Der Stahlhelm

Stahlhelm, Der, was founded by F. Seldte as an association of officers and soldiers who had seen front-line service in the 1914-18 War. It expressed its right-wing tendencies by supporting the formation of Freikorps and widened its membership by admitting all former soldiers as well as sympathizers among the young. It was opposed to the Treaty of Versailles, parliamentary government, pacifism, and socialism; it advocated rearmament and the recovery of territories and colonies lost in 1919. One of the three parties in the Harzburger Front (11 October 1931), the Stahlhelm supported Hitler in January 1933, but was merged by him into the SA in July 1933.