suffered disproportional causalities during World War I (two elder brothers were killed in the war) and then were blamed for its failure afterwards. The princes were attracted to National Socialism as well because of their frustration with the lack of acceptable careers (the numbers of officers were limited by the Versailles Treaty); the promise of monarchical restoration by Adolf Hitler and Göring; the stabilization of their property and finances under the Nazis because Hitler did not favor expropriation; and the apparent modernity of the Nazi movement. The nobility and modernity are not oxymoronic--as Karl Möckl commented about nobles during the Second Empire, most embraced almost all forms of modernity (with the exception of political democratization).[1] Many princes enthusiastically joined the SS, which had as one of its goals the creation of a new elite based on blood and race, rather than on ancient pedigree--an exceptionally modern, if toxic, theory.[2] In the case of

Prince Christoph, he failed at every career he attempted during the Weimar Republic and was attracted to the SS by its pronounced elite military ethos. So much so, that although close to Hermann Göring and possessed of a relatively safe desk job with the Luftwaffe, he chose to fight, and subsequently die, in the Allied invasion of Italy. One suspects that for most nobles, high and low, the possibility of wearing a uniform and fighting (confirming one's nobility) was of greater significance than ideology or strongly held political views.

Perhaps the most disquieting part of Petropoulos's work is his explicit, excellent chapter on Nazi high society (pp. 97-135). Former royal families did in fact make the National Socialist elite acceptable to many traditional elements within German society. These princely families retained social and cultural capital even after the fall of the monarchy, which was expended on behalf of the fascists. Whether they fully understood the implications of Hitler's ideology or not, they helped "normalize" the radical nature of the movement, and in so doing, disarmed misgivings at home and abroad about the new rulers.

This is an excellent piece of scholarship by Petropoulos and fits well with his earlier work on art policy in the Third Reich. There are, however, a few flaws. Appendix one is purportedly a list of members of the NSDAP from the high nobility (pp. 380-389). It however, includes family names such as Baudissin, Blumenthal, Boeckmann, Hedemann, Lanzenauer, Münster, Praschma, Reuttner and Zeppelin. The families Baudissin, Münster, Praschma and Zeppelin are from old families of the lower nobility, but the ties of this distinct group to the princely families was broken with the end of court society. Some historians of the nobility consider the princely families to be a distinct caste separated from the greater nobility. Undoubtedly, members of these families would be bemused by their sudden elevation in rank to the "Nazi high nobility." An extreme example is the inclusion of SS General von dem Bach-Zelewski, who was not an aristocrat, but was the descendant of a bourgeois family ennobled in the nineteenth century--a common practice in the many monarchies of central Europe (p. 65). The use of the term "Uradel" is questionable, particularly after William Godsey's work on the subject (p. 17).[3] These are not the only flaws, but they are minor quibbles compared to the breadth and depth of Petropoulos work. This book is not only a useful starting point for any discussion of the German royals during the twentieth century, but would be an excellent text for graduate students as well as scholars of the Third Reich.

Notes

[1]. Karl Möckl, "Der deutsche Adel und die fürstlich-monarchische Höfe 1750-1918," in Europäischer Adel 1750-1950, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1990), pp. 106, 108.

[2]. Eckart Conze, "Adel unter dem Totenkopf: Die Idee eines Neuadels in den Gesellschaftsvorstellungen der SS," in Adel und Moderne: Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Eckart Conze and Monika Wienfort (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), pp. 151-176.

[3]. William D. Godsey, Jr., Nobles and Nation in Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 57-59.

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Citation: J. Trygve Has-Ellison. Review of Petropoulos, Jonathan, Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. September, 2006.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12227

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