Political Views until 1933

His internment as a prisoner of war and the French and British occupation of Wiesbaden until 1930 reinforced Hans Buttersack’s national conservative views. He found a political home as a Gauführer of the “Stahlhelm, League of Front Soldiers”. His active involvement in this anti-republican paramilitary organization aroused distrust among the occupying power and the German authorities.

Although Buttersack rejected the “Stahlhelm’s” strategy to replace the Republic with an authoritarian regime by means of the NSDAP, he took part together with his organization in Wiesbaden’s “march honoring Hitler” on January 31, 1933. The incorporation of Wiesbaden’s “Stahlhelm” in the SA generated conflicts with the NSDAP, which ended with Buttersack’s expulsion from the SA in June of 1934. Buttersack assembled the “Stahlhelm” at the service in der Wiesbaden’s Bergkirche – the center of the Confessing Church – on New Year’s of 1935.