for having Jewish ancestry with Joseph Goebbels and Richard Walther Darré being especially vicious in their attacks. Duesterberg was so hurt by Darré's attacks that he challenged him to a duel, a challenge that Darré rejected because it was beneath him to fight a man with "Jewish blood". Duesterberg then took up his dispute with Darré before the court of honor of the Former Officers of the 1st Hanoverian Field Artillery Regiment of Scharnhorst, number 10 to which Darré belonged. Duesterberg argued before the court of honor that Darré should be expelled for engaging in behavior that was unbecoming of a German officer while Darré argued that he had right and duty to subject Duesterberg to anti-Semitic insults. The court of honor ruled in Darré's favor, stating that he was right to insult Duesterberg for having "Jewish blood". Ironically, Duesterberg was offered a position in Hitler's cabinet when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, but Duesterberg flatly refused the proposal. Franz Seldte, however, did enter Hitler's cabinet, which undermined Der Stahlhelm and Duesterberg's authority over the organization, and thus he resigned his leadership position in 1933. In April 1933, Duesterberg was strongly urged to resign from Der Stahlhelm by President Paul von Hindenburg and the Defense Minister, General Werner von Blomberg who told him that he was now a liability to them with Hitler now chancellor. Arrest and later life In 1934, Duesterberg was arrested by the Nazis during the Night of the Long Knives and sent to Dachau concentration camp, where he was briefly interned. After being released, he drifted into obscurity. He was known to have had limited contacts with the anti-Nazi Carl Friedrich Goerdeler in 1943, but Duesterberg ultimately did not play any role in Goerdeler's plots against Hitler. In 1949, Duesterberg wrote The Steel Helmet and Hitler, in which he defended his pre-war political career and Der Stahlhelm and detailed the movement's independence from the Nazi Party and "the insane Jew hatred preached by Hitler". A year later, Duesterberg died in Hamelin. References Further reading External links 1875 births 1950 deaths 20th-century Freikorps personnel 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German non-fiction writers Candidates for President of Germany Dachau concentration camp survivors German anti-communists German Army personnel of World War I German military personnel of the Boxer Rebellion German monarchists in the German Resistance German National People's Party politicians German nationalists German people of Jewish descent