Viktor Lutze

Viktor Lutze (December 28, 1890–May 2, 1943) was an SA officer ("Obergruppenführer") in Nazi Germany.

Lutze was born in Bevergern, Westphalia, the son of a peasant craftsman. After a short career in the post office, he joined the German Army in 1912, serving with the 55th Infantry Regiment. He fought in the 369th Infantry Regiment and 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment during World War I. He became a company commander and was heavily wounded four times, including loss of his left eye. After the war, Lutze became a merchant and joined the police force. He joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) in 1922, and the Prussian State Council. He became an associate of Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, the first leader of the SA. Together, they determined the structure of the organization.

He also worked with Albert Leo Schlageter in the resistance/sabotage of the Belgian and French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923. His organization of the Ruhr for the SA became a model for other regions after 1926. With the assumption of power by the NSDAP in March 1933, he was appointed police president of Hanover and later provincial governor and state counselor.

Lutze's participation in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 was very important, as it was he who informed Adolf Hitler about Ernst Röhm's anti-regime activities. (Hitler at first said "We'll have to let the thing ripen"). When the time came, Lutze assisted Hitler in making lists of those who should be liquidated starting with seven top SA officials and ending with more than 80. After the purge Lutze succeeded Röhm as "Stabschef SA", but after the Night of the Long Knives, the SA no longer had as prominent a role as it did in the early days of the party. One of Lutze’s major tasks would be overseeing a large reduction in the SA, a task welcomed by the SS and the regular armed forces. On June 30, 1934 Hitler issued a twelve-point directive to Lutze to clean up the SA and wrote that “SA men should be leaders, not ludicrous apes”.

At the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in September 1934, William L. Shirer observed Hitler speaking to the SA for the first time since the purge (Hitler absolved the SA from crimes committed by Röhm). Shirer also noted Lutze speaking there (Lutze reaffirmed the SA's loyalty). Shirer described Lutze as possessing a shrill unpleasant voice, and thought the "SA boys received him coolly". In Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will however, Lutze is seen being mobbed by the SA as he departed at the end of his evening rally speech. His automobile can barely make it through the crowd, in fact. He is also the only speaker other than Hitler who receives the dramatic low angle shots of Lutze alone at the podium. Only Hitler, Himmler, and Lutze are shown in the march to the World War I cenotaph, where they laid a wreath. The makers of the film were giving the little known (and we now know historically insignificant) Lutze some of the prestige of Hitler.

In 1937, Lutze and the SA were involved in the anti-Christian efforts of the Nazi party which included banning religious ceremony, seizing church property, and the jailing of pastors and priests. After the Anschluss, Lutze traveled to Austria to help reorganize the SA there. The most visible role for the SA after the purge was in assisting the SS in Kristallnacht in November 1938. In February 1939, Lutze reviewed a parade of 20,000 Blackshirts in Rome; and then set of for a tour of Italy’s Libyan frontier with Tunisia. During World War II there is little record of Lutze doing anything of significance.

Lutze’s Death and Funeral

Lutze maintained his position in the weakened SA until his death. On May 1, 1943 he was driving a car near Potsdam with his entire family (one account suggests they were foraging for food). Driving too fast in a curve caused an accident that badly injured Lutze as well as killing his oldest daughter Inge and greatly injuring his younger daughter. Viktor Lutze died during an operation in a hospital in Potsdam at 10:30 the next evening. (News reports stated that the accident involved another vehicle, keeping the news of reckless driving from the public. This may have led to theories that Lutze was killed just as Röhm had been, or that partisans assassinated him). Hitler ordered Joseph Goebbels to convey his condolences to Viktor’s wife Paula and son Viktor Jr. Goebbels, in his diaries, had already described Lutze as a man of "unlimited stupidity" but at his death decided he was a decent fellow. Lutze was 52 years old.

The esteem in which he was held is indicated by the fact that Hitler ordered a lavish state funeral for him on May 7, 1943 in the Reich Chancellery and attended in person, something he rarely did at that stage in the war. Lutze was posthumously awarded the Highest Grade of the German Order by Hitler. Hitler also took this opportunity to order party, army, and government officials (many of which were in attendance) to curtail speeding (specifically requesting they drive no faster than 50 miles per hour) and other reckless behavior.

References

*Campbell, Bruce B. "The SA After the Röhm Purge," Journal of Contemporary History, 1993.
*Davis, Brian L. Flags of the Third Reich (3) Party and Police Units. London: Osprey, 1994. (page 10 states that the death of Lutze and his daughter was due to a partisan attack!)
*Hinton, David B. “Triumph of the Will: Document or Artifice?” Cinema Journal, Autumn 1975, pages 49-50.
*”Lutze, Nazi Leader, Dies of His Injuries”, New York Times, May 4, 1943, page 3.
*Micheler, Stefan. “Homophobic Propaganda and the Denunciation of Same-Sex-Desiring Men under National Socialism”. Journal of the History of Sexuality, January/April 2002, page 107.
*”Nazi Storm Troop Chief Badly Hurt in Accident”, New York Times, May 3, 1943 page 8. (Gives the early story that Lutze’s car collided with another)
*Piotrowski, Tadeusz. Poland's Holocaust. McFarland & Co., 1998. (Page 323 suggests that Ukranian partisans killed Lutze on the highway between Kowel and Brest)
*Read, Anthony. The Devil's Disciples, Hitler's Inner Circle. W.W.Norton, 2005.
*Shirer, William L. Berlin Diary. New York: Popular Library, 1940, pages 20-21.