National Socialist Working Association
Party Chairman Adolf Hitler perceived the Association as a threat to his leadership, so its activities were curtailed shortly after the Bamberg Conference of 14 February 1926 presided over by him, and it was formally dissolved on 1 October of that year.
After the failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, the Nazi Party was outlawed and Adolf Hitler, being found guilty of treason, was jailed in Landsberg prison.
[2] The Working Association was Strasser's attempt to consolidate the then still young and divergent Party organizations in northern and western Germany.
The Gauleiter in these regions were more interested in appealing to the working class masses in the large industrial cities of northern Germany through a greater emphasis on social aims, than were the members of the Party leadership based in the more rural area of Bavaria.
Strasser and northerners who had been in the National Socialist Freedom Movement had an intense hostility towards some Party leaders at the Munich headquarters who had belonged to the rival Greater German People's Community, in particular, Hermann Esser, Julius Streicher and Philipp Bouhler.
[4] The Working Association organizers sought to curb what they perceived as the growing power and influence of these Munich leaders whom they felt to be too bureaucratic and controlling.
[5] Discussions about forming a consortium of sorts, at first referred to as a "Westblock," to counterbalance the Munich leadership began in Elberfeld on 20 August 1925 between Strasser, Joseph Goebbels, then the Business Manager (Geschäftsführer) of Gau Rhineland-North, and other northern Party leaders.
A journalistic organ named the National Socialist Letters (Nationalsozialistischen Briefe, or NS-Briefe) was established, which appeared twice a month from 1 October 1925, and was published by Strasser and edited by Goebbels.
Organizational statutes were adopted which were careful to state that the Working Association existed "with the express approval of Adolf Hitler.
[9] This was aimed at pushing the Party toward obtaining power not by parliamentary means, but by mobilizing the urban masses into paralyzing the nation's economic and social systems through strikes, street terror and other activist tactics.
Other prominent Nazis who were part of the Working Association included Helmuth Brückner,[13] Friedrich Hildebrandt,[14] Heinrich Haake,[15] Hanns Kerrl,[7] Erich Koch,[7] and Wilhelm Stich.
[16] Following the Hagen meeting, the Working Association advocated consolidation of the Gaue in the Rhineland and Ruhr areas into one large Gau encompassing all of Germany's industrial heartland.
[10] The Working Association also urged support for a proposed referendum on the expropriation without compensation of the former royal and princely ruling houses of Germany.
This stance angered Hitler who feared that it would imperil the substantial financial support that he was deriving from many of the former nobles and from conservative business donors who favored his opposition to Communists, Socialists and trade unionists.
[17] In foreign policy, many Working Association members, including Strasser, Goebbels, Kaufmann and Rust held National Bolshevik ideas then common to many young right-wing German intellectuals.
Politically, it called for strengthening the office of the Reich President while the Reichstag would be replaced by a corporatist "Chamber of Estates," representing occupational sectors and public institutions such as churches and universities.
[19] Germany's federal structure would be abolished and the President, elected to a seven-year term by the legislature, would appoint national and provincial executives and administrators.
[20] While proposing new ideas in the areas of the economy and government structure, it retained many of the nationalist, völkisch and anti-semitic underpinnings of the original program.
[19] Strasser's failure to keep Hitler informed of developments was a tactical error, for the Munich leadership was becoming increasingly suspicious of the activities of the Working Association.
The draft program was again vigorously debated and there was even less agreement than previously, with not only Feder but Haase, Ley and Pfeffer voicing concerns on various points.
He also firmly ruled out any thought of alliance with Soviet Russia and reaffirmed his view that the future of Germany depended on obtaining additional Lebensraum in the east.
Hitler had reasserted his authority as supreme Party leader and stamped out any potential threat from the Working Association, which was left an empty shell that soon faded into irrelevance.
In the months following the Bamberg Conference, Hitler met with him several times and invited him to speak at important Party meetings, praising his performances and appearing jointly with him.
At the end of August, Goebbels was offered the prestigious post of Gauleiter of the now expanded Gau Berlin-Brandenburg, which he accepted in late October 1926.
Several members of the Working Association, including Haase, Klant, Schlange, Schultz and Vahlen, were removed from their Gauleiter positions within about a year of the organization's dissolution.
[12] Yet several other members, such as Hildebrandt, Kaufmann, Kerrl, Koch, Ley, Lohse, Rust and Telschow went on to have long careers in the Party and the government of Nazi Germany until the fall of the regime in May 1945.
He would retain these posts, as well as that of Gauleiter of Berlin, until his suicide on 1 May 1945, and even was named by Hitler in his final political Testament as his successor as Reich Chancellor.
