Adolf Bauer (KPD functionary)

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Adolf Bauer (* 6. June 1905 in Stuttgart , † 10. July 1932 in Rösthusen in Marne (Holstein) ) was a German Communist Party - functionary in Dithmarschen , the 1932 SS was murdered -members.

Life

Adolf Bauer grew up on his parents' farm in Niederraunau ( Swabia ). He practiced his profession as a goldsmith temporarily in Pforzheim and later worked as a farm worker in Kuntzow . After a long period of unemployment, from 1926, with short interruptions, he worked as a farm worker in Süderdithmarschen , an early stronghold of National Socialism . Here he was active as a KPD functionary in the Heide sub-district of the Wasserkante district. He was the delivery agent and seller ( colporteur ) of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ) and was involved as an instructor in the planning and implementation of KPD meetings. Bauer was a member of the Red Front Fighter League (RFB) . As a KPD functionary and member of the RFB, Bauer also fought against the rise of the National Socialists. Despite threats and terror, he appeared as a discussion speaker in many meetings of National Socialist groups.

assassination

After a KPD meeting in Helse led by Bauer on the evening of July 9, 1932, he rode his bike to his home town of Sankt Michaelisdonn during the night . Bauer made a stopover in Marne:

“Bauer was last seen in Marne on July 10th around 1:30 in the morning and wanted to go home. He had been sitting there with a girl on a bench in the Westerdeich area. According to his statements, shortly after midnight two cyclists in NSDAP uniform passed them, who dismounted only 5 meters away and stayed for 5 minutes. Shortly afterwards, two young people in National Socialist uniforms came on a motorcycle, they illuminated Bauer and his companion and then left in the direction of Neufeld, one of whom said: 'Did you see that was Bauer.' Bauer, who in vain wanted to prevent him from being recognized by turning his face away, expressed to his companion that the Nazis would kill him if they got him. "

- Marner Zeitung of July 21, 1932

On the way to St. Michaelisdonn, Bauer was stopped near Rösthusen by several SS men from Marne. Bauer threw down his bike and fled across a pasture on foot. After an exchange of fire, his pursuers caught up with him and beat him up. Then they pushed him into the adjacent trench. Two SS men stood on Bauer's body and suffocated him by pressing him face down into the water and mud. The head of the SS storm, Hans Wigger, was informed by one of the perpetrators that night or early in the morning and then arranged for him to disappear from Marne. Wigger was mayor of Marne from 1937.

Dealing with the deed until 1933 and during National Socialism

Initial investigations after the murder indicated in 1932 that one of the main perpetrators was SS man Willy Beck. As accomplices u. a. Hugo Breuer, Willi von der Fecht, Hans-Herbert Bley and Reinhold Hoffmann from Marne are suspected. According to witnesses, the Marner doctor Hans Rinck had treated Willy Beck in hospital for a large wound on his neck, probably a gunshot wound, immediately after the crime. He had hidden this from the investigators and later denied it. Before the process began, it came on 30 January 1933 for the seizure of power by the National Socialists. On March 21, 1933, the Hitler government issued an amnesty for crimes committed “in the struggle for the national uprising of the German people”. The investigation into the Bauer murder in contravention of the Weimar Constitution was closed on May 12, 1933.

Trial after the end of National Socialism

After the end of the Second World War , the investigation by the Itzehoe public prosecutor was resumed in 1945 . The suspect Bley was missing in the war, Beck and Breuer and the other suspect Emil Albers were charged with murder and a crime against humanity . Because of favoring a perpetrator, the doctor Dr. Rinck also indicted. At the trial in July 1948, the defendants Beck and Breuer made a confession of involvement in the crime, whereby they mutually assigned the main responsibility. Beck and Breuer were each sentenced to four years in prison for crimes against humanity in unity with brawling. The defendants Albers and Rinck were acquitted for lack of evidence. In a separate process at the end of July 1948, Wilhelm von der Fecht was negotiated. Like the two accomplices, he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Gravestone Adolf Bauer, Marne Cemetery

The public prosecutor and the defendants appealed against the judgment, which was heard in December 1948 and January 1948 at the Schleswig-Holstein Higher Regional Court in Schleswig . The verdict against the three defendants was overturned and the case dropped. The responsible judge Günther Scheer was according to personnel files in the state archive in the German national steel helmet , later in the SA reserve. The two assessors had been members of the NSDAP since 1933 and 1937 respectively . In the grounds of the judgment, the court rejected the charge of a crime against humanity, including the following:

“Your human dignity can only be violated if you respect the human dignity of others in your behavior. If one considers in general the brutalization of the political struggle in 1932 and in particular the fact that the injured person had also announced his participation in the radical forms of the conflicts of that time by possessing and using a firearm, it would be arbitrary, one-sided violation of humanity to be found in the person who - possibly by chance - had triumphed in the dispute. "

- Judgment text of the Higher Regional Court of December 30, 1948: LAH Dept. 352, File 544,359–365.

Honor

Adolf Bauer was buried by his comrades in the cemetery in Marne. When the grave site was abandoned, the cemetery attendant recovered the stone and hid it under other cleared stones.

In January 2016, young people from the local community school researched the life and death of Adolf Bauer in a project. The parish then restored the tombstone and placed it next to the graves of honor in April 2016.

literature

  • Dietrich Stein: Lynch murder in the Südermarsch - The death of Adolf Bauer in 1932 in Rösthusen near Marne . Ed .: Working group for research into National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein eV (=  information on Schleswig-Holstein's contemporary history . Supplement 8). Kiel 2018.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ) , Berlin, Vol. XI, No. 31, July 31, 1932, p. 731
  2. ↑ a b Heinz Stehr in the newspaper Our Time May 6, 2016: The tombstone in the hall. Memory of Adolf Bauer, murdered by the fascists in July 1932.
  3. ^ Dietrich Stein: Lynchmord in der Südermarsch - The death of Adolf Bauer in 1932 in Rösthusen near Marne. Kiel 2018, p. 22ff.
  4. ↑ a b c The Men from the Murderer Pasture , Neues Deutschland, March 12, 2019, ( Online, chargeable )
  5. ^ Gerhard Fieberg: In the name of the German people. Justice and National Socialism. Catalog for the exhibition of the Federal Minister of Justice. Cologne 1989, Science and Politics, Cologne 1989, ISBN 978-3-8046-8731-8 , p. 56.
  6. ↑ Michael Wildt: Power conquest 1933. In: Information on political education No. 314/2012. Federal Agency for Civic Education, May 24, 2012, accessed on March 5, 2019 .
  7. ^ Dietrich Stein: Lynchmord in der Südermarsch - The death of Adolf Bauer in 1932 in Rösthusen near Marne. Kiel 2018, p. 42
  8. ^ Dietrich Stein: Lynchmord in der Südermarsch - The death of Adolf Bauer in 1932 in Rösthusen near Marne. Kiel 2018, p. 65
personal data
SURNAME Bauer, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baur, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD functionary
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1932
Place of death Rösthusen near Marne (Holstein)