HEINRICH HIMMLER CONDEMNS HITLER ALLY KURT LUDECKE

HEINRICH HIMMLER CONDEMNS HITLER ALLY KURT LUDECKE

A fascinating 1p. 4to. memo headed 'Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler on [Kurt] Ludecke in the Year 1925', stamped at the bottom: 'Submitted to the Fuhrer' and dated by Himmler '7 XII 34'. The typed memo attacks an elite S.A. unit founder and leader KURT LUDECKE, a very early and close associate of Adolf Hitler, in the wake of the Rohm purges of the previous June. Himmler writes, in part: '...In the person of Ludecke, I suspect an international political imposter who is in the service and salary of the Freemason Lodge (Grand Orient a Paris) and of Judaism...as certainly many others, has been sent in, in order to push the Volkisch movement in the wrong direction with direct influence on the Fuhrer...to sabotage and, on the other hand, to make monetary deals with the opponents of Germany with what he learns in the movement...' File holes, else fine condition. KURT LUDECKE (1890-1960) was a very early member of the Nazi Party, joining in 1922. He became close to Hitler and formed an elite S.A. unit, in conjunction with his close friend, Ernst Rohm. Hitler had Ludecke meet with Mussolini in 1923, a propaganda coup for the NSDAP. Ludecke also sent Winifred Wagner to the U.S. to raise funds for the party, where she met with Henry Ford and arranged a fundraising meeting between Ludecke and the racist automobile tycoon. Ludecke was arrested in the purge, but allowed to emigrate to Switzerland. In 1937, Scribners published his 'I Knew Hitler', an early study and exposé of Hitler, the first such work by
by an ex-Nazi activist. Of course, Himmler had his own reasons for condemning Ludecke, whom he no doubt saw as a continued threat, along with the S.A., to the influence of his own SS.