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Wiener Library

Correspondence and papers regarding Nazis in Spain (mostly microfilm)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 1556 WL 585

Held at: Wiener Library

Title: Correspondence and papers regarding Nazis in Spain (mostly microfilm)

Date(s): 1933-1936

Level of description: collection

Extent: 1030 frames; 1 box

Name of creator(s): NSDAP AO Landesgruppe Spanien (Foreign Organization of the National Socialist German Workers Party in Spain)

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organisation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The party members who lived outside the German Reich were pooled in this special NSDAP department. On May 1 1931 the new organisational unit was founded on the initiative of Reich Organisation Leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter) Gregor Strasser and its management was assigned to Dr Hans Nieland. But Nieland resigned from office already on May 8, 1933, because he had become head of the Hamburg police authorities in the meantime and later on a member of the Hamburg provincial government. Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was appointed director of the 'AO', that served as 43rd Gau of the NSDAP.

NSDAP Local Groups (Ortsgruppen) comprised 25 party comrades at least, so called Stützpunkte (bases) had 5 members or more. Furthermore, big Local Groups could be partitioned into Blocs (Blöcke).

Ideological training and uniform orientation of all party members in the interest of the German nation were the principal tasks of NSDAP/AO. Only Imperial Germans (Reichsdeutsche) with a German passport could become members of the AO. Persons of German descent, so called ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), who possessed the nationality of the country in which they lived, were refused access to the Nazi Party.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence relating to Nazis in Spain, 1933-1936; comprising: I: Correspondence of NSDAP officials of the Landesgruppe Spanien (Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid) and the Auslandsorganisation (Berlin, Hamburg) concerning the activities and sentiments of individuals and of the firms in Spain, arrangements for film propaganda; II: copies of a large number of letters and other documents, originating from the Landesgruppe Spanien and its sub-divisions, the Auslandsorganisation, the German embassy in Madrid and the German consulate in Barcelona, dealing with the same subjects as above, and also to the movements of anti-Nazi Germans, arrests, the diffusion of pro-Nazi material in the Spanish press; III: Circulars of the Auslandsabteilung, Reichsleitung NSDAP (Foreign section of the Nazi Party administration), 1933, nos. 19-20, 31, 34-36, 38-39, 41-54, 71-76, 78, 81-83, 86, 90; 1934, nos 5-7, 14, 18-19, 24-28, 30-33, 36-41, 43-55, 57, 59-61, 63, 65-66, 71 (not all in numerical order); a) /1: A report entitled Die Auslandsarbeit der NSDAP by the NSDAP Auslandsorganisation containing the following sections: A) Die Welt Organisation (the world organisation); B) Methoden - Der Grundsatz der offiziellen Legalität und der inoffiziellen Illegalität Methods - the basis for the official legal and the unofficial illegal methods); C) Durchführung der nationalsozialistischen Methoden (execution of the Nazi methods). Landesgruppe Spanien; D) Zusammenfassung (conclusion) /2: A report entitled 'A Report by Mr Francis Hemming on his Mission to National Spain, 17 Nov 1938'.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: German, English

System of arrangement:

Broadly chronological

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Physical characteristics:

Mostly microfilm

Finding aids:

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

It is thought that the originals were part of a much larger archive (some 40,000 documents) captured by the Spanish Republicans from the NSDAP Landesgruppe Spanien offices in Barcelona and other cities. The papers in this collection were obtained by the Jewish Central Information Office, the forerunner to the Wiener Library, in late in 1936.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Jewish Central Information Office

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Wiener Collection, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

Publication note:

Spielhagen, F. Spionen und Verschwörer in Spanien, (Paris, 1936); Schwarz-Rot-Buch, Dokumente über den Hitlerimperialismus, (Barcelona, 1937); The Nazi Conspiracy in Spain, (London, 1937); Comité Nacional de la C.N.T El Nazismo al Desnudo, Barcelona, (1938); Simon, O. K. Hitler en Espagne.

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: November 2007


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Third Reich | Nazism | Totalitarianism | Political doctrines

Personal names

Corporate names
Landesgruppe Spanien
National Socialist German Workers Party x Nazi Party
Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei Ausland-Organisation

Places
Spain | Western Europe | Europe