Walter Buch

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Oberhessin
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Re: Walter Buch

#16

Post by Oberhessin » 18 Mar 2012, 09:31

trespasser07 wrote:Is there anything avaliable on his death? He was sentenced to 5 years labor and was not charged under the IMT.
There are some sentences about his death in the memoirs of his grandson, Martin Bormann jr., "Leben gegen Schatten", p. 110 (German Quotation):
"Der Besuch in Inning war etwas bedrückend, denn unser Großvater hatte sich offenbar Illusionen gemacht. Es gab Probleme mit der neuen Familie, Hoffnungen, daß er sein Haus und Grundstück in Holzhausen am Ammersee zurückerhalten könnte, erwiesen sich als Seifenblasen, die platzten. Im Herbst dieses Jahres nahm er sich das Leben. Der Haushalt in inning wurde aufgelöst."
See also Jochen von Langs book on Bormann sr, where you can find many details about the difficult relationship between Bormann and his Father-in-Law.

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Michael Miller
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Re: Walter Buch

#17

Post by Michael Miller » 27 Oct 2012, 19:10

Here's what I have on Walter Buch.

~ Mike


Walter Hans Buch
Reichsleiter der NSDAP / SS-Obergruppenführer


Born: 24.10.1883 in Bruchsal / Landeskommissariat Karlsruhe / Baden.
Suicide: 12.09.1949 in Schöndorf am Ammersee (slashed his wrists and drowned himself in the Ammersee, according to a report of the Bavarian State Police).

NSDAP-Nr.: 7 733 (First joined 09.12.1922; Party banned following the “München-Putsch” of 09.11.1923; Reenrolled 15.06.1925)
SS-Nr.: 81 353 (Joined 01.07.1933)

Promotions:
30.09.1902 Fahnenjunker
27.01.1904 Leutnant
27.01.1913 Oberleutnant
24.12.1914 Hauptmann
20.11.1918 Major a. D.
13.11.1923-00.01.1924 “mit der Führung der illegalen SA beauftragt” (Charged with leadership of the illegal SA)
18.12.1931 SA-Gruppenführer z. V.
02.06.1933-08.05.1945 Reichsleiter der NSDAP
01.07.1933 SS-Gruppenführer
09.11.1934 SS-Obergruppenführer

Career:
ca. 1889-00.09.1902 Attended Volksschule in Bruchsal, then the humanistic Gymnasien in Karlsruhe and Konstanz (passed his Abitur in Konstanz).
30.09.1902-00.00.1915 Entered service as Fahnenjunker, assigned to 6.(badische) Infanterie-Regiment “Kaiser Friedrich III” Nr. 114 (Konstanz). Assigned as Regiments-Adjutant, 00.09.1914-00.00.1915.
27.01.1904-00.00.19__ Commissioned and assigned as a Lehr-Offizier (Instructional Officer).
[00.00.1912-00.00.1914] Assigned to the Unteroffizierschule in Biebrich (wearing the uniform of Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 114).
00.00.1915-00.00.191_ Assigned to 8.(westfälisches) Infanterie-Regiment “Herzog Ferdinand von Braunschweig” Nr. 57, then 47.Infanterie-Brigade.
00.00.191_-00.00.191_ Kompaniechef in 4.(badische) Infanterie-Regiment “Prinz Wilhelm” Nr. 112.
00.00.191_-00.12.1918 Kommandeur of 23.Maschine-Scharfschütze-Gewehrabteilung (Machine-Gun Sharpshooter Detachment) in 6. (badische) Infanterie-Regiment “Kaiser Friedrich III” Nr. 114).
00.03.1918-00.09.1918 Kommandeur of the Offiziers-Aspiranten-Bataillon and machine-gun instructor at the Infanterie-Lehrschule in Döberitz.
00.09.1918-00.11.1918 Assigned to the Kriegsministerium in Berlin as a specialist in the employment of machine gun units.
20.11.1918 Retired from service as Major a. D., having refused to swear the oath of loyalty to the new German republic. In a letter of 02.11.1931 to William Fanderl, editor of Der Angriff, Buch wrote that he “did not want to work in the new command under the flag of [Weimar Republic President Friedrich] Ebert” (Donald M. McKale, The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler’s Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921-1945, pp. 53-54). He was declared 50% "Kriegsbeschädigt" (war-disabled).
00.00.1918-00.00.1923 Owned a small chicken farm in Scheuern bei Gernsbach / Schwarzwald, near the estate of his father.
00.03.1920 First meeting with Adolf Hitler, as described in an interrogation report of 13.06.1945:

“Buch’s father, an Amtsrichter, had written a book entitled “Vom Internationalen zum Nationalen Arbeitsstaat”, published by Lehmann Verlag in Munich. Through correspondence with Lehman, the older Buch became vitally interested in Hitler, and ordered his son to take a copy of the book he had written to Hitler personally. In this manner, in Mar 1920, Walter Buch met Hitler, and became one of his followers. He corresponded with Hitler on several occasions, and followed his efforts through hearsay and newspapers…” (“Special Report on Walter Buch, Reichsleiter and Oberster Parteirichter”, Special Detention Center “Ashcan”-Detailed Interrogation Report, in “Interrogation Records Prepared for War Crimes Proceedings at Nuernberg, 1945-1947/OCCPAC Interrogation Transcripts And Related Records: Buch, Walter Hans”; Publication Number M1270, Record Group RG238)

00.12.1918-00.00.19__ Member of the "Deutschen National Schutz- und Trutzbund".
00.00.19__-00.00.19__ Member of “Badische Verband ehemaliger Kriegsteilnehmer” (Baden Organization of War Veterans).
00.00.1920-00.00.192_ Member of the "Bund Oberland".
00.03.1920 First meeting with Adolf Hitler. This resulted from his father asking him to personally deliver a copy of his own book, Vom Internationalen zum Nationalen Arbeitsstaat, to Hitler. The elder Buch had learned of the future Führer via correspondence with his publisher, Lehmann Verlag in München, and had become very enthusiastic about him.
00.00.1919-00.00.1923 Member of the "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" (DNVP, German Nationalist People’s Party). He rose to become Party Secretary in Karlsruhe by 1923.
00.00.1921-00.00.19__ Co-editor of the Badische Wochenzeitung, a small völkisch newspaper in Karlsruhe.
14./15.10.1922 Participated in the violent demonstration march of some 700 SA men to the third annual German Day of the "Deutschvölkischen Schutz- und Trutzbund" in Coburg.
09.12.1922 Joined the NSDAP. Erich G. Reiche writes that around this time, he corresponded with Max Amann and “inquired about employment in the party or the SA” (Reiche, The Development of the SA in Nuremberg, 1922-1934, p. 26). Reiche continues:

“His letter of inquiry to … Amann reveals a man who combined opportunism with a fanatical belief in Hitler. Buch mentioned that he had frequently addressed small gatherings of twenty to thirty young people and spoken to them about [‘]the man who had been sent to the German people by the grace of God. But perhaps it was the smallness of these gatherings which permitted the creation of a mood of true fervour and belief.[‘]”

Above all other reasons, Buch enrolled in the NSDAP because its platform mirrored his own virulent anti-Semitism (which had been instilled in him by his own father). Donald M. McKale writes:

“Buch’s anti-Semitic philosophy represented a synthesis of German völkisch thought with the ideology of a new
‘revolutionary nationalism’ that began to develop among far-right elements at the beginning of the 1920s. Thus, he
despised Jews not so much for religious or cultural reasons but on biological and racial grounds. For Buch, whose
anti-Semitism was typically Nazi, the Jew had been Germany’s enemy throughout history... [H]e saw [the] ‘decay’
brought about by Jews] most clearly in the decline of the German family and of the Germanic concepts of ‘honor’ and ‘justice.’ Supposedly, the destructive characteristics of Jewish blood had been allowed to mix with pure Aryan blood
during the nineteenth century, and this fateful development had led to Germany’s collapse in World War I. The reason for this, Buch argued
[in Ehre und Recht, 1932], had been the liberal Enlightenment and the French Revolution, whose sole aim was ‘the emancipation of Judaism, The result was the defeat of a superior people (that is, the Germans), whose destiny in the world was unlike that of other peoples.” [In Niedergang und Aufstieg, he wrote:] “There is no race with an equal or even similar depth of soul to the German… The assertion that the French Revolution was contrived as a conspiracy by the Jewish enemy for the destruction of Germanic-Nordic blood can be proven with little difficulty today.” (McKale, The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler’s Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921-1945, p. 55)

In an article that appeared in the 21.10.1938 issue of Deutsche Justiz, Buch wrote:

“The Jew is not a human being. He is an appearance of putrescence. [Der Jude ist kein Mensch. Er ist eine Fäulniserscheinung] Just as the fission-fungus cannot permeate wood until it is rotting, so the Jew was able to creep into the German people, to bring on disaster only after the German nation... had begun to rot from within.”

And in the 02.01.1940 issue of Der Parteirichter. Amtliches Mitteilungsblatt des Obersten Parteigerichts der NSDAP (München), he wrote:

“… For what else did we struggle, take upon us want and deprivation, for what else did the courageous men of the SA and the SS, the boys of the Hitler Youth fall, if not for the possibility that one day the German people might start its struggle for liberation against its Jewish oppressors? In this struggle we are now involved…. Neither Jew nor freemason will finish the war with treaties that bear in them new mischief. Victory will be attained by Adolf Hitler and he will bring Europe the peace that forever takes away from the Jewish sub-man the opportunity to decompose men and peoples and play them off against each other.”

00.00.1922-00.09.1923 Ortsgruppenleiter of the “Ortsgruppe Karlsruhe der NSDAP”.
01.08.1923 Joined the SA.
01.08.1923-09.11.1923 “Bezirksführer der SA” for Franken and Führer of SA Sturmregiment 3 (Franken)(also known as SA-Regiment “Frankenland and SA-Kommando Franken; HQ: Nürnberg). The SA force over which he assumed command from Walter Steinbeck (dismissed in July 1923 due to conflicts with Julius Streicher). numbered some 275 men as of July 1923, a number that grew to about 800 by October. Buch was succeeded by Oberleutnant Freund.
08./09.11.1923 Played a peripheral role in the München Putsch. In the wake of the failed coup, he successfully eluded the police in Nürnberg and succeeded in transferring the files of the Nürnberg SA to Erlangen. Buch also called for a pogrom against the Jews, although there was no evidence that Jews had given any attention- positive or negative- to the Nazi bid for power in München. He issued the following order of the day for 11.11.1923:

“The first period of the National Revolution is over. It has brought the desired clearing [of the air]. Our highly revered leader, Adolf Hitler, has again bled for the German people. The most shameful treachery that the world has ever seen has victimized him and the German people. Through Hitler’s blood and the steel directed against our comrades in München by the hands of traitors the patriotic Kampfverbände are welded together for better or for worse. The second phase of the National Revolution begins [now]....” (Harold J. Gordon, Jr., Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch, pp. 432-433)

00.11.1923-00.04.1924 Employed as a wine and cigar salesman in München.
00.00.1924-01.01.1928 “Gau-SA-Führer Oberbayern-Schwaben“.
13.11.1923-00.01.1924 “Mit der Führung der illegalen SA beauftragt” (charged with leadership of the illegal SA), leading the SA during the ban imposed in the wake of the München-Putsch. Appointed by Alfred Rosenberg, Max Amann, and Anton Drexler who jointly led the Party following Hitler’s arrest. He succeeded Hermann Göring who had been severely wounded during the Putsch. During this period he and his adjutant, Emil Danzeisen, worked diligently to reorganize and camouflage the SA, setting up rifle clubs and choral societies as a cover for illegal SA activities.
00.02.1924 Arrested in München, charged with attempting to reestablish the NSDAP (released after submitting a statement to the Police).
00.02.1925-23.11.1927 SA-Führer in München.
15.06.1925 Officially reenrolled in the NSDAP.
ca. 1925-00.00.192_ Vorsitzender of the "Ehrengericht 'Deutsche Vaterländische Orden'" (Court of Honor of the German Patriotic Order).
27.11.1927-01.01.1928 Acting Vorsitzender of the “Untersuchungs- und Schlichtungsausschuss” (USCHLA, Investigation and Arbitration Committee) in the “Reichsleitung der NSDAP.” Succeeded Generalleutnant a. D. Bruno Heinemann who had retired due to differences with Hitler, and possibly also due to age and frequent illness-related absences from office. Buch worked closely with Hitler, whom he worshipped, on every significant matter dealt with by the Party courts.

“… [H]e did not always agree with Hitler on matters involving the Reichs-Uschla,” writes Donald M. McKale, “but he was willing to subordinate his own ideas to those of the Führer and to carry through the latter’s decisions at any cost… [T]he Führer apparently had an extraordinary talent for convincing Buch in private discussions. Yet at the same time, Buch recognized early a fateful trait in Hitler that was eventually to cost the world dearly[:] Hitler’s ‘contempt for humanity’ (Menschenveracthung)…” (Donald M. McKale, The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler’s Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921-1945, pp. 61-62)

On 01.10.1928, Buch wrote a remarkable letter to Hitler, the handwritten original- in pencil- of which is found in the Bundesarchiv (NS 26/Folder 1375, however it is uncertain if it was ever sent:

“I have recently acquired an impression about a number of things and feel it is my difficult duty to tell you, Herr Hitler, that you have a contempt for humanity that fills me with grave uneasiness. I do not believe, Herr Hitler, that a person who is filled with human contempt from recent experiences can continue to fulfill a task that has burdened a people’s fate for centuries…. It is quite clear to me that for some time you have believed yourself capable of building on the bitter disappointments of people and that during the past months you have received such a vote. I hope, however, these votes will be permanent.” (ibid, p. 62)

01.01.1928-01.01.1934 Vorsitzender of the USCHLA in the “Reichsleitung der NSDAP.”
01.01.1928-09.12.1933 Gau-SA-Führer of Oberbayern-Schwaben. Succeeded by Friedrich Karl Freiherr von
Eberstein.
20.05.1928-18.07.1930 Member of the Reichstag (Wahlkreis 24, Oberbayern-Schwaben).
00.00.1930 Involved in a conspiracy to murder Ernst Röhm and certain members of his staff (including Graf Spreti, Graf du Moulin-Eckart, and Georg Bell). The originator of this plan, Emil Traugott Danzeisen, a former SA-Standartenführer and Adjutant to Buch, was tried and sentenced to six month’s imprisonment. Charges were not brought against Buch and the other conspirators due to lack of evidence.
14.09.1930-14.10.1933 Member of the Reichstag.
11.06.1930-00.10.1931 Leiter of the Jugendamt (Youth Office) in the “Reichsleitung der NSDAP.”
00.00.193_-00.00.1933 Assigned as an editor of the Völkischer Beobachter.
17./18.10.1931 Participated in the "SA-Aufmarsch in Braunschweig".
01.06.1932-10.10.1935 Vorsitzender of the “I.Kammer der Reichs-USCHLA” (redesignated “I. Kammer des Obersten Parteigerichts der NSDAP, 01.01.1934). He resigned from this post and was succeeded by Johannes Schneider.
30.08.1932-12.09.1932 Member of the “2.Ausschuss (Auswärtige Angelegenheiten) der Reichstag” (2nd Committee [Foreign Affairs] of the Reichstag).
06.12.1932-01.02.1933 Member of the “2.Ausschuss (Auswärtige Angelegenheiten) der Reichstag”.
01.07.1933-01.10.1934 Joined the SS, assigned as Ehrenführer to 63.SS-Standarte.
12.12.1933-28.03.1936 Member of the Reichstag (Wahlkreis 15, Osthannover).
01.01.1934-08.05.1945 "Vorsitzender des Obersten Parteigerichts der NSDAP" (Chairman of the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP, also known as “Oberster Parteirichter [Chief Party Judge] der NSDAP"), München. Buch fervently believed that National Socialism should represent a revolution in morality as well as politics and power. He naively expected Adolf Hitler to be a champion of law and decency, spearheading a crusade against vice and corruption. “For Buch,” writes Dietrich Orlow, “morality consisted primarily of a series of negatives, chief among them anti-Semitism, antifreemasonry, and antipornography.” (History of the Nazi Party: 1933-1945, p. 67) But Buch was given little power or direction by his Führer in overseeing the preservation of moral rectitude among the Party membership, and it did not help that neither Buch nor his judges were trained in law. “Moreover,” continues Orlow, “Buch had little control over disputes within the PO [politische Organisation of the NSDAP]. In quarrels between Reichsleiters and Gauleiters, for example, his role was restricted to that of a mediator…” (ibid) Under interrogation at Nürnberg by Lt. Col. Thomas S. Hinkel, Buch made the following statements concerning his role in this assignment:

[05.09.1945]: “I was charged with the administration of all party courts in the different states and I was in charge of higher court methods in cases of higher party members. In other words, when higher party members stood before the court, I took charge of the court procedure. The higher court I divided in different departments, and they have independently without my influence handled the different cases…. I myself was only a judge in the case of higher party officials…”
[31.10.1945]: “… I would like to ask you to consider the position of a man who for seventeen years was forced to do against his will, a job which he didn’t like. I kept asking that I be relieved of my functions, and be permitted to return to my original profession as a regular army officer. This was particularly true during the war when my boys were out in the field, and my mind was not on my job as much as it was on the military situation. This is why the things that I may have done, which had to be done in the execution of my functions, are not as clear in my memory as they would have been if I had taken more interest in my job, which I had to do against my own will.”


Another interrogation report, dated 18.07.1945, states:

“Buch tried to organize the party courts along the lines of the Ehrengerichte of the old German Army. He was a member of the Army himself, and a passionate soldier. His father who was a judge of the Supreme Court (Oberlandesgericht) in Baden, had warned the boy to stay away from the study of law. Buch had followed this advice, and apparently kept a deep-rooted distrust of all legal procedures. Just the same, he was always fascinated by the problem of justice. He found the highest expression of justice in the army, and consciously organized his party justice so as to be similar to that of the army. Even the punishments of the party courts were the same as the punishments in the military court of honor, viz. Verweis, Verwarnung (after 1933 Verwarnung with Aberkennung der Fähigkeit, ins Amt zu bekleiden) (reprimand with the prohibition of holding an office), Entlassung [discharge], Ausschluss [dismissal], and Ausstosung [expulsion]. The latter punishment involved the prohibition for any party offices or organizations to employ the culprit in [the] future. He became an outcast of the party. Private firms or private parties, however, were not bound by this prohibition. The Ausstossung… was generally pronounced only when a criminal act had been committed, and was followed, as a rule, by a trial before a regular civilian court.
It was, however, not the only task of the party courts to take disciplinary action against party members who had sinned against the spirit of the party. A vast sector of the party judiciary was concerned with arbitration between party members. In all cases, the party courts were entitled to conduct investigations. In no case could the party courts pronounce a sentence which had effect outside the party proper; it could not impose punishments other than disciplinary actions which only affected the defendant within the party.
If a case involved any criminal acts, the party court would notify the regular courts, and even furnish the material of its findings. Regularly, according to Buch, an action of the party courts would precede a trial before the regular courts… A pronouncement of the party court did not bind the regular courts, e.g. if a man was expelled from the party because he had embezzled party funds, a regular court was not compelled to sentence this man; he might have refunded the embezzled money, or might be acquitted before the regular court for other reasons. By the same token, a man who was acquitted by a party court might yet be prosecuted before a regular court. However, Buch is not sure whether it happened in practice that cases that were dismissed by the party courts were prosecuted further by regular courts.
The jurisdiction of the party courts was not based upon any codified law. Hitler ordered Buch in 1933 to draft a codified criminal law for offenses of party members which would be prosecuted by party justice. For that purpose Buch was to get in contact with the Reichsjustizminister Gürtner. Buch stalled all during 1933, because he was opposed to the use of codified laws; finally, in December 1933 he found his way to Gürtner, with whom he had a long conversation. The result of this conversation was that both men agreed that such a law would be against the spirit of the institution of party courts. Buch reported this agreement to Hitler who let himself be convinced…
… Buch tried to avoid choosing professional lawyers as party judges. He tried to fill these positions with old members of the party who had partaken in the fight of the party for power, because he trusted these men to maintain the spirit of the party. Most of the judges worked on a honorary basis, only those of the Supreme Court and the Gaugerichte were full time judges and paid as such. They numbered, all in all, about 100 men.
When the war broke out, Buch insisted that his judges become soldiers for a limited time. He wanted them to experience the life of a front-line soldier, so as to be better fitted for their job when they returned from the war. 150 full time judges were killed in the war, which lead to a degeneration of the party court system. More professional lawyers infiltrated into the courts, and the best judges were absent or dead. At the same time, the expulsions pronounced by party courts took a sharp increase (proportionally), because the better elements of the party were at the front, and the new party members who were accepted into the party, largely under pressure from the party treasurer, were no longer carefully selected to represent the elite of the nation…
… The Oberste Parteigericht needed the confirmation of Hitler himself to make its decisions effective. Since 1941, the Chief of the Parteikanzlei, Bormann, achieved the power of confirming the decisions of the Supreme Party Court. He became, by Hitler’s delegation, the party’s Supreme Justice (Oberster Gerichtsherr). As such, he not only was able to nullify sentences pronounced by the Supreme Court, but also inform the court that a certain decision was expected in an individual case. Buch tried to main his independence of decision, but since he was in practice unable to judge according to his personal convictions, he refused to preside in court sessions, and more or less retired from his position. This interference of Bormann, however, only applied when the court was sitting in first instance, e.g. proceedings against Gauleiter, but not in cases where the Supreme Court was judging an appeal from a lower court…”
(Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München, Akte 4637/71)

The Supreme Party Judge was viewed with contempt by Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels, who ridiculed him as follows in his diary:

23.05.1943: “With [Max] Amann and [Gauleiter Adolf] Wagner I discussed the sorry policy of our Reich Investigation and Arbitration Committee. Buch has too little brains and is in no way equal to his tasks. But the more foolish a man is, the more insolent he becomes. That is the case here too. He seriously defends the view that he is a judge even of the Führer. One simply cannot think of a more childish conception. Buch is nothing but a laughing stock among the circles of old Party members; he is a male governess.”

A more positive assessment was written by former Hamburg Gauleiter Dr. Albert Krebs:

"I had frequent dealings with Buch and in the process always found him to be an honorable man of the best intentions. Without a doubt he had the goodwill to operate his office in such a way as to keep out or remove all corrupt elements. But it is equally without doubt that he did not succeed in doing so. His concept of what constituted behavior injurious to the party differed from Hitler's so frequently that it was impossible for Buch to effectuate it. As a dry, somewhat pedantic man in his ideas and needs, Buch possessed neither the wit nor the charm that was needed to resist or even convince Hitler. That is, Buch presented opinions and proposals but then simply obeyed when Hitler held contrary opinions and ordered decisions in accordance with them.... On [one] occasion... Buch openly admitted to me his attitude and his method, saying it was caused by his military training in obedience. 'You just click your heels together and say 'yes, sir!'" (Dr. Krebs, The Infancy of Nazism)

Buch’s relevance in the NSDAP disappeared as a result of a crusade against immorality within the Party that backfired. Dietrich Orlow writes:

“In the course of the year [1935], [Buch] discovered the importance of the family. In a series of articles [in his official publication “Parteirichter”; issues of 10.04.1935; 10.06.1935; 10.08.1935; 10.10.1935; 10.01.1936; and 10.06.1936] he proclaimed the stability of the family and matrimonial faithfulness to be the cornerstones of Nazism. As always, Buch was in dead earnest, and even tried [in letters on 13.12.1935 and 06.01.1936] to enlist Himmler’s aid in his campaign. All might have been well if Buch had not included two practical consequences in his program of ‘moral cleanliness’ in the NSDAP: he specifically demanded that the moral offenses of party leaders be treated with the same severity as those of lesser comrades, and he planned to transfer that part of the Hoheitsträgers’ disciplinary supervision (Dienstaufsicht) dealing with the moral conduct of the PLs to the party courts…” (Orlow, History of the Nazi Party: 1933-1945, pp. 166-167)

In a Party where marital infidelity- at all levels of the chain of command- was rather common, this won Buch no friends (notable examples of those who would theoretically be affected by Buch’s morality campaign were the powerful Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels, as well as two philandering Gauleiter (Wilhelm Kube [see entry for late-1935, below] and Julius Streicher). Hitler himself disapproved of Buch’s statements and writings, as it was loyalty to Führer and Party that concerned him- not the amorous adventures of his otherwise stalwart satraps. It was likely only after being called to meet with an angry Hitler on 14.11.1935 that Buch learned that he was acting against the will of his Führer. His significance as a Party leader all but disappeared following that meeting.
01.01.1934-10.10.1935 “Vorsitzender der I. Kammer des Obersten Parteigerichts der NSDAP” (Chariman of the 1st Chamber of the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP).
00.06.1934-00.07.1934 Played an important role in the purge of the SA leadership. He had amassed a large quantity of incriminating material against the SA from Gauleiters and other NSDAP officials, and collected hundreds of complaints from SA men and parents of Hitler Youth members. He also had in his possession ‘love letters’ to male friends sent by Röhm to Bolivia. He demonstrated great zeal and brutality during the purge of 30.06./ 01.07.1934; unconfirmed accounts indicate that he was personally involved in the murder of SA leaders, directing SS executioners at Stadelheim Prison near München. The following is excerpted from a report of Buch’s postwar interrogation:

“The Purge of 1934
Sometime in 1933, PW Walter Buch received numerous letters and official complaints about the homosexual activities of the Leader of the SA, Röhm. Because Buch was the Party Judge, it was only right that he should be the one to whom such complaints from the mothers, wives, etc. of Röhm’s subordinates, would be addressed.
Buch immediately sought audience with Hitler and informed him of the complaints, also showing the written proof. But Hitler, who was always frantically loyal to his friends, refused to listen to Buch’s advice and did not believe the charges brought against Röhm…
On the 30th of Jun 1934, Buch was working in his office in Munich when Hess called on him and told him that Röhm had been arrested. Together with Hess, Buch went to a gathering Party leaders whom Hitler addressed at that time. In his speech, Hitler told the assembly that Röhm was guilty of conspiracy, and that he had ordered his arrest. He then went on to say that Buch had warned him about Röhm a year before, but that he, (Hitler) had not listened to Buch’s advice. (PW says that since this day, Hitler and he were estranged, because Hitler bore a grudge against him for making him admit his mistake).
Although the case of Röhm should have come before the Supreme Party Judge, this was not done, and the entire Purge was handled by the SS in a very secretive fashion. Buch was told several days later that Röhm had been killed.”
(“Special Report on Walte Buch, Reichsleiter and Oberster Parteirichter” [13.06.1945], Special Detention Center “Ashcan”-Detailed Interrogation Report, in “Interrogation Records Prepared for War Crimes Proceedings at Nuernberg, 1945-1947/OCCPAC Interrogation Transcripts And Related Records: Buch, Walter Hans”; Publication Number M1270, Record Group RG238)

01.10.1934-01.04.1936 Assigned as an SS-Führer z.b.V. to the Reichsführer-SS.
00.09.1934-30.04.1945 Member of the “Sachverständigenbeirat für Bevölkerungs- und Rassenpolitik” (Council of Experts for Population and Racial Policy) attached to the Reichsministerium des Innern.
03.10.1934-00.00.1944 Member of the “Akademie für Deutsches Recht”, München.
Late-1935 Buch’s family became the object of a smear campaign carried out by Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube. Kube had begun an illicit affair with Anita Lindenkohl, his secretary and future second wife. After impregnating Fräulein Lindenkohl, Kube instituted divorce proceedings against his wife (persuading his grown son to testify against his own mother). Buch expressed outrage against Kube’s moral decadence. The following is excerpted from a letter by Buch to Kube dated 10.12.1935 (copies were also sent to various Party leaders, including Heinrich Himmler who took no action on the matter discussed):

“[…] In addition to this I declare:
Whoever adopts the position that adultery- and this includes all extramarital sexual intercourse with a married person- is something that can be reconciled with the Nazi Party’s morality and ideological views,
Whoever seeks the protection of the Führer for his adulterous relationship and proudly boasts about the child that has resulted from this adulterous affair,
Whoever is aware that his subordinates have engaged in adulterous affairs with women who are their employees and thus financially dependent upon them, and whoever approves of and thus fosters such relationships,
And finally, whoever after a marriage of twenty-two years, permits his adult son, who is also financially dependent on him, to testify in a public divorce trial against his own wife and that son’s mother,
That person has adopted a stand toward women that has nothing in common with the National Socialist views of the subject. As supreme Party judge, I must therefore deny him the right to speak on these matters.
Heil Hitler!”
(Tom Lampert, One Life, pp. 47-48)

Buch’s OPG- relying primarily on the accusations leveled against Kube by his most vehement critic, deputy Kreisleiter Paul Schafer- issued a stern warning to the Gauleiter. Schäfer summarized the Gau- as it functioned under Kube- as “Saustall [pigsty] Kurmark”. He was accused of exercising a “monarchistic” leadership style and of using favoritism and nepotism in filling Party offices; a number of these individuals were themselves brought up on charges by Party courts. However, despite the rampant corruption in the leadership of Gau Kurmark, as well as illicit sexual escapades, Adolf Hitler himself gave moral support to Kube as the Gauleiter had been a highly successor campaigner and extremely diligent functionary for the Party. Tom Lampert continues: “In a private conversation [, the Führer stated]: ‘Kube, I will not demand that you leave the woman [Fräulein Lindenkohl] you love.’” (ibid) Even this endorsement did not satisfy Kube’s anger at Buch’s attacks, however. Incensed at Buch’s meddling, Kube swore revenge. In an act of stupid fury, he distributed the following letter:

“Berlin, 26. April 1936
Dear Major Buch!
You are the supreme judge of a political party that fights and defames every honest Jew. As our relative, you shouldn’t do this. Did you know that your wife has Jewish blood? Did you know that your wife’s family (Belernesti, see her family tree!) still lived in the ghetto in Frankfurt am Main from 1820 to 1825? Did you know that you have fathered children who have o u r [Jewish] blood? Your son-in-law- who, like you, is a Reichsleiter of the National Socialists-knows that his wife and mother-in-law are not of pure Aryan descent. The Reichssippenamt [Reich Office for Genealogical Research] knows this as well! You are the only one who doesn’t know? You have condemned hundreds of people because they happened to share the same tragic fate as your wife, when you, too, are incriminated. What consequences do you draw from this, wise and impartial judge? We are pleased to be able to count on you as one of us.
Several Berlin Jews”
(ibid, pp. 49-50)

05.02.1936 At a press conference in München on 05.02.1936, declared:

“Right is what benefits the German people, and wrong is what would be harmful. To establish the limits between right and wrong is the task of the highest party court of justice.” (Rolf Tell, Sound and Fuehrer, p. 128)

01.04.1936-30.04.1945 Assigned to the Stab Reichsführer-SS.
30.01.1937-08.05.1945 Member of the Reichstag (Wahlkreis 29, Leipzig).
00.00.193_-00.00.19__ Member of the Committee for the “Braune Band von Deutschland” (an organization set up to maintain the quality of horses for sporting activities and to control the quality of such stock for mounted units of the SS and other Party organizations).
13.02.1939 Submitted the following secret report on his investigation into the “Reichskristallnacht” pogrom to Hermann Göring:

“Dear Party Comrade Göring!
I enclose the report of my special senate about the procedure hitherto concluded concerning the excesses on the occasion of the anti-Jewish operations of 9. and 10. November 1938. Heil Hitler !
[signed] Walter Buch…
Report about the events and judicial proceedings in connection with the antisemitic demonstrations of 9. November 1938.
On the evening of 9. November 1938, Reich Propaganda Minister Party Comrade Dr. Goebbels told the Party leaders assembled at a social evening in the old town hall in München, that in the Gaue of Kurhessen and Magdeburg-Anhalt it had come to demonstrations against Jews, during which Jewish shops were demolished and synagogues were set on fire. The Führer, at Goebbels' suggestion, had decided that such demonstrations were not to be prepared or organized by the Party, but so far as they originated spontaneously, they were not to be discouraged either. In other respects, Party Comrade Dr. Goebbels carried out the purport of what was prescribed in the teletype of the Reich Propaganda Administration of 10. November 1938 (12:30 to 1 o'clock) (Enclosure 2). It was probably understood by all Party leaders present, from the oral instructions of the Reich Propaganda Minister, that the Party should not appear outwardly as the originator of the demonstrations but in reality should organize and execute them. Instructions in this sense were telephoned immediately (thus a considerable time before transmission of the first teletype) to the bureaus of their Gaue by a large part of the Party members present…. At the end of November 1938, the Oberstes Parteigericht, through reports from several Gau courts, heard that these demonstrations of 9. November 1938 had to a considerable extent gone as far as plundering and killing of Jews and that they had already been the object of investigation by the police and the state prosecutor. The deputy Führer [Rudolf Hess] agreed with the interpretation of the chief Party Court, that known transgressions in any case should be investigated under the jurisdiction of the party. Because of the obvious connection between the events to be judged and the instructions which Reich Propaganda Minister Party Comrade Dr. Goebbels gave in the town hall at the social evening. Without investigation and evaluation of this connection, a just judgment did not appear possible. This investigation, however, could not be left to innumerable state courts, especially as the demonstrations had meanwhile been presented to the public as the spontaneous expression of the people's sentiments. According to the conception of the Oberstes Parteigericht it must, as a matter of principle, be impossible for political offences to be determined and judged by the state court without the Party having the possibility of first obtaining clarification about the happenings, so that, if occasion arises, the Führer could be asked in good time to cancel the proceedings at the state court. This concerns matters, which primarily concern the interests of the Party and which even though this be only from the viewpoint of the perpetrator, are desired by the Party. Due to such considerations, Generalfeldmarschall Party Comrade Göring… has entrusted the Secret State Police and the Party jurisdiction with the investigation of excesses. The Oberstes Parteigericht has reserved for itself the investigation of killings, severe mistreatment and moral transgressions. On the basis of state police inquiries, the judges of the Oberstes Parteigericht, who were present with their alternates held quick trials of those cases about which facts were ascertained up to 17. January 1939. Gau leaders and Group leaders of the branches served as jurors at the trials and decisions. The decisions, which, for reasons to be discussed later, contain only portions of the statements of the facts, are attached. Party Member Frey, Heinrich, Party Member since 1932, residing in Rheinhausen, Horst Wessel Street 23, was ejected from the Party because of a moral crime and race violation perpetrated upon the thirteen-year old-school girl Ruth Kalter. Frey is in custody and has been handed over to the criminal court (Enclosure 5). Party Member Gerstner, Gustav, Party membership number 3,135,242, SA-Oberscharführer, residing at Niederwern, at present district court prison Würzburg, was expelled from the NSDAP and SA because of theft. Gerstner is in custody and has been handed over to the public court because suspected of race violation. (Enclosure 6)…. 4. Party Member Norgall, Franz, Party membership number 342,751, SA-Sturmführer , residing at 58 Neuhoefer street, Heilsberg (East Prussia), was given a warning and sentenced to three years deprivation of the right to hold public office because of disciplinary violation, namely the killing of the Jewish couple Seelig in Heilsberg contrary to orders. (Enclosure 8)… 16. Proceedings against Party Members Aichinger, Hans, SS-Hauptsturmführer, residing at 9 Seilergasse, Innsbruck, and Hofgartner, Walter, SS-Untersturmführer residing at 21 Gavelsberger Street, Innsbruck, for killing the Jews Graubart, Dr. Bauer, and Berger, have already been quashed on the basis of inquiries on the part of the State Police and individual interrogations of the Oberstes Parteigericht (Enclosure 20). With regard to cases 3-16 the Oberstes Parteigericht asks the Führer to quash the proceedings in the State Criminal Courts. The Reich Minister of Justice has been informed of this petition and the decisions on which it was based handed down by the Oberstes Parteigericht. Cases 4-16 are killings committed by order, committed on the basis of a vague or presumed order, committed without orders but motivated by hatred against Jews or in the opinion that vengeance ought to be taken for the death of Party Comrade [Ernst] vom Rath upon the wish of the leaders, or killings motivated by a resolution suddenly formed in the excitement of the situation. The professed object of the entire action was the innermost reason, as well as the thought that reprisals had to be made in some form or other, on behalf of Party Comrade vom Rath. If a clearly defined order is at hand... the request to quash the proceedings against the immediate perpetrator needs no further argument. The order must shift the responsibility from the person who acted to the person who gave the order. Furthermore, the men often had to fight down strongest inner restraints in order to carry out the order. As was repeatedly expressed by the culprits, it is not our SA and SS men's affair to force their way into bedrooms by night, dressed in civilian clothes in order personally to do away with a despised political foe by his wife's side or together with his wife. Investigation into the circumstances under which the orders were given has shown that in all these cases a misunderstanding arose in some link or other of the chain of command, especially due to the fact that it was a matter of course to the National Socialist who was active in the days of the Party struggle that in drives in which the Party does not wish to appear as the organizer, orders are not given with final clarity and with full details. He is therefore used to deducing more from what he reads in such an order than is said literally, just as it had frequently become the practice on the part of the person issuing the order in the interest of the Party to refrain from saying anything to hint what he meant to achieve with the specific order especially when it concerned illegal political demonstrations. Therefore Party Comrade Dr. Goebbels' instruction that the Party was not to organize this demonstration was most likely interpreted by each Party leader present in the town-hall to mean that the Party should not appear as the organizer. Party Comrade Dr. Goebbels probably meant it in that way for politically interested and active circles, who might participate in such demonstrations are members of the Party and its branches. Naturally, they could be mobilised only through offices of the Party and its branches. Thus, a series of subordinate leaders understood some unfortunately phrased orders which reached them orally or by phone to mean that Jewish blood would now have to flow for the blood of Party Comrade vom Rath, that at any rate the leadership did not attach importance to the life of a Jew, for example, not the Jew Gruenspan but all Jewry was guilty of the death of Party Comrade vom Rath. The German people were therefore taking revenge on all Jewry, the synagogues were burning in the entire Reich, Jewish residences and businesses were to be laid waste, life and property of Aryans had to be protected, foreign Jews were not to be harassed. The drive was being carried out by order of the Führer; the police were withdrawn; pistols were to be brought, and at the least resistance, the weapon was to be used without consideration, as each SA man would certainly know what he had to do etc…
It is another question, whether an intentionally ambiguous order, given with the expectation that the order's recipient would recognise the intention and would act accordingly, is not an example of the discipline of the past. In times of struggle, such an order may, in individual cases, be necessary, in order to achieve political success without giving the government any possibility of discovering the origin of the Party. This viewpoint is now obsolete. The public, down to the last man, realizes that political drives like those of 9. November were organized and directed by the Party, whether this is admitted or not…”
(International Military Tribunal, Nurnberg, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. V)

02.01.1940 Excerpt from Buch’s New Year’s message, published in Der Parteirichter:

“… For what else did we struggle, take upon us want and deprivation, for what else did the courageous men of the SA and the SS, the boys of the Hitler Youth fall, if not for the possibility that one day the German people might start its struggle for liberation against its Jewish oppressors? In this struggle we are now involved… Neither Jew nor freemason will finish the war with treaties that bear in them new mischief. Victory will be attained by Adolf Hitler and he will bring Europe the peace that forever takes away from the Jewish sub-man the opportunity to decompose men and peoples and play them off against each other.” (Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes against the Jewish People, p. 89)

00.07.1944 Together with several other Party judges, visited Reichsgau Sudetenland. During a banquet arranged in his honor by Gauleiter Henlein, Buch collapsed from a sudden attack of pleurisy, and was bedridden for some time thereafter.
Postwar Prosecution:
Arrested by U.S. Army troops in München, 30.04.1945. From May through 12.08.1945, he was interned at POW Camp No. 32 (also known as “Ashcan”, the Allied special interrogation and internment facility for senior Nazi leaders at the Palace Hotel in Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg.), where he was interrogated numerous times concerning his activities during the Third Reich and on the subject of his missing (in later years, confirmed dead) son-in-law, Martin Bormann, who was being tried in absentia by the Internal Military Tribunal, Nürnberg. He was then transferred to Nürnberg, where he was held for a time before being transferred to an unknown facility. On 01.01.1947, he was returned to Nürnberg and underwent further interrogation. At his first de-Nazification trial, before the Lagerspruchkammer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on 03.07.1948, he was classified as a “Hauptschuldiger” (Major Offender, i.e.- placed in de-Nazification Kategorie I) and sentenced to five years’ hard labor, as well as confiscation of his assets up to 2000 DM. On 16.02.1949, he had an appeals hearing before the Weilheim Senate of the Oberbayern Spruchkammer, and was granted a second de-Nazification hearing. In this second hearing, held in München on 29.07.1949, he was again classified as a “Hauptschuldiger” but re-sentenced to 3½ years in a labor camp. Deemed to have served more than this amount of time in postwar internment, Buch was released from custody the same day.

Published Works:
Nationalsozialismus: Volk und Familie (1932)
Niedergang und Aufstieg der Deutscher Familie (1932)
Fünfzig Jahre antisemitische Bewegung (1937)
Des nationalsozialistischen Menschen Ehre und Ehrenschutz (1939). The following description of this book is excerpted from the report of a 1945 interrogation of Buch:

“[Buch wrote it] in order to define the position of the party members, and to establish a code of honor for the party... Hitler was very satisfied with the book, and ordered Buch to come to some agreement with the army to settle arguments between Army members and members of the party..." (Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München, Akte 4637/71)

Decorations & Awards:
00.00.191_ 1914 Eisernes Kreuz I. Klasse
00.00.191_ 1914 Eisernes Kreuz II. Klasse
00.00.194_ Kriegsverdienstkreuz I. Klasse ohne Schwerter
00.00.194_ Kriegsverdienstkreuz II. Klasse ohne Schwerter
ca. 1934 Ehrenkreuz des Weltkrieges 1914-1918 mit Schwertern
00.00.1934 Goldenes Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP
06.07.1936 Blutorden der NSDAP (Nr. 1 496)
00.00.1932 Coburger-Abzeichen 1922
00.00.19__ Goldenes Hitler-Jugend Ehrenzeichen mit Eichenlaub
00.00.194_ Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP in Gold
00.00.194_ Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP in Silber
00.00.194_ Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP in Bronze
00.00.1929 Nürnberger Parteitagsabzeichen 1929
ca. 1931 Abzeichen des SA-Treffens Braunschweig 1931
00.00.1936 Deutsche Olympia-Ehrenzeichen I. Klasse
[01.12.1937] Ehrendegen des Reichsführers-SS
25.12.1934 Totenkopfring der SS
00.00.193_ SS-Zivilabzeichen
00.02.1934 Ehrenwinkel für alte Kämpfer (SS)

Notes:
* Son of Dr. jur. h. c. Hermann Buch (died 00.07.1921), who served as Senate President of the Baden Oberlandesgericht (Provincial Supreme Court).
* Religion: Protestant.
* Married on 23.09.1908 to Else Pleusser (born 11.05.1887 in Barmen, died 29.10.1944 of a heart attack; NSDAP-Nr. 7 732, recipient of the Goldenes Parteiabzeichen; NS-Frauenschaft-Nr. 5 721; F.M.-Nr. 310 542). Two sons (____, born 11.01.1912 and Hermann, born 16.02.1920 in Gernsbach; SS-Nr. 357 263- Rose to SS-Hauptsturmführer and IIa [Divisional Adjutant] of 2. SS-Panzer-Division “Das Reich”) and two daughters (Gerda, born 23.10.1909, died of cancer in the Merano civil hospital, 23.04.1946; and ____, born 10.03.1913). Jochen von Lang writes:
“[Buch’s] wife and childen always came second to Fatherland and Party. In fact, his daughter Gerda complained later that after 1914 she never saw much of her father. ‘All the same,’ she wrote to Martin Bormann, ‘it was through him that we got to know each other, and everything was then right and proper.’” …
Gerda Buch was tall and slender, five feet eleven, with perfect racial German looks, and a mess of patriotic clichés about the Fatherland tucked under her coronet braid.
She was a kindergarten teacher and always felt at her best and most confident in the midst of a flock of children…
… Hitler had been a frequent visitor in his house even before the putsch [of 09.11.1923], and as a
schoolgirl Gerda had listened, enthralled, to his monologues. Shortly before the engagement [to Martin Bormann] she formally joined the Party (membership number 120,112), and to please her and her father, Hitler attended the wedding as a demonstration of his regard…”
(Von Lang, The Secretary. Martin Bormann: The Man Who Manipulated Hitler, p. 47)
* After the war, Buch married a woman, the widow of a dentist, who had visited him during his time in an internment camp.
* Father-in-law of Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, who married his daughter Gerda on 02.09.1929. The two Reichsleiter detested one another. Jochen von Lang writes:

“… The two men were too different in character to be able to stand each other. The former major, as his friend Darré said under interrogation, ‘with his dignified, relaxed style simply did not belong in the Party circle.’ He was also far from the unconditionally devoted Party officer Hitler would have liked him to be; he was not ready at all times to tailor his judicial opinions on command. He was often so stubborn that the top Party coterie wondered why ‘the old fool’ had not been thrown out of office. But he served as a useful bit of window dressing to give a false impression of probity… He had invited Buch to be one of his adjutants in 1933 because he wanted a man of integrity for his front office; at the same time, Buch was an officer with a will of his own, and Hitler wanted him where he could be kept on a tight rein. Buch, however, declined the appointment.” (ibid, p. 121)

Under interrogation at Nürnberg by Lt. Col. Thomas S. Hinkel, on 31.10.1945, Buch stated:

“… I didn’t get along with him, and when the Fuehrer put Bormann in charge of jurisprudence in the Party [Autumn 1943], my job was practically finished…. The result of it was that the Party Chancellery actually acquired the power to decide on our judgments. In other words, the Party Chancellery would decide that a person should be expelled from the Party, for instance, and then it was up to the Party court to sanction this decision which had been taken beforehand. The procedure, in other words, had been reversed, and, of course, I opposed this change, but could not do anything about it, because the Fuehrer had stopped listening to me many years ago.” (“Special Report on Walter Buch, Reichsleiter and Oberster Parteirichter”, Special Detention Center “Ashcan”-Detailed Interrogation Report, in “Interrogation Records Prepared for War Crimes Proceedings at Nuernberg, 1945-1947/OCCPAC Interrogation Transcripts And Related Records: Buch, Walter Hans”; Publication Number M1270, Record Group RG238)

Sources:
Goebbels, Dr. phil. Paul Joseph:
The Goebbels Diaries 1942-1943 (edited by Louis P. Lochner). Doubleday, 1948.
Gordon, Harold J. Jr.:
Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch. Princeton University Press, 1972.
Hamilton, Charles:
Leaders and Personalities of the Third Reich, Volume I. R. James Bender Publishing, 1984.
Höffkes, Karl:
Hitlers politische Generale: Die Gauleiter des Dritten Reiches. Grabert-Verlag-Tübingen, 1986.
Kienast, Ministerialdirigent Ernst (Editor):
Der Grossdeutsche Reichstag, IV.Wahlperiode, Beginn am 10.04.1938 verlängert bis zum 30. Januar 1947. Berlin, November 1943.
Krebs, Dr. phil. Albert:
The Infancy of Nazism: The Memoirs of Ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs, 1923-1933. New Viewpoints, 1976.
Lang, Jochen von:
The Secretary. Martin Bormann: The Man Who Manipulated Hitler. Random House, 1979.
Lilla, Joachim; Döring, Martin; & Schulz Andreas:
Statisten in Uniform. Die Mitglieder des Reichstags 1933-1945. Droste Verlag, 2004.
McKale, Donald M.:
The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler’s Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921-1945. The University Press of Kansas, 1974.
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland:
SS-Personalakte of Walter Buch. Microfilm document collection A3343SS
Nix, Phil:
Biographical Notes from the archives of Mr. Nix, Birmingham, England.
Orlow, Dietrich:
History of the Nazi Party: 1933-1945. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973.
Reiche, Erich G.:
The Development of the SA in Nuremberg, 1922-1934. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Schirach, Baldur von:
Pioniere des Dritten Reiches. Zentralstelle fur der deutschen Freiheitskampf, 1933.
Schulz, Andreas:
Biographical Notes from the archives of Herrn Schulz, Berlin, Deutschland.
SS-Personalkanzlei and SS-Personalhauptamt:
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 1. Oktober 1934
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 1. Juli 1935
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 1. Dezember 1936
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 1. Dezember 1937
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 1. Dezember 1938
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 30. Januar 1942
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 20. April 1942
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP, Stand vom 9. November 1944

Stockhorst, Erich:
5000 Köpfe: Wer war was im 3. Reich (3rd Edition). Arndt-Verlag, 1998
Tell, Rolf:
Sound and Fuehrer. Hurst & Blackett Ltd., 1939.
Weinreich, Max:
Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes against the Jewish People. Yale University Press, 1999.
Attachments
hoff-31632.jpg
Heinrich Hoffmann photo, from NARA


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Helly Angel
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Re: Walter Buch

#18

Post by Helly Angel » 27 Oct 2012, 20:36

Michael, THANKS.. GRACIAS I feel I love you a lot! hehehe

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Michael Miller
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Re: Walter Buch

#19

Post by Michael Miller » 27 Oct 2012, 20:37

Right back at you, Helly-old-amigo!
It's my pleasure.

~ Mike

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Requin Marteau
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Re: Walter Buch

#20

Post by Requin Marteau » 28 Oct 2012, 11:15

Bonjour,

My Buch's bio (in french).
Crdl
Thierry
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J. Duncan
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Re: Walter Buch

#21

Post by J. Duncan » 28 Oct 2012, 11:37

Noticed a book in Mike's sources: Rolf Tell's "Sound and Fuehrer". A book which has collected writings and speeches by various Nazi figures in order to lampoon them. Another book of this type is "Lunacy Becomes Us" by Clara Leiser (both published in 1939). I have the Leiser book but not the Tell book. These books were of a propaganda nature designed to show how "crazy" the Nazis were in their ideas but they do offer the reader invaluable primary source material. I assume there must have been some speeches or writings by Buch in Tell's book which Mike found useful for his study? I have not seen this particular book so it piqued my interest.

Mike, did you like this book or find much on Buch in it? Thanks for posting the biographical information.

trespasser07
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Re: Walter Buch

#22

Post by trespasser07 » 06 Nov 2012, 17:30

Absolutely comprehensive and magnificent as ever Mike :)

Thanks!
"We believe in what we do!" - written in Friedrich Rainer's Guestbook by Odilo Globocnik in April 1943.

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Michael Miller
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Re: Walter Buch

#23

Post by Michael Miller » 06 Nov 2012, 18:57

Thank YOU!

~ Mike

Oh, and to finally answer your question, J. Duncan~ It's a very interesting and entertaining book filled by quotations from all manner of Third Reich personalities. Excerpts Rolf were once available via Google Books, but no longer. However, a paperbound reprint appears to be available for $7.45 at http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Fuehrer-Rol ... nd+fuehrer

~ Mike

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Re: Walter Buch

#24

Post by J. Duncan » 06 Nov 2012, 23:43

Thanks Mike...I'll probably get a copy. The Leiser book is also very good. Quite humorous. There is also a third book of quotes, a very good book titled "Thus Spake Germany", but this book is not so much lampooning but serious and also has many WWI German personalities. :)

billy2961
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Re: Walter Buch

#25

Post by billy2961 » 21 Dec 2012, 16:24

This is Walter Buch's photo and his dark blue collar patches
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Dieter Zinke
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Re: Walter Buch

#26

Post by Dieter Zinke » 21 Dec 2012, 16:52

billy2961 wrote:This is Walter Buch's photo and his dark blue collar patches
Please see the statement of Mark Costa at
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 7#p1731097

Dieter Z.

Mark Costa
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Re: Walter Buch

#27

Post by Mark Costa » 21 Dec 2012, 17:11

Billy2961:

The photo of Buch above shows him wearing the standard CARMINE tabs with gold piping. Buch did NOT wear 1939 BLUE or BLACK tabs in this style. The only known BLACK Reichsleiter 1939 tabs to exist were worn by Retired Reichsleiter Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm started wearing the black tabs in 1940 after he retired and joined the Army. A single black tab still exists in a private collection after having been removed from a Grimm uniform by a US Soldier at the end of the war. It can be seen in the outstanding book on "NSDAP Uniforms" by AHF contributor Jeff Clark.

Mark Costa

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Re: Walter Buch

#28

Post by deutsche » 21 Dec 2012, 17:12

billy2961 wrote:This is Walter Buch's photo and his dark blue collar patches
Look at his Gesicht, not pleased. Although Martin Bormann is his son in law, but their relationship is nervous.

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Re: Walter Buch

#29

Post by deutsche » 21 Dec 2012, 17:21

Mark Costa wrote:Billy2961:

The photo of Buch above shows him wearing the standard CARMINE tabs with gold piping. Buch did NOT wear 1939 BLUE or BLACK tabs in this style. The only known BLACK Reichsleiter 1939 tabs to exist were worn by Retired Reichsleiter Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm started wearing the black tabs in 1940 after he retired and joined the Army. A single black tab still exists in a private collection after having been removed from a Grimm uniform by a US Soldier at the end of the war. It can be seen in the outstanding book on "NSDAP Uniforms" by AHF contributor Jeff Clark.

Mark Costa
Yes, i remember your picture of 9. Nov. putsch (1938). I had studied them again several days ago. In those pictures, Buch' Reichsleiter collar tab is blue or black, we can see it very clearly, but, Grimm's collar tab is not, maybe the light caused it.

Mark Costa
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Re: Walter Buch

#30

Post by Mark Costa » 21 Dec 2012, 20:51

Deustche:

In 1938 new Party Court regulations stated that only The Supreme Party Judge Walter Buch, was allowed to wear the Blue Reichsleiter tabs. Hence Grimm was no longer allowed to wear the blue tabs. He switched over to the standard Carmine Reichsleiter tabs during this time period. You seem to be confusing the 1934-1939 tabs with the 1939-45 tabs. In 1940 Grimm retired and started wearing special custom made BLACK Reichsleiter tabs in the 1939-45 style. Although the Black retired tabs were abolished for all ranks with the 1939-45 style, Grimm being a Reichsleiter, used Black to denote his special status. He is the only person known to have worn 1939-45 style tabs in Black. However, many figures including some retired gauleiters continued to use the old black 1934-39 tabs, although the regulations had done away with them. So in your 1938 photo Grimm would be wearing the standard Carmine tab instead of Blue.

Mark Costa

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