Hoetzsch, Otto

(1876-1946)

   historian and politician; represented the moderate, anti-Kapp* wing of the DNVP. Born in Leipzig to a master craftsman, he studied history and political science, and was active in the conservative German Student Union (Verein deutscher Studenten). After taking his doctorate in 1900 under Karl Lamprecht, he did research at the Berlin* Academy on the series Urkunden und Aktenstucke zur Geschichte des Kurfurst Friedrich Wilhelm (Documents and official papers concerned with the history of the Elector Fried-rich Wilhelm). He also enrolled in the Pan-German League and joined its board in 1904. Framing his specialization in Eastern Europe and Russia, he wrote his Habilitation in 1906 under Berlin s Otto Hintze.* He taught at Posen s Royal Academy until 1913 and then returned to Berlin as a sserordentlicher Professor. He was promoted to full professor in 1920 and succeeded Karl Stahlin in 1928 as Professor of East European History. From 1913 Hoetzsch was increasingly viewed as Germany s authority on Russian affairs. As a regular columnist on foreign affairs* in the conservative Kreuzzeitung (1914-1924) and Tag (1926-1928), he endorsed a conservative Prussian outlook; even after the Romanov collapse this embraced close ties with Russia, whom he believed to be Germany s natural ally against England. De-termined to see Russia left intact, he argued during World War I for limited annexations along the eastern Baltic coast. By publishing his views, he became known as a dangerous Russophile, a reputation that led the NSDAP to label him "pro-Bolshevik. His Russian sympathies were, however, decidedly conserva-tive and anti-Bolshevik.

   Hoetzsch was politically active during the Weimar period. A member of the Conservative Party before the war, he joined the new DNVP in December 1918 and held a Reichstag* mandate during 1920-1930. In contrast to his colleagues, he accepted both the loss of the monarchy and the Republic s parliamentary reforms. Dreaming of a large conservative-democratic party similar to the Tories in England, he advocated governing in coalition with the other middle-class parties. As a key member of the foreign affairs committee, he labored to improve the border with Poland* and promoted both the Rapallo Treaty* of 1922 and the 1926 Berlin Treaty with the Soviet Union.*

   Hoetzsch opposed his Party s direction under Alfred Hugenberg.* He gen-erally defended the Republic s foreign policy, including membership in the League of Nations, and finally quit the DNVP when it sponsored a plebiscite against the Young Plan.* In 1930 he helped found the Conservative People's Party,* but was unable to win a Reichstag seat. The NSDAP "retired him in 1935.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP; Hertzman, DNVP; Hoetzsch, Germany's Domestic and Foreign Policies; NDB, vol. 9.