WSFF Honors German Whistleblower Herbert Von Bose: The “Deep Throat of the Third Reich”

Ninety years ago, before the outbreak of World War II, one German official fought to warn the world of a great incoming evil.

Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival pays tribute to the efforts of German whistleblower Herbert von Bose. A one-time Intelligence Officer for the German Army during World War I and later a member of his country’s press, Bose would utilize his position and espionage skills to warn the world of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. For his actions, Bose would tragically lose his life during an infamous purge in 1934. 

WSFF honors Herbert Von Bose for working to expose the climbing machinations of what would be one of the darkest times of humanity.

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Von Bose’s Origins

Carl Fedor Eduard Herbert von Bose was born in Strasbourg, Germany on March 16, 1893. During World War I, Bose served his country as an Intelligence Officer for the Imperial German Army. Bose would continue intelligence gathering and espionage activities for various organizations, such as the German military’s extra-legal paramilitary formation Black Reichswehr and the private company Telegraph Union. By 1931, Bose’s career accomplishments would catch the attention of the Prussian State Ministry, where he would subsequently be assigned to head the Press Department. In the autumn of 1931, Bose would organize the “Harburger Tagung” (Harzburg conference), a gathering of Germany’s right-wing political forces, which would include the burgeoning Nazi Party. 

Despite being a staunch anti-communist and raising doubts about the effectiveness of democracy as a government system, Bose would dismiss National Socialism as a practical means of governing Germany. He also sensed impending danger in the Nazi Party’s leader, Adolf Hitler.

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Chief of the Press Division

Bose would be appointed Chief of the Press Division in the office of Hitler’s Vice-Chancellor, Franz von Papen, in 1933. Following Papen’s failure to monitor Hitler and other radicals in the German government by then-president Paul von Hindenburg, Bose and a small collective of Papen’s staff took matters into their own hands. Members of this collective included: Bose’s assistant, Wilhelm von Ketteler; Papen’s speech writer and political spin doctor, Edgar Jung; and Papen’s aides, Fritz Gunther von Tschirschky and Hans Graf von Kageneck. All of them worked secretly to resist the National Socialist system. The group’s efforts would later be referred to as “the vanguard of conservative resistance.”

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Bose and his group conspired to plant seeds of political doubt within the German populace (i.e. Nazi supporters) towards the as-of-yet formed Nazi regime. Their hopes were to persuade the old President Hindenburg (who still retained the position of Commander in Chief of the German Army) to declare a state of national emergency. If their plans had worked, the Hitler government would have been stripped of its executive powers, followed by Hindenburg retaking power through the help of Papen’s aides as well as the Generals for the Reichswehr (Germany’s armed forces during the Weimar and the Third Reich’s early years). As far as the country’s armed forces were concerned, the army would have been ordered to disarm the SA- (Sturmabteilung, German’s paramilitary wing) and SS (Schutzstaffel)-troops with force and capture all major Nazi leaders, excluding Hitler and Hermann Wilhelm Göring. 

Ultimately, however, the group’s plans were imperiled after hitting two snags: the elderly Hindenburg left Berlin for his estate in Neudeck (now Ogrodzieniec) in East Prussia, and his health was in significant decline. Realizing that Hindenburg would not be able to recapture  power, Bose and his colleagues worked to escalate the internal strife between the SA and the Reichswehr. The SA demanded to be recognized as Germany’s regular army, while the Reichswehr fought to maintain its original status.

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The Marburg Speech

Bose and Tschirschky worked on a special dossier to be delivered to Hindenburg by June 1934 to persuade the elderly former Reichspresident to deploy the Reichswehr against the SA and the Nazi party. At the same time, Papen would deliver his famous Marburg Speech (written by Jung) at the University of Marburg. This address would be the last public assembly to openly decry and criticize the growing Nazi regime. In addition, the Marburg Speech would also be used to enhance the tensions between the SA and the Reichswehr as originally designed by the Bose-Tschirschky Dossier.

Unfortunately, the Marburg Speech would do little to support Bose’s plans due to various mishaps, including Papen not immediately flying to support Hindenburg (due allegedly to the public success of his speech). Hindenburg’s own son clumsily revealed the Bose-Tschirschky dossier to German army officials, connected to Nazi Party member Heinrich Himmler.

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 The Power of the Press and the Fate of Herbert von Bose

Before his death, Bose would boldly reveal secret information about the Nazi Party to the foreign press. He unveiled the secret goings-on from within the regime to Claude Cockburn, editor of London’s muckraking journal The Week, effectively sounding the alarm of the Nazis to the world.

Tragically, Bose would meet his end on the morning of June 30, 1934. When Papen finally made plans to meet with Hindenburg, the Vice-Chancellery found itself occupied by SS-soldiers and Gestapo inspectors. Bose was held in a conference room, under the auspices of being interrogated, when he was shot 10 times in the back. His colleagues Fritz Gunther von Tschirschky and Edgar Jung would be killed later that day. Their murders would be part of the infamous series of political and social violence called the Blood Purge (aka “Night of the Long Knives”).

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Herbert von Bose’s Legacy

Despite his untimely murder, Herbert von Bose’s efforts to protect his country from the escalating Nazi threat has not gone in vain. On the 90th anniversary of his death, WSFF salutes his actions and will uphold his place in history as one of the few Germans who used his political influence and power of the press to expose Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The key lesson from Bose’s efforts is this: you can never speak out too strongly when confronting growing oppression.

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It’s no wonder that English author Jessica Mitford once dubbed Bose as the “Deep Throat of the Third Reich.”

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