Wilhelm Gustloff (30 January 1895 – 4 February 1936) was the founder of the Swiss NSDAP/AO (the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

organisation for German citizens living outside Germany) at Davos. He remained its leader from 1932 until he was assassinated in 1936.

Life and assassination

Gustloff (a son of merchant Herrmann Gustloff), who worked for the Swiss government as a

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

, joined the NSDAP in 1927.Peter Bollier: ''Die NSDAP unter dem Alpenfirn. Geschichte einer existenziellen Herausforderung für Davos, Graubünden und die Schweiz'', Bündner Monatsblatt Verlag Desertina 2016, , Page 30 He assisted in the distribution of the antisemitic propaganda book ''

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

'', to the point that members of the Swiss Jewish community sued the book's distributor, the Swiss NSDAP/AO, for libel. Gustloff was shot and killed in Davos in 1936 by David Frankfurter, a Yugoslav

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish student from what is now

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

, incensed by the growth of the NSDAP. Frankfurter surrendered immediately to the Swiss police, confessing "I fired the shots because I am a Jew".German Orientalisms, By Todd Curtis Kontje , P.222 He was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment and spent the war in a Swiss prison. On May 17, 1945 — shortly after

V-E Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...

— Frankfurter was pardoned by a Swiss court.

Aftermath

Gustloff was given a state funeral in his birthplace of

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the capital and second-largest city of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as of the region of Mecklenburg, after Rostock. It ...

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; nds, label= Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schweri ...

, with

Adolf 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 ...

, Joseph Goebbels,

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

, Martin Bormann and Joachim von Ribbentrop in attendance. Thousands of

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...

members lined the route. His coffin, transported on a special train from Davos to Schwerin, made stops in Stuttgart,

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg ...

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

, Halle,

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...

and

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the River Elbe, north o ...

. Gustloff's widow, mother and brother attended the funeral and received personal condolences from Hitler. Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was the first at Gustloff's funeral to recite a few lines in his honour. Gustloff was proclaimed a '' Blutzeuge'' of the Nazi cause and his murder became part of the propaganda that served as pretext for the 1938

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

. His wife Hedwig, who had been Hitler's secretary, received from Hitler personally a monthly "honorary pay" of , the equivalent of some US$13,000 today. Unlike the assassination of the German diplomat

Ernst vom Rath Ernst Eduard vom Rath (3 June 1909 – 9 November 1938) was a member of the German nobility, a Nazi Party member, and German Foreign Office diplomat. He is mainly remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Polish Jewish teenager, ...

Herschel Grynszpan Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany ...

in Paris in 1938, Gustloff's death was not immediately politicized to incite ''Kristallnacht''. Hitler did not want to risk any domestic bouts of

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 ...

to cause Germany to lose the recently awarded right to host the 1936 Summer Olympics, since his antisemitic policies had already led to calls to relocate the games.

Namesakes

The German cruise ship MV ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' was named for Gustloff by the

Nazi regime Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. The ship was sunk by the Soviet submarine ''S-13'' on 30 January 1945 (coincidentally the 50th anniversary of her namesake's birth) in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

while carrying civilian refugees and military personnel from the advancing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

. About 9,400 people died, the greatest death toll from the sinking of a single vessel in human history. The disaster remains relatively unknown. In 1933 the

created the ''Wilhelm-Gustloff-Stiftung'' ("The Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation"), a national corporation funded by properties and wealth confiscated from Jews. It ran the ''Gustloff Werke'' ("Gustloff Factories"), a group of businesses that had been confiscated from their Jewish owners or partners. The small arms factory Berlin Suhler Waffen und Fahrzeugwerke was renamed Wilhelm Gustloff Werke in Gustloff's honour in 1939.

References

External links

*
A Survey of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Switzerland: 1930-1945
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gustloff, Wilhelm 1895 births 1936 deaths Assassinated Nazis Assassinated German politicians Deaths by firearm in Switzerland German conspiracy theorists German expatriates in Switzerland German people murdered abroad Nazi Party members Protocols of the Elders of Zion People from Schwerin People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin People murdered in Switzerland Swiss Nazis 1936 murders in Switzerland

Life and assassination

Aftermath

Namesakes

See also

References

Further reading

External links