Reinhold Wulle

Volkisch politics

Wulle entered political life in the spring of 1920 when he joined fellow rightists Arnold Ruge and Richard Kunze in creating the Deutschvolkischen Arbeitsring Berlin as a successor to the Deutschvolkischer Schutz und Trutzbund. However this group proved short-lived as it was absorbed into the German National People's Party (DNVP) in June of the same year. Wulle became a leading member of the Volkisch wing of the DNVP, and as such was close to the likes of fellow Reichstag members Albrecht von Graefe and Wilhelm Henning.

Henning was excluded from the DNVP in 1922 due to his extreme views and Wulle joined his comrade and von Graefe in setting up a volkisch working group. This formed the basis of the German Volkisch Freedom Party (DVFP), an anti-Semitic political party which they established on December 16, 1922, with Wulle as deputy chairman. Wulle and his allies were all members of the Reichstag and they were soon joined in leading the party by the likes of Ernst Graf zu Reventlow, Artur Dinter and Theodor Fritsch. During his involvement in the DVFP Wulle was investigated for involvement in a possible coup attempt by the Black Reichswehr, although little came of it.

Given their far right, anti-Semitic views the DVFP soon began to co-operate with the Nazi Party, notably during the period in which the latter was officially illegal and Adolf Hitler was imprisoned (although links between Wulle and Hitler actually dated back as far as 1920, when the two held a series of meetings). On this basis Wulle was re-elected to the Reichstag in the May 1924 election for the National Socialist Freedom Movement although the alliance with the NSDAP was somewhat shaky with Wulle criticising the Socialist 'class war' mentality that was still rife in many sections of the Nazi Party at that time in party documents. With personality clashes also an issue, Wulle joined Reventlow, Graefe and Fritsch in splitting away to form their own Deutschvolkische Freiheitsbewegung in 1925 with the DVFP re-established soon afterwards. Wulle became party chairman in 1928, although by then it had lost most of its membership to the Nazis and he soon became the leading authoritarian conservative enemy of the Harzburg Front. He also sought to advocate his views elsewhere and made a speaking tour of Latin America in 1927, advancing his Pan-German opinions.

Under the Nazis

Following the establishment of Nazi Germany in 1933 Wulle, who had become a staunch monarchist, welcomed the leadership of Hitler as part of a transition period towards a re-establishment of the Prussian monarchy in his newsletter, which he continued to publish.

Initially allowed to carry on some of his activities, Wulle was arrested on 17 August 1938 for breaching the "Heimtuckegesetz" (Insidiousness Law) and the law against the new formation by parties. His two initiatives, the Gesellschaft Deutsche Freiheit and the Informationsbriefe, were banned whilst he was also expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer. Initially held in prison in Berlin he was taken into 'protective custody' in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1940, although he was a somewhat co-operative prisoner and enjoyed a comparatively easy time as a result, including being allowed to receive cigars from Prince Wilhelm of Prussia.

Post-war activity

At the end of the Second World War Wulle settled in Gronau where he established the Deutsche Aufbaupartei on 31 October 1945 along with Joachim Ostau. The party was staunchly nationalist and supported the re-establishment of the monarchy, whilst dismissing Nazism as "a strange conqueror of Germany and the German soul". The party merged into the Deutsche Konservative Partei in 1946.

Wulle was briefly brought before the British military government who felt that, whilst he was not a Nazi as such, his ideas did not promote democracy to the German people.