Former German nobility in the Nazi Party

Beginning in 1925, some members of higher levels of the German nobility joined the Nazi Party, registered by their title, date of birth, NSDAP Party registration number, and date of joining the Party.

Following Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication and the German Revolution, the German nobility, as a legally defined class, was abolished. On promulgation of the Weimar Constitution on 11 September 1919, all such Germans were declared equal before the law with all persons of formerly lesser rank. There were 22 heads of these former federal states: 4 German kings—of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg—6 grand dukes, 5 dukes, and 7 princes, who—along with all of their families—lost their titles and domains. Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi leaders frequently appealed to these former princes, and especially to Wilhelm II and his family, by expressing sympathy for a restoration of the abolished monarchies and other such lost inheritances.

From 1925, the newly formed Nazi Party began accepting these princes by their (abolished) former titles, and by their (abolished) princedoms, and registering these dukes, princes, and princesses as such, in the Nazi Party. There are two known Nazi Party lists of such princes and principalities. Of the first list Historian Malinowski notes: "of 312 families of the old aristocracy 3,592 princes joined the Nazis (26.9%) before Hitler came to power in 1933." The second, in the Berlin Federal archives, lists 270 princely members of the Nazi Party (1928–1942), of which almost half joined the Nazis pre-Hitler. The Berlin list named 90 direct senior heirs, to their 22 abolished principalities, and also included claimants to the (former) Imperial Crown of Wilhelm II.

After the proposed "fourth Kaiser" died fighting as a member of the Wehrmacht in 1940, Hitler issued the Prinzenerlass, prohibiting German princes from the Wehrmacht, but not from the Nazi Party or its paramilitary units, the Sturmabteilung (SA) or the Schutzstaffel (SS). Some German states provided a proportionally higher number of SS officers, including Hesse-Nassau and Lippe. Such princes included SS–Obergruppenführer and Higher SS and Police Leader Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont.