page_title: Former German nobility in the Nazi Party
section_title: German Empire and Kingdom of Prussia
hierarchical_section_title: Former German nobility in the Nazi Party / German Empire and Kingdom of Prussia
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: peopleswarbookhi00mill (find matches) Title: The people's war book; history, cyclopaedia and chronology of the great world war Year: 1919 (1910s) Authors: Miller, J. Martin (James Martin), b. 1859 Canfield, Harry S. (from old catalog), joint author Plewman, William Rothwell, 1880- (from old catalog) Foch, Ferdinand, 1851-1929 Lloyd George, David, 1863-1945 United States. President (1913-1921&#160;: Wilson) Subjects: World War, 1914-1918 World War, 1914-1918 Publisher: Cleveland, O., The R.C. Barnum co. Detroit, Mich., The F.B. Dickerson co. (etc., etc.) Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: Montenegro Japan Costa Rica FLAGS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA AND THEIRTWEXTV-THREE ALLIES. THE PEOPLES WAR B(3UK Text Appearing After Image: History of the War ByH. S. CANFIELD CHAPTER I EUROPE RESTS ON A MINE—FORCES WORK FOR PEACE — GERMANYSEEKS WAR—DIRECT CAUSES LEADING TO THE PRESENT WORLD-WIDECONFLICT — GERMANY AND AUSTRIA PLOT — THE DREAM OF A MITTELEUROPA AND A BERLIN TO BAGDAD LINE —THE SPARK THAT SETOFF THE MINE —AUSTRIAS ULTIMATUM TO SERBIA AND HER BRUTALDEMANDS —DIPLOMACY FAILS TO AVERT WAR — WAR IS DECLARED— VIOLATION OF BELGIAN NEUTRALITY FORCES BRITAIN INTO CON-FLICT—THE WAR SPREADS — GERMANYS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEWAR —GERMANY SELF-D CEIVED — C O M P A R A T I V E MILITARYSTRENGTH OF THE COMBATANTS — MOBILIZATION AND PREPARATION—THE STYLE OF WARFARE REVEALS GERMANYS PREPARATIONS OFFORTY YEARS. For forty years the nations of Eiuopo,from the Bospliorus to the Baltic, movedfitfully over a great war mine. Lesserdisturbances, minor in their comparisonto the world conflict now raging, oftenthreatened to embroil the powers in con-flict. The peppery nations in the Balkanskept southeast Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: 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 into NSDAP in 1928, until the end of WWII in 1945.
  Following the Wilhelm II 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. 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, Hitler, Goring, Himmler, and other Nazi leaders, frequently appealed to these 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.
context_section_description: (Abolished 9 November 1918)
  Wilhelm II, German Emperor issued his statement of abdication on 28 November 1918, from both the Kingdom of Prussian, and imperial thrones, thus formally ending the House of Hohenzollern's 400-year rule over Prussia. He also gave up his, and future succession rights to the throne of Prussia and to the German Imperial throne connected therewith. 
  William, German Crown Prince was first son and heir of Prussia and the collective Kaiserreich of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Crown Prince is known to have abdicated around the same time as his father in 1918. Prince William was a military commander, as second in command to his Commander in Chief father, with Generalfeldmarschall Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and Generalfeldmarschall Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, at German military headquarters throughout WWI, until the allied armistice of 11 November 1918. As such, Wilhelm II and Crown Prince William directly commanded their Chief of General Staff, General Paul von Hindenburg throughout WWI. In 1933, von Hindenburg appointed (Nazi Party Leader) Hitler as the new Chancellor of Germany. On Hindenburg's death, Hitler officially became Führer and Chancellor of the Realm/Reich. Previously in Germany (1871–1918), the Chancellor was only responsible to the Prussian Kaiser (as Leader of the reich). In 1933, the Nazi regime abolished the flag of the Weimar Republic, and officially restored the Imperial Prussian flag, alongside the Swastika.
  
  An earlier meeting with a (later) senior Nazi figure occurred in 1916, when Crown Prince William invested Hermann Wilhelm Göring with his Iron Cross, first class, after Göring flew reconnaissance and bombing missions in a Feldflieger Abteilung 25 (FFA 25) – in Crown Prince William's Fifth Army. Like many veterans, Göring believed the Stab-in-the-back legend, that the WWI German Army had not really lost the war, but was betrayed by Marxists, Jews, and especially Republicans, who had overthrown the German monarchy. In 1933, with Hitler and the Nazi Party in power, Göring was appointed as Minister of the Interior for Prussia, for which he established a Prussian police force called the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo. The headquarters of Reich Main Security Office, SD, Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany (1933–1945), was symbolically housed at Prinz Albrecht-Strasse, off Wilhelm-straße, in Berlin. 
  In the early 1930s, Wilhelm II apparently hoped the successes of the German Nazi Party would stimulate interest in a restoration of the monarchy, with Crown Prince William's son as the fourth Kaiser. After Crown Prince Wilhelm joined the Stahlhelm which merged in 1931 into the Harzburg Front, Adolf Hitler visited the former Crown Prince at Cecilienhof three times, in 1926, in 1933 (on the "Day of Potsdam") and in 1935. In May 1940, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the son of Crown Prince William, nominated by Wilhelm as the fourth Kaiser, took part in the invasion of France. He was wounded during the fighting in Valenciennes and died on 26 May 1940. The service drew over 50,000 mourners. His death and the ensuing sympathy of the German public toward a member of the former German royal house greatly bothered Hitler, and he began to see the Hohenzollerns as a threat to his power. In 1940 Hitler issued the Prinzenerlass, prohibiting princes from German royal houses from military service the Wehrmacht.
  Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia was the fourth son of Emperor Wilhelm II, by his first wife, Augusta Victoria. In 1933 August Wilhelm had a position in the Prussian state, and became a member of the German Reichstag. The former prince hoped "that Hitler would one day hoist him or his son Alexander up to the vacant throne of the Kaiser". In 1939 August Wilhelm was made an SA-Obergruppenführer, the second highest SA rank. Translated as "senior group leader",Obergruppenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank first created in 1932 as a rank of the SA, and adopted by the Schutzstaffel one year later. Until 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank, inferior only to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmle
caption: Ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II with his five sons
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