Correspondence and papers regarding Nazis in Spain (mostly microfilm)

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 Legalitåt und der inoffiziellen Illegalitåt 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'.

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 St?tzpunkte (bases) had 5 members or more. Furthermore, big Local Groups could be partitioned into Blocs (Bl?cke).

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.

Broadly chronological

Open

Jewish Central Information Office

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

Mostly microfilm

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

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.

Wiener Collection, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

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