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Hans Knirsch
Born	14 September 1877
Died	6 December 1933  (aged 56)
Occupation	Politician

Hans Knirsch (14 September 1877 in Třebařov – 6 December 1933 in Duchcov) was an Austro-German activist from Moravia for Austrian Nazism. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he led the original party in Bohemia, called the German National Socialist Workers' Party. Together with Rudolf Jung and Hans Krebs, he was one of the original core that remained in the Nazi Party after 1933.

Biography

Hans Knirsch became a Geschäftsführer, or managing leader, of the Mährisch-Trübauer Verband in 1901. In that capacity he published an appeal which extolled the political unification of all Germans into one state, referring to it as der alte Sehnsuchstraum der deutschen Demokraten ("the old nostalgic dream of the German democrats").

Active in several party congresses, before World War I he attempted to get the DAP to add the words "National Socialist" to their name. The effort failed, as the proposed name was felt to be too reminiscent of the Czech National Social Party Following his arrest for the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler went on a hunger strike. It was Hans Knirsch who talked Hitler out of his depression and convinced him to resume eating.

Writings of Knirsch

• Aus der Geschichte der deutschen nationalsozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung Altösterreichs und der Tschechoslowakei, (Aussig, 1932).
• Die Stellung der Deutschen zum tschechischen Staat. Referat, erstattet am 1. Gesamtparteitag der deutschen nationalsozialistischen Arbeiterpartei Dux, Buchdruckerei "Gutenberg" 1919

References

1. Liberty or Equality, Von Kuenhelt-Leddihn, Christendom Press, Front Royal, VA, 1993. pg 254.
2. Leftism Revisited, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Regnery Gateway, Washington, D.C., 1990. pp 147-148
3. The Bohemian Background of German National Socialism: The DAP, DNSAP and NSDAP, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jun., 1948), pp. 339-371.
4. Why Hitler, The Genesis of the Nazi Reich, Samuel W. Mitcham, Praeger, Westport, CT, 1996. pg 106

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Hans Knirsch in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

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