Richard Kunze

Richard Kunze (5 February 1872 in Sagan – May 1945) was a German right-wing politician known for his anti-Semitism.

Kunze's political career began around 1914 when he was employed by the German Conservative Party along with fellow rightist Wilhelm Kube.^[1] Serving the party as general secretary he earned 12,000 marks per month for a role that largely involved travelling Germany drumming up support.^[2] Near the end of the war he became involved with the Fatherland Party where he gained the nickname Knüppel-Kunze (Cudgel Kunze) because of strong attacks on the Jews.^[3]

After the war Kunze was associated with the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund and in 1920 he joined with Reinhold Wulle and Arnold Ruge to form the Deutschvölkischen Arbeitsring Berlin, a short-lived successor group.^[4] The group was absorbed by the joined German National People's Party (DNVP) in June 1920 and Kunze joined the DNVP and became the party's chief publicist.^[3] However Kunze split from the party in 1921, feeling that it did not match his own hard-line stance on the Jews.^[5]

In 1921 Kunze established his own anti-Semitic party in north Germany known as the German Social Party, an early rival to the Nazi Party on the far right.^[6] The new party rejected the monarchism of the DNVP, arguing that Jewish influence had been just as pronounced in the German empire as in the new Weimar Republic.^[5] The party became noted for provocative street activities, with Kunze himself becoming a well-known demagogue.^[7] However support was lost as Kunze also gained a reputation for using the party as a way to make money for himself, diverting funds into his own pockets and after a number of defections he wound the party up in 1929.^[8]

In 1930 Kunze joined his old rivals as a member of the Nazi Party.^[9] Kunze was elected to the Preußischer Landtag as a Nazi delegate in 1932, and in November 1933 he was elected to the Reichstag, serving in what by then, had become a perfunctory institution until 1945.^[8]

Kunze was arrested after the Battle of Berlin, but went missing in May 1945 and was presumed dead.^[10]