| rdfs:comment | - Lothar Prützmann (d. 2011) was the Reichsführer-SS of the Greater German Reich. He held the office at the end of Kurt Haldweim's term as Führer and through the early months of Heinz Buckliger's term as Führer in 2010. Prützmann opposed the reforms instituted by Buckliger, but was too loyal a Nazi to criticize the Führer publicly. As 2010 turned into 2011, Prützmann found himself dealing not only with Buckliger, but the Gauleiter of Berlin, Rolf Stolle. Prützmann initially opted to oppose both of these men subtly, including attempts to drown out Stolle's speech with a marching band, and the publication of an article entitled Enough is Enough, credited to Dr. Konrad Jahnke, designed to refute Buckliger's reforms.
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| abstract | - Lothar Prützmann (d. 2011) was the Reichsführer-SS of the Greater German Reich. He held the office at the end of Kurt Haldweim's term as Führer and through the early months of Heinz Buckliger's term as Führer in 2010. Prützmann opposed the reforms instituted by Buckliger, but was too loyal a Nazi to criticize the Führer publicly. As 2010 turned into 2011, Prützmann found himself dealing not only with Buckliger, but the Gauleiter of Berlin, Rolf Stolle. Prützmann initially opted to oppose both of these men subtly, including attempts to drown out Stolle's speech with a marching band, and the publication of an article entitled Enough is Enough, credited to Dr. Konrad Jahnke, designed to refute Buckliger's reforms. After these schemes failed, Prützmann was horrified as Buckliger called for free and open elections for the Reichstag to be held on 10 July 2011. Prützmann had had enough; in June 2011, he created an organisation called the Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich, and ordered the SS to launch a Putsch, detaining Buckliger at his vacation home in Croatia, installing Odilo Globocnik as the interim Führer, and seizing the state televisor and radio stations. However, they were not as efficient as they wanted: the Berlin televisor station was able to fend off the Security Police units sent to seize it, and the Wehrmacht sent two companies of men to help hold the station. The station in turn broadcast communications from Stolle, who condemned the Putsch, Prützmann and Globocnik. Prütmann took to the air to explain his position, calling Buckliger's reforms the result of an illness, and stating the Committee's intent to reassert that Reich's goal of Aryan supremacy. Knowing that Stolle's continued freedom could turn the people against the putch, Prützmann sent a detachment of SS Panzers to arrest Stolle. However, Stolle had preemptively called the people of Berlin to gather in front of his home (among them secret Jews Heinrich Gimpel and Susanna Weiss), effectively blocking the SS from acting, while Stolle stood defiantly in his home and taunted his would-be captors. The previous year, Prützmann had halted an investigation into the Klein family. The Kleins were in fact Jews, and their infant son Paul had been diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease, a disease most common in Jews. Prützmann's niece had a son with Tay-Sachs, and Prützmann did not want the possible scandal. As the putsch unfolded, two other secret Jews, Esther and Walther Stutzman began circulating information about Prützmann's niece, and soon the country concluded Prützmann was Jewish himself. Horrified, Prützmann's committee vehemently denied these rumours, threatening anyone who circulated them with death. But the rumors further stymied the SS until the Wehrmacht moved against it in support of Buckliger. Prützmann, realising he'd failed, shot himself before the Wehrmacht could arrest him.
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