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Heinrich Claß (29 February 1868 – 16 April 1953) was a German far-right politician, a Pan-Germanist, an antisemite and a “rabid racialist“.[1] He presided over the Pan-German League from 1908 to 1939.

Biography

Claß was born in Alzey. His father was a notary.[2] He studied law at the University of Berlin, University of Freiburg and the University of Giessen up to 1891, when he became a legal trainee. In 1894, he settled in Mainz as a lawyer.

despite the National Liberal politics of his upbringing Claß became of devotee of far-right, völkist ideas. In 1894, Claß was a founding member of the nationalist and anti-semitic German Association (German: Deutschbund), which propagated “pure Germanism” by excluding ethnic minorities, particularly Jews. In 1897, he became the head of the Rhineland-Hesse branch of the Pan-German League, where he was elected to the directorate in 1901. When he became president in 1908, he changed the direction of the League to more radical positions. Claß’s politics caused him to have frequent clashes with the Kaiser’s government.[2][3][4]

Claß viewed France of Germany’s eternal enemy and viewed Great Britain as Germany’s “treacherous cousin”. This put him into sharp conflict with Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg during the Agadir Crisis in 1911 where Claß advocated a speedy war, which was to lead the German Reich to “world power” and territorial expansion.[2][3] Also in 1911, he was one of the founding members of the Deutscher Wehrverein [de] (German Army Society), which tried to push the armament of Germany. By this time he had begun promoting an anti-socialist coup, after which constitutional revisions would turn Germany into a plebiscitary dictatorship, which he believed would be the best way to prepare Germany for what he believed to be an inevitable imperialist war. Claß is commonly known for his books about far-right policy that were written under the pseudonym Daniel Frymann or Einhart the most famous being his 1912 book Wenn ich der Kaiser wär' (If I Were the Kaiser) in which he agitates for imperialism, pan-Germanism and antisemitism.[4]

During World War I, Claß alongside Alfred Hugenberg called for the annexation and depopulation of large western and eastern territories to be populated by German settlers, but as the war went on his unrealistic demands made him increasingly irrelevant. In 1917, he founded the German Fatherland Party with Alfred von Tirpitz and Wolfgang Kapp. Also in 1917 a group of investors led by Claß took over the Deutsche Zeitung newspaper, turning it into a völkist propaganda outlet. At the end of World War 1 he fled from the French occupied Mainz to Würzburg.[2]

After the end of World War I, Claß began calling for the destruction of the Weimar republic, he supported both the Kapp Putsch and the Beer Hall Putsch. Around 1920-1921 he had began a relationship with Hitler and the Nazi Party but the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch led him to focus his efforts on the DNVP. In 1924 he was suspected in a conspiracy to murder Hans von Seeckt and in January 1926 he began plotting a coup which would see President Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag and establish an authoritarian regency. But in both cases he was able to avoid punishment due to a lack of evidence. He played a major role in radicalizing the DNVP away from Westarp towards the more radical Hugenberg. He played major roles in both the Young Plan Referendum and the Harzburg Front. After the rise of the Nazi Party he served in the Reichstag as a “guest” of the party, but Hitler was suspicious of his Monarchism and his ties to Hugenberg and so he was increasingly sidelined, with he Pan-Herman League being dissolved in 1939.[2][3][4]

After his political career ended he lived in Berlin until his house was destroyed in an allied bombing raid. From 1943 to 1953, Claß lived with his daughter in Jena, where he died.[2]

Works

  • Bilanz eines neuen Kurses. – Berlin : Alldt. Verl., 1903
  • (as Einhart): Deutsche Geschichte. – Leipzig : Diederich, 1909
  • (as Daniel Frymann): Wenn ich der Kaiser wär’: Politische Wahrheiten und Notwendigkeiten. – Leipzig : Dieterich, 1912 (from 1925 known as Das Kaiserbuch)
  • West-Marokko deutsch!. – Munich : Lehmann, 1911
  • Wider den Strom : vom Werden und Wachsen der nationalen Opposition im alten Reich. – Leipzig : Köhler, 1932
  • Zum deutschen Kriegsziel. Eine Flugschrift. – Munich : Lehmann, 1917

References

  1. ^ Pulzer, Peter (1988). The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (revised ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. XX. ISBN 0674771664.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Heinrich Claß 1868–1953, Lebendiges Museum Online [de], Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German)
  3. ^ a b c A Historical Dictionary of Germany’s Weimar Republic, 1918-1933. p. 68.
  4. ^ a b c “Project MUSE — Verification required!”. muse.jhu.edu. Retrieved 2026-06-14.

Further reading