– 21 May 1948) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.

Biography

Dinter was born in Mulhouse

Mulhouse

Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...

, in Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...

, German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 (now France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) to Josef Dinter, a customs adviser, and his wife Berta, née Hoffmann, and he was baptized in the Catholic Church.

After doing his school-leaving examination, Dinter began studying natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 in 1895 in Munich

Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich

The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich , commonly known as the University of Munich or LMU, is a university in Munich, Germany...

 and at the University of Strasbourg

University of Strasbourg

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....

. From 1901 to 1903, he worked as a chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 assistant at the University of Strasbourg. He graduated in 1903 summa cum laude. Already while he was studying, he had been undertaking endeavours as a writer. His 1906 play Die Schmuggler ("The Smugglers") was awarded a first prize.

After graduation, Dinter was director of the botanical school garden in Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

. In 1904, as a senior teacher at a German school, he went to Constantinople (İstanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

). In 1905 he switched to drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 and became a theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 leader in his Alsatian homeland. From 1906 to 1908 he worked as a director at the city theatre in Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

 and the Schillertheater in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, founding at the same time the Federation of German Playwrights (Verband Deutscher Bühnenschriftsteller or VDB). As director he furthermore led the theatre publishing house from 1909 to 1914. Moreover, Dinter was a member of the anti-Semitic

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 and Pan-German Alldeutscher Verband, from which he was excluded in 1917.

First World War

Dinter took part in the First World War as an Oberleutnant

Oberleutnant

Oberleutnant is a junior officer rank in the militaries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Translated as "Senior Lieutenant", the rank is typically bestowed upon commissioned officers after five to six years of active duty...

in an Alsatian

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 regiment's reserve, and was quickly promoted to captain of the reserve and awarded the Iron Cross

Iron Cross

The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

, second class. In 1915, he fell ill with cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

, and in 1916 he spent a great deal of time in field hospital

Field hospital

A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities...

s having suffered serious wounds, after which he had to be discharged from the military. During his stay in the field hospitals, Dinter became familiar with German nationalist and mystic Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a British-born German author of books on political philosophy, natural science and the German composer Richard Wagner. He later became a German citizen. Chamberlain married Wagner's daughter, Eva, some years after Wagner's death...

's writings and quickly became a follower of the völkisch movement.

Bestselling völkisch writer

In 1919 Dinter established himself as a writer in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

, after his 1917 anti-Semitic bestseller Die Sünde wider das Blut ("The Sin Against the Blood") came out, which was to sell more than 260,000 copies by 1934, and which vividly set forth in writing the stereotypes of the racial-völkisch perceptions of his time. Heartened as Dinter was by the great success, this novel became the first instalment in a trilogy later given the name "Die Sünden der Zeit" ("The Sins of the Time"). A short summary of the content of these books can be found in Richard Steigmann-Gall

Richard Steigmann-Gall

Richard Steigmann-Gall is Associate Professor of History at Kent State University, and was the Director of the Jewish Studies Program from 2004 to 2010. He received his BA in 1989 and MA in 1992 from the University of Michigan, and his PhD in 1999 from the University of Toronto...

 (2003), The Holy Reich, pp. 30-31.

Völkisch movement and the NSDAP

Dinter's thinking in the years after the war became steadily more radical and more racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

. In 1919, he had already taken part in founding the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and was in its leadership until it was banned in 1922. Thereafter he became a founding member of the Deutsch-Völkische Freiheitspartei ("German- Peoples Freedom Party") and forged closer ties with Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. After the Beerhall Putsch in Munich in 1923, Dinter was elected in 1924 to the Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

n Landtag

Landtag

A Landtag is a representative assembly or parliament in German-speaking countries with some legislative authority.- Name :...

as a representative of the electoral alliance Völkisch-Sozialer Block ("Peoples Social Bloc"), also becoming factional leader. He drew ever nearer the Nazi Party's position. Hitler appointed him NSDAP State Leader of Thuringia right after getting out of prison at Landsberg am Lech

Landsberg am Lech

Landsberg am Lech is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech....

. At the same time, Dinter became publisher of the newspaper Der Nationalsozialist, which appeared in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

. He fell out with his former associates from the VSB, leading to his expulsion from that party. In 1925, after Hitler had been released early from prison after the Putsch, the Nazi Party was founded once again after having been disbanded after the débâcle in Munich. For his "loyalty" to the Party, Dinter received the single-digit membership number "5".

Deutsche Volkskirche

It soon began to stand out quite clearly that Dinter's goals were not so much political

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 as overridingly religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

. In 1927 he founded the Geistchristliche Religionsgemeinschaft ("Spiritual Christian Religion Community"), which in 1934 was given the new name "Deutsche Volkskirche" (German People's Church). Its goal was to "de-Judaicize" Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 teaching. The Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 was dismissed as Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

. Dinter's special course promptly led to conflict with Hitler, who had already removed him as a Gauleiter

Gauleiter

A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...

 in 1927. Dinter was deeply shocked about this and started attacking Hitler in his magazine Das Geistchristentum, which in 1928 led to his exclusion from the NSDAP for good. Even in the years that followed, the polemics against Hitler continued. In 1932, he even became the NSDAP's electoral rival, along with his "Dinterbund".

Later life

After the Nazis gained power

Machtergreifung

Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...

 in 1933, Dinter attempted to re-join the NSDAP. He was rebuffed and the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 intensified its surveillance of him, and even took him into custody for a short while. Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 banned Dinter's "Deutsche Volkskirche" in 1937. Two years later the Reichsschrifttumskammer – Nazi Germany's official writers' association – expelled Dinter, effectively banning him from publishing anything, as one had to be a member to do so. In 1942, he was brought before a Special Court (Sondergericht) in Freiburg im Breisgau to be tried for an offence. In 1945, he was sentenced by a Denazification

Denazification

Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...

 court in Offenburg to a fine of 1000 Reichsmark

German reichsmark

The Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...

.

Dinter died in 1948 in Offenburg

Offenburg

Offenburg is a city located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With about 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest city and the capital of the Ortenaukreis.Offenburg also houses University of Applied Sciences Offenburg...

, Baden

Baden

Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....

, at the age of 71.

Quotation

"Ein Körper ist ja nur das Instrument, auf dem die Seele spielt."

"A body is only the instrument on which the soul plays."

(Artur Dinter in Die Sünde wider das Blut, 1917)

Selected works

• Jugenddrängen. Briefe und Tagebuchblätter eines Jünglings, 1897
• Der Dämon, Schauspiel in fünf Akten, 1906
• Das eiserne Kreuz. Volksstück in 5 Akten, 1913
• Weltkrieg und Schaubühne, 1916
• Mein Ausschluß aus dem "Verbande Deutscher Bühnenschriftsteller", 1917
• Lichststrahlen aus dem Talmud, 1919
• Die Sünden der Zeit (Trilogie)
  • Bd. I: Die Sünde wider das Blut. Ein Zeitroman, 1917
  • Bd. II: Die Sünde wider den Geist. Ein Zeitroman, 1920
  • Bd. III: Die Sünde wider die Liebe. Ein Zeitroman, 1922
• Der Kampf um die Geistlehre, 1921
• Das Evangelium unseres Herrn und Heilandes Jesus Christus, nach den Berichten des Johannes, Markus, Lukas und Matthäus im Geiste der Wahrheit, 1923
• Völkische Programm-Rede im Thüringer Landtag, 1924
• Ursprung, Ziel und Weg der deutschvölkischen Freiheitsbewegung. Das völkisch-soziale Programm, 1924
• 197 Thesen zur Vollendung der Reformation. Die Wiederherstellung der reinen Heilandslehre, 1924

Literature

• H. Ahrens: Wir klagen an den ehemaligen Parteigenossen Nr. 5 Artur Dinter, Gauleiter der NSDAP in Thüringen. In: Aufbau 3 (1947) S. 288-290.
• Hans Beck: Artur Dinters Geistchristentum. Der Versuch einer "artgemäßen" Umgestaltung" des Wortes Gottes. Berlin-Steglitz: Evang. Preßverband für Deutschland 1935.
• Hans Buchheim: Glaubenskrise im Dritten Reich. Drei Kapitel nationalsozialistischer Religionspolitik. Stuttgart: Dt. Verl.-Anstalt 1953.
• Kurt Meier: Die Deutschen Christen. Das Bild einer Bewegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht 1964.
• Kurt Meier: Kreuz und Hakenkreuz. Die evangelische Kirche im Dritten Reich. München: dtv 1992. (= dtv; 4590; Wissenschaft) ISBN 3-423-04590-6
• Paul Weyland: Die Sünde wider den gesunden Menschenverstand. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Artur Dinter. Berlin: Selbstverl. 1921.
• Artur Sünder: Die Dinte wider das Blut. 39., wildgewordene und vermasselte Aufl., 640.-683. Ts. vielm. verb. u. verm. Aufl., 11. - 20. Ts. Hannover u.a.: Steegemann 1921. (This little book with its 39 pages is a witty send-up of Dinter's "Sünde wider das Blut". The writer is actually Hans Reimann, and his parody has of course not sold about 683,000 copies.)

External links

• Short biography of Artur Dinter In: Kirchenlexikon (in German)