Rudolf Jung

Rudolf Jung (16 April 1882 - 11 December 1945) was an instrumental force and agitator of German-Czech National Socialism and, later on, became a member of the German Nazi Party.

Rudolf Jung was born in Plasy and went to school in Jihlava, a town fractured by national antagonisms. He was a civil engineer employed by the national railways of the Austro-Hungary. His party work took him from Vienna, to Bohemia. In 1909, he joined the German Workers Party (DAP) (later in Czechoslovakia, DNSAP) and became an ardent party agitator. Because of his party provocations, Jung was fired but his party put him on their payroll and he devoted himself to theoretical work. Along with Dr. Walter Riehl, he drafted the Jihlava party program of 1913 "which contained a more detailed comparison of international Marxism and national socialism and a more pointed attack on capitalism, Democracy, alien peoples, and Jews. Here, anti-semitism ranked behind anti-Slavism, anti-clericalism and anti-capitalism." ³ It is noted that Nazi ideology does not oppose capitalist relations or production, just the supposed excesses of capitalism. In 1919, he completed his theoretical work Der Nationale Sozialismus. Jung expressed the hope in his introduction that his book would play the same role for national socialism that Das Kapital did for Marxian socialism. It is he that convinced Hitler to use the term "National Socialist" for the DAP's counterpart in Germany; Hitler originally wanted to rename the German DAP into the "Social Revolutionary Party". ²

Some of the posts and honors he held were; President of the State Labour office in area Middle Germany; Gauleiter ad Honorem (honorary); in 1936, Member of the Reichstag for the district Westfalia South. In 1943, he became the Reich Inspector and Director of the Reich Inspection of Labour Administration. 1

He committed the suicide in Prague's Pankrác prison before the trial against him started.

His work: Der nationale Sozialismus: seine Grundlagen, sein Werdegang und seine Ziele (National Socialism, its Foundations, Development and Goals), Aussig, 1919. 2nd ed.; Munich: Deutscher Volksverlag Dr. Boepple, 1922.