Hermann Schützinger

Hermann Schützinger (23 April 1888 – 7 May 1962) was a German soldier, police officer, publicist, and activist who was a prominent member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold movement of the Weimar Republic.

Early life and military career Hermann Schützinger was born on 23 April 1888 in Bayreuth to Heinrich Schützinger (1857–1920), a lawyer, politician and local historian, and an unknown mother. In 1894, when Schützinger was 6 years old, his father was elected mayor of the town of Lindau. With this relatively bourgeois upbringing, Schützinger was able to attend a humanistiches Gymnasium in Kempten until 1908 when he joined the Bavarian 11th Infantry Regiment to receive officer training.

In 1910, Schützinger was promoted to the rank of lieutenant where, in a report made in 1913, he was described as a 'very capable, energetic officer with clear independent judgement'. He was noted for his 'irritable temperament', however, even causing scandal when he published a novel, under the pseudonym Hermann Pfeiler, entitled Die Waffen hoch! ('To Arms!') which mocked the 1889 pacifist novel Die Waffen nieder! ('Lay Down Your Arms!'). In the novel, he suggested that war was a form of 'natural selection' that weeded out supposed 'uncivilised' nations. This was especially scandalous as the characters in the novel were thinly veiled caricatures of various officers and women from his life, a roman à clef. Whilst not at the same scale of similar scandals such as the 1904 'Bilse Case', which led to a full court-martial, Schützinger still felt compelled to remove it from publication shortly after its release.

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold movement began in 1924 with the aim of acting as a non-violent organisation that protected the new Weimar constitution from attacks on both sides of the political divide. Schützinger had expressed similar ideas as early as 1922 when he was still in Munich, eventually working his way up to the Reich Committee in 1929. He became one of the movement's most popular speakers, campaigning in favour of the Reichbanner's political education schemes. He defended the movement from the Left and Right, arguing against the stab-in-the-back myth and opposing criticism that the movement was made of 'Sunday Republicans' who lacked any zeal for reform.

Having been involved in publishing since at least the days of Die Waffen Hoch! and journalism since 1920, 1925 was the year that Schützinger began to take on more senior roles within the industry. Moving to Berlin, he became the editor of Sozialdemokratische Korrespondenz ('Social Democratic Correspondence') and Republikanische Korrespondenz ('Republican Correspondence') - press services that provided regional and SPD papers with articles.

Third Reich and World War Two Despite his membership of the SDP and opposition to groups that tried to violently overthrow the Weimar Republic, Schützinger supported the Nazis in the November 1933 elections calling on 'all former Reichsbanner members and Social Democrats' to 'cast their vote, man for man, for the Reich government. He continued in journalism, running a typing office and Der Reporter, until 1936. From then until 1942 he worked in advertising, specifically for Berliner Buch und Zeitungschriften Verlag after which he took a break from publishing. His official support for the new regime had not ended, taking government jobs in the Reich Office for Technical Products and the Reich Ministry of Economics during the war.

Post-war, death, and legacy When the war ended, Schützinger returned to journalism, leading the commercial editorial department of the Berliner Zeitung until 1948. His political activity was waning, only being briefly involved in the short-lived Forschungsgemeinschaft des Anderen Deutschland ('Research Association of the Other Germany') in 1948, aiming to help the democratisation of Germany after the collapse of the Third Reich. In 1950, he began working as a freelance journalist based in Bonn which he did until his death on 7 May 1962.

Despite his major role within the Reichsbanner movement and in the Zeigner government, Schützinger is not remembered particularly well, with few academics researching his life.