Bernhard Rust

Bernhard Rust
Gauleiter Dr. phil. e. h. Bernhard Rust
Reich Minister of Science, Education and Culture (REM) National Socialist Germany
In office 11 May 1934 (with effect from 1 May 1934) – 8 May 1945
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Dr. med. Gustav Adolf Scheel (not effective)
Prussian Minister for Science, Culture and Public Education National Socialist Germany
In office 2 February 1933 – 11 May 1934
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Gauleiter of South Hanover-Brunswick
In office 1 October 1928 – November 1940
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Hartmann Lauterbacher
Gauleiter of North Hanover Weimar Republic National Socialist Germany
In office 22 March 1925 – 30 September 1928
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Member of the Reichstag National Socialist Germany
In office 1933–1945
Weimar Republic
In office 1930–1933
Born	30 September 1883(1883-09-30) Hanover, Province of Hanover, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	8 May 1945 (aged 61) Berend municipality near Nübel, Gau Schleswig-Holstein, Province of Schleswig-Holstein
Resting place	Neuberend
Political party	NSDAP
Other political affiliations	German Völkisch Freedom Party
Spouse(s)	∞ 1910 Martha Haake (died 1919)​ ∞ 1920 Anna-Sofie Dietlein
Children	4
Occupation	Philologist, teacher
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	Imperial German Army Sturmabteilung
Rank	1st Lieutenant of the Reserves SA-Obergruppenführer
Unit	Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 368 Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 232
Battles/wars	World War I
Awards	Iron Cross House Order of Hohenzollern

Karl Josef Bernhard Rust (30 September 1883 – 8 May 1945) was a German philologist, reserve officer in the Imperial German Army, Freikorps fighter, Gymnasium teacher (Oberlehrer), politician, member of the state parliament and member of the Reichstag. He was Reich Minister of Science, Education and National Culture (Reichserziehungsminister) in National Socialist Germany from 1934 to 1945 and also served the party as Gauleiter in Hanover and Brunswick from 1925 to 1940. A competent school administrator, he issued decrees at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in National Socialist ideology. He must not be confused with Lieutenant General Bernhard Rust (1882–1970).

Life

Bernhard Rust (left) in SA general's uniform in front of students of the "Leader School of the University Institute for Physical Training"

Early life

Rust was born in Hanover into a wealthy family and and studied Germananistik, classical philology, art history, philosophy and music in München, Göttingen, Berlin and Halle. After passing the state teaching examination with the "good" grade on 7 March 1908, he then served as one-year volunteer (Einjährig-Freiwilliger) with the 1. Hannoversches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 74 as of April 1908 and became a trainee teacher/study assessor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hanover. His final thesis “Philosophy in Prima German Classes” was rated “excellent”.

From 1 April 1911 to 31 March 1930, he was a high school teacher at Hanover's Ratsgymnasium (Oberlehrer, later Studienrat). In 1912, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves. He served in the Imperial German Army during World War I, where reached the rank of Oberleutnant, served as a company commander and was awarded the Iron Cross first and second class for bravery. He was wounded in action and sustained a severe head injury. He was discharged in December 1918 as 1st Lieutenant of the Reserves and returned to Hanover. After the war, he was cofounder and company leader in the residents' defense forces (Einwohnerwehr; citizens' militia) againt communist terror in Hanover and during the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch.

Political career

Rust joined the National Socialist Party in 1921 and was a co-founder of the local group in Hanover. When the party was temporarily banned in the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch, Rust joined the German Völkisch Freedom Party and served as an Ortsgruppenleiter and later as Gauleiter for Hanover. When the ban on the Party was lifted, he rejoined it (membership number 3,390). On 22 March 1925, he was named Gauleiter for the Gau of North Hanover. On 10 September 1925, Rust joined the National Socialist Working Association headed by Gregor Strasser. This was an association of northern and western Gauleiters who supported the socialist wing of the Party until it was dissolved in 1926 following the Bamberg Conference.

When the Gaue were reorganised on 1 October 1928, Rust became the Gauleiter for Southern Hanover–Brunswick. He retained that position until November 1940, when he was succeeded by SA-Gruppenführer and SS-Brigadeführer (later SA- and SS-Obergruppenführer) Hartmann Paul Lauterbacher. In September 1930, he was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 16, Southern Hanover-Brunswick. He would remain a Reichstag deputy through to the end of the National Socialist government in 1945. On 15 July 1932 came his appointment as Landesinspekteur for Lower Saxony. In that position, he had oversight responsibility for his Gau and four others (Eastern-Hanover, North Westphalia, South Westphalia & Weser-Ems). That was a short-lived initiative by Gregor Strasser to centralise control over the Gaue. However, it was unpopular with the Gauleiters and was repealed on Strasser's fall from power in December 1932. Rust then returned to his Gauleiter position in Southern Hanover-Brunswick.

At the beginning of February 1933, Bernhard Rust was appointed State Commissioner (Reichskommissar) for Art, Science and Public Education in Prussia and at the same time became curator of the Prussian Academy of Arts (Preußische Akademie der Künste). On 1 April 1933, Rust converted on the occasion of Adolf Hitler's birthday (20 April 1933) the state educational institutions (Stabila) of the Weimar Republic into National Political Institutes of Education (NPEA). The Stabila in turn had emerged from the Prussian cadet institutes.

Rust was appointed as the Prussian Minister (Staatsminister) for Science, Culture and Public Education on 22 April 1933. He was made a member of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) on 11 July and the Academy for German Law when it was formed in October 1933. On 1 May 1934, the Reichsministerium was founded, on 11 May 1940, Rust was appointed as Reich Minister of Science, Education and National Culture (Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung) of the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung (inofficially also Reichswissenschaftsministerium and Reichserziehungsministerium) and set about to reshape the German educational system to conform to National Socialist ideals.

Rust created a number of new regulations, some of which proved unworkable: in 1935, when he changed the traditional six-day school week to five days, with Saturday to be "Reich's Youth Day", when children in the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls would be out of school for study and testing. He then ordered the creation of a "rolling week", with six days for study, followed by the "youth day" and a rest day, in eight-day periods. Thus, a rolling week starting on Monday would end with rest on the following Monday. The next rolling week would start on Tuesday and end eight days later on the next Tuesday. When the eight-day week proved unworkable, Rust reverted to the former system.

It was Rust who in 1933 issued a rule that students and teachers should greet each other with the National Socialist salute "as a symbol of the new Germany". He added his opinion that it was "expected of every German", regardless of membership in the party. Rust was instrumental in purging German universities of Jews, and others regarded as enemies of the state, most notably at the University of Göttingen. Germany's future leaders received their instruction elsewhere, in a NPEA, or "Napola" (NAtionalPOLitische erziehungsAnstalten), of which there were 30 in the nation, where they would receive training to become administrators etc.

He informed teachers that their aim was to educate Germans to be ethnically-aware. Rust also believed that non-Aryan science (such as Albert Einstein's "Jewish physics") was flawed and had what he felt to be a rational explanation for that view. In an address to scientists, he said:

"The problems of science do not present themselves in the same way to all men. The Negro or the Jew will view the same world in a different light from the German investigator".

From 27 to 30 June 1936, he participated in ceremonies marking the 550th anniversary of the University of Heidelberg. In a speech delivered on 29 June 1936, Rust declared that Germany had thrown out "the old idea of science", dismissing it as "abstract intellectual activity", and brought scientific research into line with National Socialist perspectives. He also defended the expulsion of Jews from German universities as they were, he asserted, members of an "alien race" incapable of understanding the "order of nature".

From 27 to 30 June 1937, Rust participated in the bicentennial celebrations at the University of Göttingen, which had been – in the words of Stephen H. Norwood –, “arguably the world's most prestigious university in physics and mathematics” before it was purged of Jewish professors in 1933. Norwood continues:

[Rust] delivered the two principal bicentennial addresses, both of them intensely antisemitic. In the first, he proclaimed that “the future of science was the principle of race.” When he finished speaking, Goettingen's rector rose to exclaim, “We honor and strengthen ourselves in that we cry, ‘Our Führer Adolf Hitler, Sieg heil!’” The assembled scholars answered him with three lusty “heils.” Two days later, Minister Rust lectured the American representatives [from universities and colleges] that commitment to personal liberty invariably led to “dictatorship of the masses,” followed by an even worse dictatorship of the Jews. He denounced the Jews as “world wanderers who know no fatherland.”

On 12 February 1938, Rust issued the following statement (which appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter of that date):

"All education means the moulding of National Socialist human beings. It is quite definite that the conceptions of the National Socialist Party must penetrate all instruction and inspire it from within. [Therefore, German schools must acknowledge] the preeminence of life and action over all systems of education.” The new German school proceeds from the body and captures the soul, and, both within and without the schoolroom, trains for community [...] The goal of German education is the creation of a] new type… on the basis of physical training [and national-socialist indoctrination]. The new conception of mankind, which is at the base of political pedagogy, is not the humanist conception of the educated individual, but the political being. In the forefront of political pedagogy are the conceptions, “type” and “formative education,” which are necessarily related. “Formative education” is the conception of direction education based upon our own doctrine. “Direct” here means from man to man, eye to eye. Through direct education one character draws forth another character, the model of the Führer and the comrades calls forth the young energies…. The new “type,” which imparts content and significance to our entire education, is [...] valid only for those who, because of their birth, belong to this current of power. It is the “type” which permits us to anticipate specific kinds of conduct and action. This determination of the ‘type’ and of education generally by activity, by human beings acting within a community, is the foremost and most important feature of political pedagogy.

The Völkischer Beobachter (VB) of the following day contained more from Rust:

The whole function of all education is to create a National Socialist [...] A wide cultural knowledge, a broad education in various phases of learning dulls the senses; a general assortment of information weakens, does not strengthen; too much universal learning tires the mind, paralyzes the will-power and the ability to make decisions.

In 20 October 1941, Rust made his official visit to Oslo, where he met with the Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven. In April 1945, he moved with his family to Mürwik near Flensburg under Karl Dönitz, where he remained until his suicide.

SA promotions

Rust formally joined the NSDAP and the SA on 4 May 1925. He participated in the Führertagung der NSDAP in Weimar on 20 January 1929 and in the “4. Reichsparteitag der NSDAP” in Nürnberg from 1 to 4 August 1929. The sources regarding his promotions within the Sturmabteilung are contradictory. Some sources state, he was SA-Oberführer by 1933, SA-Brigadeführer on 9 November 1937, SA-Gruppenführer in 1940 and finally SA-Obergruppenführer.

Michael D. Miller and Andreas Schulz write in their book Leaders of the Storm Troops, SA-Obergruppenführer (H – P), that Rust was promoted to SA-Gruppenführer on 9 November 1933 and assigned to the staff of the SA-Obergruppe VI (Hannover). On 27 January 1934, he was assigned as an Ehrenführer (honorary leader) of the SA to SA-Standarte 73 of the SA-Gruppe Nordsee. On 9 November 1936, he was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer and assigned as an SA-Führer z. V. to the staff of SA-Gruppe Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony).

Honorary doctorates

In 1936, Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust stopped the awarding of honorary doctorates to German citizens. In March 1938, the minister finally issued guidelines regulating future honorary doctorates and other forms of academic honors. People recommended for an honor should be politically vetted by party departments and honorary doctorates should only be awarded in rare cases. Instead, a total of 15 honorary academic citizenships were awarded.

Spelling reform

Rust prepared a reform of German orthography, and his fairly-extensive version ironically corresponded to the ideas of the 'progressive' spelling reformers of the 1970s (lowercase common nouns, elimination of lengthening symbols). The attempt met internal resistance of the Reich's ministry. The German orthography reform of 1944 also failed.

Before those failures, the rules of the reform had been printed in millions of copies intended for classroom use and published in numerous newspapers. The 1944 reform was postponed on the orders of Hitler because it was "not important for the war effort". Some of Rust's innovations had, however, found their way into the 1942 'Duden', such as the spelling of the word Kautsch for Couch, which persisted into the 1980s.

Oddly, many of his proposed changes were finally implemented with the German orthography reform of 1996.

Death

Rust reportedly committed suicide on 8 May 1945, when Germany surrendered to Allied forces. Some sources state near Nübel, other sources state in Berne near Brake/Unterweser (Oldenburg).

Family

Bernhard was the son master carpenter (Zimmermeister) Johann Franz Rust (1828–1900) from Seulingen (Eichsfeld) and his wife Josefa, née Deppe (1845–1928) from Breitenberg (Eichsfeld). His sister was Jusefa Rust (1881–1965). His father not only owned his own business, he had inherited a considerable amount and was the owner of several apartment buildings.

Marriages

In 1910, Rust married his fiancée Martha Haake (1885–1919) from Hannover, with whom he had a son. In 1920, the widower Rust married Anna-Sofie Elisabeth Margarete Dietlein (1891–1979), also from Hannover. They had three daughters.

Memberships

• Active member of the Völkische Wehrbewegung Hannover (völkisch defense movement in Hannover) in 1920
• Cofounder of the Ortsgruppe Hannover der NSDAP on 2 July 1921
• Bund ehemaliger Frontkämpfer
• Stahlhelmbund
• Member of the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (DVFP) from 1922 to 1924
  • initially assigned as Ortsgruppenführer of that party in Hannover; Gauleiter of the DVFP in Gau Hannover from 1924 to February 1925
• NSDAP on 4 May 1925 (day of the re-foundation of the NSDAP; Nr.: 3.390)
• Sturmabteilung on 4 May 1925
• Bürgervorsteher (citizen leader) in Hannover from May 1925 to 1933
• Member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Nord- und Nordwestdeutschen Gaue der NSDAP from 10 September 1925 to 1926
• Member of the Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund (NSLB) in Hanover since 1 November 1930 (NSLB membership Nr. 458)
• Kurator of the Preuβische Akademie der Künste (Prussian Academy of the Arts) in Berlin
• Appointed as a member of the Vorstand der “Reichsverband Deutsche Bühne e. V." (theater association) on 15 March 1933
• Member of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht, München in October 1933
• Member of the Generalsynode der Evangelischen Kirchen on 31 Auguts 1933
  • attended the first session of this Protestant body on 5 September 1933
• Member of the Kuratorium der Vereinigten Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst (Board of Trustees of the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts) from 11 May 1934 to 30 April 1945
• Member of the Ehrenausschuß im Deutschen Organisations-Ausschuß des VII. Internationalen Straßenkongresses in München (Honorary Committee in the German Organizational Committee for the 7th International Roadways Congress in Munich) from 3 September 1934 to 9 September 1934
• Appointed as a member of the Board of Directors (Verwaltungsrat) for the Goethe-Preis in Frankfurt am Main in 1935
• Founder of the Reich Institute for the History of New Germany in 1935
• Appointed as a member of the Ehrenführerring des “Reichsbundes der Kinderreichen” (Honorary Leader Ring of the Reich League for Child Abundant Families) on 11 December 1935
• Appointed as a member of the Ehrenausschuß der “Deutschen Kulturausstellung in Finnland” (Honorary Committee of the German Cultural Exposition in Finland) on 1 March 1936
• Appointed as a Reichskultursenator (Reich Senator for Culture) on 4 April 1936
• Appointed as Schutzherr (patron) of the Gesellschaft “Deutsche Literatur e. V.” (Society for German Literature) on 15 May 1936
• Appointed as a member of the Kuratorium der Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen (Board of Trustees of the Reich Academy for Physical Training) in 1936
• Appointed as a member of the Ehrenbeirat (honorary advisory council) of the Arbeitsausschuß für HJ-Heimbeschaffung (Working Committee for the Procurement of Hitler Youth Homes) in 1936
• Appointed as an Ehrenmitglied (honorary member) of Hermann Göring's Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung (German Academy of Aeronautical Research) in 1937
  • Proclaimed the establishment of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) on 16 March 1937, created to centralize the planning of basic and applied research (excluding aeronautical research, which was personally administered by Hermann Göring) in Germany. Dr. Rust assigned Generalleutnant (later General der Artillerie) Dr. Karl Becker to the presidency of the RFR, while Dr. Otto Wacker held the post of Vice-President and Dr. Rudolf Mentzel (President of the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft [DFG, German Scientific Research Association] and a leading official of the REM) as administrative manager. On 9 June 1942, a Führer decree proclaimed the establishment of a new Reichsforschungsrat, no longer under the control of Dr. Rust's Ministry but led by Hermann Göring.
• Member of the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV) on 1 November 1937 (NSV-Nr.: 8.319.456)
• Member of the presidium of the Verein “Haus der Deutschen Technik” (Association "House of German Technology") in München on 12 September 1938
• Appointed as an honorary member of the Ungarisch-Deutsche Gesellschaft (Hungarian-German Society) in Budapest on 17 June 1939
• Member of the Verteidigungsausschuß des Wehrkreises XI (Defense Committee of Military District XI) from 22 September 1939 to December 1940
• President of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) from April 1940 to June 1942
  • Succeeded General der Artillerie Dr. Karl Becker, who committed suicide in Berlin on 8 April 1940. The Führer decree of 9 June 1942, reproduced above, ordered a radical reorganization of the RFR, removing it from the jurisdiction of Rust’s Education Ministry and placing it under Reichsmarschall Göring’s control.
• Member of the Präsidialrat (Presidential Council) of the [new] Reichsforschungsrat from June 1942 to 1945
  • Other members included Albert Speer, Martin Bormann, Erhard Milch, Alfred Rosenberg, Herbert Backe, and the industrialist Albert Vögler.

Awards, decorations and honours (excerpt)

Awards and decorations

WWI

• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
  • 1st Class in Spring 1917
• Military Merit Cross (Austria-Hungary), 3rd Class with the War Decoration (ÖM3K)
• Wound Badge (1918) in Black
• House Order of Hohenzollern, Knight's Cross with Swords (HOH3⚔) on 11 May 1918 as 2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves in the Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 232

Post-WWI

• SA-Ehrendolch (Honor Dagger of the SA)
• Honour Chevron for the Old Guard (Ehrenwinkel für Alte Kämpfer)
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with Swords
• Golden Party Badge
• Deutsche Olympia-Ehrenzeichen, 1st Class
• Plaque of honor for the members of the Reich Cultural Senate
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece) on 14 April 1937
• Silver Medal of Honor from the Academy of Fine Arts on 16 July 1937
• Silver plaque commemorating the 100th anniversary of the University of Athens on 13 February 1938 (along with the diplom to his honorary doctorate)
• Hermann-Göring-Denkmünze der Deutschen Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung (Hermann Göring Commemorative Medal of the German Academy for Aeronautical Research)
• NSDAP Long Service Award (Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP) in Bronze (10 years) and Silver (15 years)
• SA honor stripes (SA-Ehrenstreifen)

Honours

• Honorary Senator of the Technical University of Braunschweig on 25 November 1928
• Honorary citizen of Hanover on 30 September 1933
• Honorary citizen of Trier
• Honorary citizen of Oerlinghausen
• Honorary citizen of Göttingen on 2 May 1934
• Honorary citizen of Braunschweig on 23 May 1937
  • on the occasion of the inauguration of the Bernhard Rust College of Teacher Training (Bernhard-Rust-Hochschule für Lehrerbildung; BRH) on the same day. Today part of the Technical University.
• Bernhard-Rust-Straße in Gronau
• Bernhard-Rust-Straße in Marburg
• Gau Leader School "Bernhard Rust" in Wennigsen am Deister
• Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. e. h.) from the University of Athens on 13 February 1938 (presumably with effect from 19 April 1937)
  • The corresponding certificate was presented to him on 13 February 1938 by the Greek ambassador Alexandros A. Rizos Rangavis in Berlin, in the presence of the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Ioannis Kalitsounakis, who had close ties to the University of Berlin, and the well-known archaeologist and head of the Greek Antiquities Service Spyridon Marinatos, who was invited by the Friedrich Wilhelm University to give a lecture on the antiquities of Crete. The Völkischer Beobachter wrote in its edition of 15 February 1938: “He [Rust] also accepted the diploma in the name of the National Socialist movement, in which the Germans' old love for Hellas had taken on a new meaning.“
• Honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1942

Writings (excerpt)

• Papen oder Hitler? (1932)
• Die beiden großen Reden auf der Reichstagung des N.S.L.B. in Frankfurt a. M. 1934, together with Hans Schemm, Fichte Verlag, München 1934
• Festschrift zum NSDAP Parteitag Hannover – 23. bis 25. Februar 1934, Gau Süd-Hannover-Braunschweig, in: "Niedersächsischer Beobachter", Hannover 1934
• Das Preußische Kultusministerium seit der nationalen Erhebung, 1935
• Die Grundlagen der nationalsozialistischen Erziehung, in: "Hochschule und Ausland", Issue 1, 1935, pp. 1–18
• Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland und die Wissenschaft, Heidelberger Reden, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1936
• Ich möchte nie darauf verzichten, eine deutsche Studentenschaft zu haben, 1937
• Education in the Third Reich, in: "Germany speaks", London 1938, pp. 97–117
• Die Zeitung im Unterricht, together with Ernst Erichsen, Max Amann and others, Gauverlag Bayrische Ostmark, Bayreuth 1938
• Deutsche Wissenschaft – Arbeit und Aufgabe, Hirzel Verlag, Leipzig 1939
• Der Einsatz der Erzieher im Ostland und ihre Aufgaben – Stimmen aus Praxis und Wissenschaft, 1940
• Aufgaben der deutschen Kolonialforschung, together with Franz von Epp and others, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1942
• Reichsuniversität und Wissenschaft, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Berlin 1940
• Erziehung und Unterricht in der Volksschule, 1940

External links

• Short biography of Rust
• Rust, Karl Josef Bernhard (de).