Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau

Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau
Born	(1855-03-20)20 March 1855 Beisleiden, East Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	Marienwerder, Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Politician
Political party	Conservatives DNVP
Spouse(s)	Agnes von Kanitz (m. 1884–1937)

Elard Kurt Maria Fürchtegott von Oldenburg-Januschau (20 March 1855 – 16 August 1937) was a German Großagrarier, Junker, and Reichstag deputy. In historical research, he is regarded as one of the most influential members of the camarilla around President Paul von Hindenburg, i.e., the circle that decisively determined the policies of the German Empire in the late phase of the Weimar Republic, and as a key figure in the developments that eventually led to Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor.

Biography

Youth, family, estate

Elard von Oldenburg, first called Elard von Oldenburg-Beisleiden, then Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau, with the addition of the name of the estate, was born in Beisleiden into an East Elbian family of landowners who had been resident in East Prussia since the 18th century. The von Oldenburg family was descended from the Bremen nobility and was first mentioned in a document in 1247. The great-grandfather had entered the service of Frederick the Great as a young man and eventually rose to become his wing adjutant. After the Seven Years' War, he took his leave and married the noblewoman Dorothea von der Trenck.

After the marriage, his ancestor emigrated to East Prussia and acquired the Beisleiden estate in 1801. Oldenburg-Januschau's father Botho von Oldenburg (1814–1888) took over the estate in 1843. In his first marriage, his father was married to Freiin Brunsig von Brun (1818–1845), with whom he had three daughters and a son who died young. From his second marriage to Maria von Arnim (1829–1868) came son Elard. He was the fourth son from this union. The two oldest sons died as children, while Elard and his older brother grew up in the family home. In 1862, Elard's father bought the run-down Januszewo estate, located east of Rosenberg, along with the late-classical 18th-century manor house, in order to be able to leave an agricultural property to his youngest son. The village of Januszewo or Januschau was first mentioned in 1312 and received the Handfeste in 1362. After the death of his second wife, his father married Countess Malwine Klara Marie von Eulenburg (1847–1917) in 1869.

The young Oldenburg-Januschau attended school in Königsberg, Halle and the Fürstlich-Stolberg'sche Gymnasium Wernigerode. He also attended the Knight's Academy at Brandenburg Cathedral from 1871 to 1873, without graduating from high school. Then he became a soldier. After passing the fähnrich exam, he joined the traditional 2nd Guards Uhlans Regiment in Berlin, where he was promoted to lieutenant in 1875. During his eight years of active military service, Januschau became personally acquainted with Kaiser Wilhelm I, Otto von Bismarck, Helmuth von Moltke, and the Minister of War, Albrecht von Roon. Although very fond of the military life, he took his leave in 1883, at that time in the rank of Seconde-Leutnant, after the early death of his elder brother Boto (1852–1882), in order to be able to devote himself to the administration and management of the family estate. After the death of his father, he also took over the Beisleiden estate in 1885. Beisleiden was an fideicommissum of about 2044 hectares. His Januschau with Wilhelmswalde estate contained 1200 ha, of which 336 ha were forest. Near Berlin he later acquired the manor Lichterfelde, district Ober-Barnim, extent 680 ha.

In 1884, Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau married Agnes Gräfin von Kanitz. The marriage lasted until his death and produced three daughters, who in turn bore Elard eighteen grandchildren. Through his marriage he established family ties with one of the most politically influential families of the Empire. His brother-in-law, the district administrative officer Hans von Kanitz — one of the most important parliamentarians of his time — introduced Januschau to politics and promoted his inclusion in the circle of conservative Reichstag deputies. Elard's brother-in-law was General Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, who was the adjutant general of Wilhelm I.

In 1888 he became an honorary knight of the Order of St. John, a legal knight then in 1894, and later a conventual member of the Prussian Cooperative of the Congregation and its deputy commendator.

Political activity in the empire

Oldenburg-Januschau was one of the leaders of the German Conservatives. The politician (called "Januschauer" by his peers) was considered the prototype of the militaristic, anti-democratic, and anti-parliamentary East German Junker during both the Empire and the Weimar Republic.

As one of the leading farmers in West Prussia, Oldenburg-Januschau headed both the Provincial Association of the Agrarian League and the West Prussian Chamber of Agriculture for over two decades. His career took him via the district parliament, the provincial parliament and the provincial committee to the Prussian House of Representatives (1901–1910) and finally to the Reichstag, where he was a member from 1902 to 1912 (for the Conservative Party and the Reichstag constituency Regierungsbezirk Danzig 1) and from 1930 to 1932 (elected for the DNVP in what is now constituency 1 East Prussia). He was noted among his fellow parliamentarians and the public for his radically anti-parliamentary and anti-democratic views. In the committees, with his unconventional, coarse and humorous manner, he advocated in particular the interests of agriculture, the military and the House of Hohenzollern. He was particularly notable for the pithy language with which he expressed these views. His favorite enemy in parliament was August Bebel, the party leader of the Social Democrats. He engaged in a heated verbal debate with Bebel about the sense or nonsense of the Prussian soldiers' goose step, which Bebel had criticized as dehumanizing. During the Daily Telegraph Affair, he was the only member of parliament to protect the emperor, dubbing the Social Democrats who disrupted his speech a "gang of swine". In other sensational speeches inside and outside parliament, Oldenburg-Januschau said, among other things, that he would like to "burn a constitution into the Germans" so that they would "lose their hearing and sight."

On January 29, 1910, during the Reichstag debate on the military budget, Oldenburg-Januschau caused a great stir throughout the Empire when he declared in the plenary session: "The King of Prussia and the German Emperor must be able at any moment to say to a lieutenant: Take ten men and close the Reichstag!" Among his conservative colleagues, he aroused lively approval with this provocative call for a direct breach of the constitution, but among the other parliamentarians — especially the Social Democrats — he provoked energetic protest. The speech drew tumultuous scenes in Parliament, so that Oldenburg-Januschau felt compelled not to appear in the Reichstag for days and to hide from the outraged public for a time in the officers' mess of a barracks (the "popular anger" against Oldenburg-Januschau went so far that a man mistaken for him was attacked by an angry crowd in front of the Reichstag portal). In some cities, there were even public protest meetings against Oldenburg-Januschau. On November 27, 1910, he resigned his seat in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies in Berlin.

In addition to his work as a member of the Reichstag, Oldenburg-Januschau also served as president of the West Prussian Chamber of Agriculture. His acquaintance with the then retired General von Hindenburg resulted from their mutual membership in the "gentlemen's club" of East Prussian landowners. The two were already on friendly terms before the World War I.

Member of the "Camarilla"

After World War I, during which Januschau became commander of an infantry regiment despite his advanced age — a position he held until 1917 — his influence in politics and agribusiness remained unbroken.

In the 1920s, Januschau again played a prominent role on the public stage. In his memoirs, Januschau candidly admits to having been involved in coup plans in 1919/1920. As late as the beginning of 1920, he says, he tried to dissuade his friend Wolfgang Kapp, who was attempting a coup together with General von Lüttwitz, from choosing the capital as the starting point of a coup attempt when the latter let him in on his plans by way of conversation. Instead, he had urged him to choose East Prussia as a much more promising starting point and to conduct the planned strike from there.

After Paul von Hindenburg was elected to the highest office of state in the Empire presidential election of 1925, Januschau began to exert renewed influence on German politics from behind the scenes as part of his close relationship with the head of state. Today, he is considered by researchers to belong to the influential circle of "shadow men" around Hindenburg — usually referred to in the literature as the "camarilla" — who significantly influenced and sometimes even controlled the political decisions of the Reich president.

In his Memoirs, which were widely circulated, Januschau admits that his "attempts to influence" the Reich president were "aimed at eliminating parliamentarism and establishing a dictatorship." As a result, he vigorously advocated the system of presidential cabinets as well as Papen's "Preußenschlag" (questionable dismissal of the managing state government of Prussia under constitutional law) of July 20, 1932.

Involvement in the East German aid scandal

Located twenty kilometers from Januschau, the old Hindenburg ancestral estate of Neudeck belonged to the brother of the field marshal and Reich president. It could not be maintained during the economic crisis of the 1920s, had to be abandoned by the family and was consequently owned by a bank. In the late 1920s — after Hindenburg had been elected President of the Reich in 1925 — Oldenburg-Januschau sought to buy back the estate so that he could give it back to his friend. To this end, he turned first to representatives of large-scale agriculture, then also to those of heavy industry, who finally donated the funds for a repurchase of the estate and even for a new construction of the manor house and for the renovation of the associated buildings. The estate was given to Hindenburg as a gift in 1927 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The deed of gift was presented to him at the Januschau estate. However, the title deed was made out to his son Oskar von Hindenburg in order to avoid inheritance tax. This arrangement was perfectly legal, but, since it was carried out with the knowledge and approval and for the profit of the Reich President — i.e. the head and supreme representative of the state, who by nature was supposed to fulfill a role model function — and his family, it was morally objectionable to the highest degree.

When, in the course of the Great Depression, the existence of many of the large estates in eastern Bavaria was threatened, Hindenburg came to the aid of his comrades by providing them with generous state subsidies to rehabilitate their estates. In this context, however, irregularities (excessively high payments to individual Junker families, subsidies to relatives of the Reich President, misappropriation of state funds for purely private purposes, etc.) began to come to the attention of the press and the public in 1932. The result was the so-called Eastern Aid Scandal, to which the matter began to escalate in the fall of 1932 through ever more extensive revelations in the press. Today, it is assumed that the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or rather the party's internal secret service deliberately leaked various incriminating facts that had become known to it to the press in order to increase the pressure on Hindenburg — who at that time categorically rejected Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor — by making ever more threatening public revelations, by first placing his personal friends and associates in the crosshairs of public criticism and anger, while at the same time making the Reich president's entourage understand that a Hitler government would prevent new accusations from being made and stop the existing attacks. The situation became particularly unpleasant for the family when the first circumstantial evidence came to light in the press regarding the dubious practices that had been used in the donation of the Neudeck estate (in particular, the dubious evasion of inheritance tax). Joseph Ersing (Zentrum) and Kurt Heinig (SPD), the rapporteurs of the parliamentary investigative committee, brought out that the Hindenburg friend had received an unlawful debt relief loan of 621,000 Reichsmark. Ministerial Director Ernst Reichard of the Reich Commissariat for Eastern Aid had to confirm the Oldenburg-Januschau case to the committee on January 20. As a result, the Reichslandbund made representations to the Reich President demanding that Reich Chancellor von Schleicher be dismissed.

Oldenburg-Januschau visited Hindenburg at Gut Neudeck in the last week of January 1933. According to Otto Meissner, then Secretary of State to the Reich President at the Ministries Trial, the discussion that took place there contributed greatly to Hindenburg's decision to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor.

Later proponents of the thesis that Oldenburg-Januschau bore considerable responsibility for the fall of the Weimar Republic and its inheritance by the National Socialists included the former deputy mayor of Berlin Ferdinand Friedensburg, who had dealt with Oldenburg-Januschau as an administrative officer in the early 1920s, the publicist Bernt Engelmann (United Against Law and Freedom), and historians such as Ian Kershaw and Hans Mommsen.

Later years

After the so-called Röhm Purge on June 30, 1934, Januschau intervened with Hindenburg in favor of the former Stahlhelm leader Theodor Duesterberg, who had been imprisoned and whose release he was thus able to obtain. (Hindenburg, who had not heard of this measure, was very angry about it). Oldenburg-Januschau's last public appearance was at the funeral of his friend Paul von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg in 1934 at the Tannenberg Memorial, to which he appeared in the uniform of the Guard Uhlans. At this time he also wrote down his memoirs. In the summer of 1937, Oldenburg-Januschau died at the age of 82. Three years later, in August 1940, he was followed by his wife.

His grandson, Count Heinfried von Lehndorff (1908–1945), took over the Januschau estate and managed it until 1945. The estate was 2,826 ha in size. In 1945, Januschau Manor became the seat of the Soviet commandant's office for the region. After the withdrawal of the Red Army and massive looting, the manor house deteriorated over the years until only a ruin was left. Since 2001, the manor has been owned by the Polish Zdun family, which has a plan to convert the remains of the manor house into a hotel.

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW