Stahlhelm Blood Order question

[Richard]

Were any members of the Stahlhelm known to have received the Blood Order or was membership in both the NSDAP and Stahlhelm mutually exclusive in 1923?
Richard V

[Br. James]

Hi Richard,

An interesting question. Participants in the insurrection against the Bavarian State Government -- known as the 'Putsch' -- came from a variety of organizational memberships and walks of life, such as the fledgling SA, the NSDAP, the Munich police department, members of the Bund Oberland and other Freikorps groups, members of the German Army serving in the Munich area, members of the Reichskriegsflagge and other veterans' organizations (certainly including the Stahlhelmbund), and private individuals -- the most noteworthy being retired General Erich von Ludendorff, national hero of World War I. Unlike the effort taken to record and ascertain each participant in the Putsch who was entitled to receive the Blood Order in 1933, I have never seen any central or even regional listing of the members of the Stahlhelmbund...and there were supposedly 600,000 members by the time of Hitler's ascent to the Reichschancellery in 1933, making the Stahlhelmbund the largest veteran's organization throughout Germany, and larger than the SA at that time.

Unlike the Golden Party Badge, to my knowledge there was never any direct requirement that an applicant for the Blood Order have been a member of the NSDAP at the time of the Putsch or even later, though it was necessary to produce at least two written eye-witness testimonies that an individual was present for the march to the Feldherrnhalle on 9 November 1923. So a member of the Stahlhelmbund or other non-NSDAP organization could have received the Blood Order and the BO list of recipients confirms that.

One further word may be helpful here: all three of these highest awards -- the Blood Order, the Golden Party Badge and the Coburg Badge -- initially required proof that the applicant was a part of the event in question: for the Blood Order it was the Putsch, for the Coburg Badge it was the Battle of Coburg, and for the GPB it was being one of the first 100,000 members of the NSDAP with continuous and unbroken membership. But all three awards were to some degree 'corrupted' over the years: while the First Issue BO remained clearly awarded to Putsch participants, the Second Issue shortly became an award for long and loyal service to the Party (Martin Bormann's name comes to mind here); a few cases exist where a person was awarded the extremely exclusive Coburg Badge and the awardee was not present for the event itself...the most prominent of whom was the Gauleiter of Pomerania and Mayor of Coburg, Franz Schwede-Coburg; and like the Second Issue BO, a whole other class of GPB was instituted as the Honorary AH Badge which Hitler presented to those high-ranking military personnel and captains of industry and society whom he wanted to keep close to him.

Hope this response is of interest to you. Cheers,

Br. James

[Richard]

Interesting information Br. James. Thanks for posting. Now the question is, has anyone seen a BO grouping with provenance of Stahlhelm membership?
Richard V

[ErichS]

Interesting information Br. James. Thanks for posting. Now the question is, has anyone seen a BO grouping with provenance of Stahlhelm membership?
Richard V

The Stahlhelm is not listed as one of the organizations eligible for the BO. Only the War Flag Association and Bund Oberland are listed other than the NSDAP/SA. It is quite possible though that one could have also been a member of the Stahlhelm and one other of the listed groups.

[Br. James]

My line of thinking as well, Erich!

Cheers,

Br. James

[Richard]

Erich, thanks for your input. So there was a list of eligible organizations which could be awarded the BO? Does this mean you had to be a member of an organization on that list to be eligible and you were denied eligibility if you were not? I had always thought participation in the Putsch (at least for the first pattern) was all that was required?
Richard V

[ErichS]

Erich, thanks for your input. So there was a list of eligible organizations which could be awarded the BO? Does this mean you had to be a member of an organization on that list to be eligible and you were denied eligibility if you were not? I had always thought participation in the Putsch (at least for the first pattern) was all that was required?
Richard V

Richard,

If one participated in the putsch and to be eligible for the BO he had to be a member of either of the organizations that I listed. They were strict on who could receive the medal.

[Richard]

Richard,

If one participated in the putsch and to be eligible for the BO he had to be a member of either of the organizations that I listed. They were strict on who could receive the medal.

So theoretically there might have been many who participated in the Putsch, were not members of any of the approved organizations and therefore didn't get any recognition for their participation. Was it possible for someone not to have been in one of the organizations at the time of participation but to have joined after the Putsch and before the BO came into existence?
Richard V

[ErichS]

So theoretically there might have been many who participated in the Putsch, were not members of any of the approved organizations and therefore didn't get any recognition for their participation. Was it possible for someone not to have been in one of the organizations at the time of participation but to have joined after the Putsch and before the BO came into existence?
Richard V

My guess is no because according to the regulations one had to be a member of one of the approved organizations at the time of the putsch to qualify for the medal.

[Br. James]

In such a discussion, it is helpful to me to keep in mind that the 'Beer Hall Putsch' was a manifestation of a larger and somewhat-organized revolution against the current Bavarian Government and therefore against the Weimar Republic. Neither the march to the Feldherrnhalle or its precursor, the march to the Bavarian War Ministry located on the Odeonsplatz, were the only activities hostile to the government over those two days in November of 1923.

I have no doubt that quite a few Munich residents -- perhaps many -- got swept up in the hysteria of the march led by Ludendorff and Hitler that day and that they all wound up caught in the melee at the Feldherrnhalle when the shooting started. But these were individual citizens, patriotic as they may have been, and if they were simply "there" at the time of the Putsch but didn't belong to one of the organizations that fed this revolution, their presence would have been lost to history. And remember, too, that the NSDAP was banned from any organizational or public presence in Bavaria for the next whole year and beyond that, so anyone who had been caught up in the excitement on that Friday at noontime in 1923 and had joined the throng marching through central Munich that day would soon have discovered what the aftermath of "high treason" would mean, and any sensible person would have done all he/she could to keep their head down and out of sight thereafter!

Since Hitler's revolution was brought to fruition by the coordination of a number of groups and organizations -- the leaders or senior officials of which having been consulted and met together in advance and agreed to this so-called plan of action -- it turned out to be the conglomeration of those groups and organizations -- or their successors by 1933 -- that decided who would be recognized as an official recipient of The Decoration in Memory of 8/9 November 1923 -- The Blood Order.

Br. James

[Richard]

So when the second pattern was made available to be awarded, was the only criteria of membership the NSDAP?
Richard V

[ErichS]

So when the second pattern was made available to be awarded, was the only criteria of membership the NSDAP?
Richard V

Yes and to have made a special sacrifice for the movement like having been wounded, put in prison etc. for party activities.

One other tidbit regarding some of those who were awarded the 1st pattern BO is that many of them were no where near the FHH when the shooting started. Two notables were Christian Weber who was securing cars for the revolution and Jakob Grimminger who was standing guard at a bridge so neither were in harms way.

[wilhelm Saris]

Stahlhelm Blood Order Question

I had a look through all of my Stahlhelm photos with "hot-shots". I do not see any of them wearing the BO. I will write a German friend (he does not have a computer, so it may take a while). He has enormous files about the Stahlhelm-organization and a great knowledge about them. Maybe he knows if Bund-guys ever were granted the BO! Many Bund Oberland-members joined the Stahlhelm.
In 1988 I have met one. He was in the nineties during the Stahlhelm Bundestagung at Gmünd when the organization celebrated 70 years (October 1 and 2, 1988)!

[Richard]

Thank you for your efforts Wilhelm. It will be interesting to see if your friend can find any evidence of a BO winner. Looking forward to the results of your search.
Richard V

[wilhelm Saris]

Richard,
it took a while as my mentor does not have a computer and so no Internet.
I was able to speak to him a while ago and forgot totally about this thread.

There is NO evidence at all that a member from the Stahlhelm-organization would have been granted with a BO. This was not in the line of the situation. Hundreds of photographs were looked at, no results. Anyway there are no stated records of this. Not was any name familiar to Stahlhelm as the mentioned receivers in the Patzwall BO-book.
One can so assume no Stahlhelm-member may ever haven received a BO for political reasons (political opponents).