Everything about Dietrich Eckart totally explained
Dietrich Eckart (
23 March 1868 -
26 December 1923) was a German politician, one of the important early members of the National-Socialist
German Workers'
Party and a participant of the
1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
Biography
Eckart was born in
Neumarkt,
Germany (near
Nuremberg) in
1868, the son of a royal notary and lawyer. His mother died when he was ten years old; in
1895, his father died also, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart soon spent.
Eckart initially studied medicine in
Munich, but quit in
1891 to work as a
poet,
playwright and
journalist. He moved to
Berlin in
1899, where he wrote a number of plays, often autobiographical; however, despite becoming the protégé of
Graf Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler, the artistic director of the royal theatre, he was never successful as a playwright.
Later on, he developed an ideology of a "genius higher human", based on writings by
Lanz von Liebenfels; he saw himself following the tradition of
Arthur Schopenhauer and
Angelus Silesius. He also became fascinated by the Buddhist doctrine of Maya (illusion). Eckart loved and strongly identified with
Henrik Ibsen's
Peer Gynt, but never had much sympathy for the
scientific method.
Between
1918 and
1920, Eckart edited the
anti-semitic periodical
Auf gut Deutsch, published along with
Alfred Rosenberg and
Gottfried Feder. A fierce critic of the
Weimar Republic, he vehemently opposed the
treaty of Versailles, which he viewed as treason, and supported the so-called
Dolchstoßlegende, according to which the
Social Democrats and
Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in
World War I.
Eckart was involved in founding the
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (
German Workers' Party) together with
Gottfried Feder and
Anton Drexler in
1919, later renamed the
Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei (
National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP); he was the original publisher of the
NSDAP newspaper, the
Völkischer Beobachter, and also wrote the lyrics of "
Deutschland erwache" (Germany awake), which became an anthem of the Nazi party.
Eckart met
Adolf Hitler during a speech he gave before party members on
14 August 1919. He exerted considerable influence on Hitler in the following years and is strongly believed to have established the theories and beliefs of the Nazi party. Few other people had as much influence on Hitler in his lifetime.
It was Eckart who introduced
Alfred Rosenberg to
Adolf Hitler.
Between 1920-1923, Eckart and Rosenberg labored tirelessly in the service of Hitler and the party. Through Rosenberg, Hitler was introduced to the writings of
Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Rosenberg's inspiration. Rosenberg edited the
Münchener Beobachter, a party newspaper, originally owned by the
Thule Society. In the pages of the
Münchener Beobachter, Rosenberg published the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
To raise funds for the party's newspaper, Eckart introduced Hitler into the influential circles that would eventually fund the
Nazi party. While staying in the house of a wealthy manufacturer in
Berlin, Hitler was given instruction in public speaking by a teacher of drama.
On
9 November 1923, Eckart was involved in the Nazi party's failed
Beer Hall Putsch; he was arrested and placed in
Landsberg Prison along with Hitler and other party officials, but released shortly due to illness. He died of a
heart attack in
Berchtesgaden on
26 December 1923. He was buried in Berchtesgaden's old cemetery, not far from the eventual graves of Nazi party official
Hans Lammers and his wife and daughter.
Hitler dedicated the second volume of
Mein Kampf to Eckart, and also named the
Waldbühne in Berlin as the "Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne" when it was opened for the
1936 Summer Olympics.
In
1925, Eckart's unfinished essay
Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegespräch zwischen Hitler und mir ("
Bolshevism from
Moses to
Lenin: Dialogues Between Hitler and Me") was published posthumously, although it has been shown (Plewnia
1970) that the dialogues were an invention; the essay was written by Eckart alone.
Sources
- Above text lifted nearly word-for-word from: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Eckart.html
- Plewnia, M.: "Auf dem Weg zu Hitler. Der 'völkische' Publizist Dietrich Eckart", Bremen, Schünemann Universitätsverlag, 1970
Further Information
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