Greusser boys

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Monument to the Greussen boys

Greußener Jungs is a group of 38 male youths who were denounced and arrested in Greußen between October 1945 and January 1946 . They were unjustifiably suspected of belonging to the " werewolves " riot movement. The young people were extradited to the NKVD and sentenced by a Soviet military tribunal to death or long prison terms. 24 of them died in the Sachsenhausen special camp , the 14 survivors were not released until 1950.

History of the Greussian boys

prehistory

At the beginning of July 1945, the American occupation in Thuringia was replaced by a Soviet occupation, which on July 16 formed a Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) for the country. A German state administration worked under her. Four parties were admitted ( SPD , KPD , LDP and CDU ), which formed anti-fascist committees . Radical political and economic measures were taken: denazification (especially in the areas of administration, judiciary and police), expropriations, land reform and dismantling for the USSR . Under the direction of the NKVD, the SMAD set up ten special camps for political opponents (e.g. Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen). In view of its end, the Nazi regime had advocated the formation of a partisan organization "werewolf" for the areas occupied by the Allies, but this did not gain any significant significance.

Greetings

In the small town of Greussen in Thuringia , typewritten leaflets appeared in mid-October 1945 ("Here speaks the werewolf": attacks because of Soviet measures, such as the dismantling) and then a handwritten note with a personal threat against two communists, which the local superiors as evidence was counted for werewolf activities. Police arrested from October 1945 to mid-January 1946 a total of 39 male young people aged 15 to 23 years, including each one leg amputated one or both sides and both sides armgelähmten war-wounded , including members of the anti-fascist youth and sons of KPD comrades. In terms of age, a number of them - under German law - were not yet of criminal age. They were interrogated, mistreated and handed over to the NKVD, the secret police of the occupying power.

Sondershausen

The interrogations of the young people continued in the NKVD prison in Sondershausen . The parents were also questioned. They were convinced of the innocence of their sons and fought for their release for years until 1950. They involved all personalities and institutions from whom they expected support. They also received this, for example through parties, organizations, government representatives, superintendents, and the Protestant and Catholic bishops. The parents even wrote a pardon to Generalissimo Stalin . The efforts of the relatives were particularly boosted when it turned out in mid-May 1946 that the handwritten werewolf threat had admittedly been written by a municipal employee belonging to the KPD, who wanted to stand out and “encourage the KPD officials to take greater initiative”. He then personally participated in the mistreatment of young people, including minors, in his capacity as an auxiliary policeman. As a result of the waves of arrests, around 40 young people had fled to western occupation zones.

The arrested youths were not released. “During these weeks of spring and summer 1946, the Greussen boys were interrogated by officers of the NKVD in the special house prison, individually, mostly at night and accompanied by physical abuse, beatings, threats, food deprivation and psychological humiliation. […] The sanitary, medical and hygienic conditions are miserable […] The interrogations are conducted in Russian and are rarely or only incompletely translated. The interrogated have no support, no contact with the outside world or with relatives and hardly any contact with one another [...] After all, the boys can no longer withstand the enormous psychological pressure. [...] they sign a Russian text. [...] just so that this terrible ordeal will end. […] In the course of July 1946 the boys were sentenced by a Soviet military tribunal on the basis of these (extorted) confessions. […] The sentences are death sentences and 5, 10 or 15 years of forced labor or labor camp. There is no appeal or revision, nor is there any notification of relatives ”. The revocation of the confessions in front of the court was not recognized. According to witness statements, the two leg amputees were among the three sentenced to death. Unofficially, the news of the verdicts reached Greußen and created a corresponding mood among parents and the population there.

Sachsenhausen

The young people were transferred to the NKVD's special camp No. 7 Sachsenhausen without any notice to their parents. “The Greussen boys will stay in zone 2 of the special camp for the next few years. They are not allowed to work or read, neither games nor tools are allowed. Food and medical care are extremely bad ”. “On November 1, 1946, the NKVD radically cuts the food rations in all of its special camps in the Soviet Zone. [...] Illnesses and deaths are increasing rapidly ”. In the course of 1946, four young people died without news to their parents.

The above city worker was arrested in August 1946 and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1947 for knowingly false charges and ill-treatment. The authors of the typewritten leaflets, the distribution of which had preceded the handwritten note, could not be traced. In March 1947 the Antifa committee of the city of Greussen (SED, LDP, CDU) certified that: “Nothing is known here that a werewolf organization has ever been formed here. Such an organization never existed here ”. In the course of 1947 another eight young people died in Sachsenhausen without notifying their relatives. In 1949, in a new process, a five-year prison sentence was imposed for the above mentioned. urban employee who meanwhile worked in uranium mining, pronounced "for crimes against humanity ". He appealed and was acquitted. In 1949 three other young people died.

Release of the survivors

At the beginning of 1950, the Soviet Union closed its special camps in the GDR, released the survivors or handed them over to the GDR judiciary . "Due to a generous release campaign", nine of the "Greussian boys" were released home - and brought the news of their death with them - while five others were transported to the Torgau and Luckau penal institutions . These were supposed to be released on October 6, 1950, but one died before that. In total, 24 of the 38 "Greussen boys" never returned home.

At the beginning of 1995 some of the "Greussen boys" who were convicted at the time received their rehabilitation from the Supreme Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation in Moscow .

In front of the state regular school (formerly grammar school) in Bahnhofstrasse in Greußen there is a memorial stone with the names of the 38 condemned young people, above it is the sentence: “TO REMEMBER THE FIRST VICTIMS OF STALINISM IN GREUSSEN 1945/46”. The Greußen municipal council, which was freely elected for the first time in 1990, had already decided at its first meeting to erect the monument, which was then inaugurated on November 24, 1990 in the presence of four survivors.

In a documentation from 1995 based on all accessible documents, victim and witness interviews, the author Günter Agde also praised the commitment of the parents: “The traces of the parents of the Greussian boys are gradually draining away. However, their courage, their tenacity, their struggle for their children will not be forgotten. "

literature

  • Juliane Geick: Six Christmases , TV documentary by MDR and ORB 1993/94 with surviving "Greußener Jungs".
  • Günter Agde: The Greussen boys. Hitler's werewolves, Stalin's secret police and a trial in Thuringia. A documentation . Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-320-01905-8 .
  • Günter Agde: Sachsenhausen near Berlin. Special camp 7, 1945–1950 . Aufbau-Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-7466-7003-9 .
  • Otto Zimmermann: Greußen / Thuringia. A reflection from old and new times . City of Greußen (ed.). Starke-Druck, Sondershausen 2003, ISBN 3-9808465-3-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günter Agde: The Greussen boys . Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-320-01905-8 , p. 63f.
  2. ↑ Juliane Geick: Six Christmas , television documentation from MDR and ORB 1993/94.
  3. ↑ Agde: Greußener Jungs , p. 101f.
  4. ^ Agde: Greußener Jungs , p. 107.
  5. ↑ Agde: Greußener Jungs , p. 122.
  6. ↑ Formulation from a petition for clemency from the city council and municipal council of Greußen to the GDR President Wilhelm Pieck , quoted in. n. Günter Agde: The Greussen boys . Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1995, p. 266/67.
  7. ↑ a b Agde: Greußener Jungs , p. 281.
  8. ↑ Six Christmases. Film service , accessed November 5, 2019 .