Joining The Nazi Party
von der Schulenburg's first contacts with the Nazi Party (NSDAP) came in 1930, and he became a member by 1932, at about the same time as the rest of the family joined. In the same year, he was posted to East Prussia, where he actively helped build the Nazi rank and file. Von der Schulenburg could be counted among the followers of "north German" National Socialism characterized mainly by the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser.
In March 1933, von der Schulenburg was named to the government council in Königsberg and gained, both as a government official and as a member of the Party, increasing influence. He stood as a prototype of a new "leftwing" leader in the NSDAP with the old Prussian tradition. He also married Charlotte Kotelmann in this same month. His new jobs at this time were mainly to establish Gleichschaltung among officials in the realm of his influence, and also to reallocate jobs to NSDAP members.
As a result, von der Schulenburg was coming ever more often into conflict with his superior, Erich Koch. Eventually he had himself transferred to Fischhausen as a district administrator in 1934. The conflicts with Koch kept getting stronger as the years went by, so that in 1937, he was promoted by the Reich Interior Ministry and posted to Berlin as Police Vice-President. His immediate superior became Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, who himself was seen in the Party as genial and learned. Helldorf resisted having von der Schulenburg assigned for a long time. Contrary to expectations, however, the two very different Nazi officials got along very well together.
By 1939, von der Schulenburg was named Acting Oberpräsident of Upper and Lower Silesia. Already by this time, the régime had come to rate him as politically untrustworthy, and so in 1940, he was barred from the Party.
Read more about this topic: Fritz-Dietlof Von Der Schulenburg
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