Former German nobility in the Nazi Party

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (November 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Beginning in 1925, some members of higher levels of the German nobility joined the Nazi Party, registered by their title, date of birth, NSDAP Party registration number, and date of joining the Nazi Party, from the registration of their first prince (Ernst) into NSDAP in 1928, until the end of World War II in 1945.^[1]

Following Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication and the German Revolution, all German nobility as a legally defined class was abolished. On promulgation of the Weimar Constitution on 11 September 1919, all such Germans were declared equal before the law.^[2] There were 22 heads of these former federal states, titled as the 4 Kings of Germany; Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg, there were also 6 Grand Dukes, 5 Dukes, and 7 Princes, who along with all of their heirs, successors and families, lost their titles and domains. In appeasement of such losses, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi leaders, frequently appealed to these (former) princes, and especially to Wilhelm II and his families from the former Prussian kingdom, by expressing sympathy for a restoration of their abolished monarchies, and such lost inheritances.

From 1925, the newly formed Nazi Party began accepting these princes by their (abolished) former titles, and by their (abolished) princedoms, and registering these dukes, princes, and princesses as such, in the Nazi Party. There are two known Nazi Party lists of such princes and princedoms. Of the first list Historian Malinowski notes: "of 312 families of the old aristocracy 3,592 princes joined the Nazis (26.9%) before Hitler came to power in 1933." The second Berlin Federal archives list depicts 270 princely members of the Nazi Party (1928–1942), of which almost half joined the Nazis pre-Hitler. The Berlin list named 90 direct senior heirs, to their 22 abolished princedoms,^[3] and also included claimants to the (former) Imperial Crown of Wilhelm II. After the proposed Prussian – "fourth Kaiser" died in the Wehrmacht in 1940, Hitler issued the Prinzenerlass, prohibiting German princes from the Wehrmacht, but not from the Nazi Party, SA or SS. Some German states provided a proportionally higher number of SS officers, including Hesse-Nassau and Lippe. Such German princes included SS–Obergruppenführer and Higher SS and Police Leader Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont.