Adolf von Harnier (resistance fighter)

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Adolf von Harnier , also Adolf Freiherr von Harnier ; Full name: Johann Adolf Hermann Ernst von Harnier, Baron von Regendorf (born April 14, 1903 in Munich ; † May 12, 1945 in prison in Straubing ) was a German lawyer and attorney, Bavarian patriot and monarchist, and resistance fighter against National Socialism . From 1937 he headed the resistance group known as the Harnier Circle .

Life

Adolf von Harnier came from a French Reformed Frankfurt patrician family . His parents were Eduard von Harnier (1860–1947) and Elisabeth, née Freiin von Müffling († 1965). They had come to Munich around the turn of the century, where Eduard von Harnier held the office of royal Bavarian chamberlain . 1916 acquired by Eduard Harnier by Count Faber-Castell the Regensdorf castle in the Upper Palatinate and moved his family there.

Adolf von Harnier attended elementary school and grammar school in Munich and, after moving to Regendorf, the old grammar school in Regensburg, where he graduated from high school in 1922. He then completed his legal studies in Göttingen , Würzburg and Munich in 1929 with the university examination and in 1932 with the state examination.

Since the Hitler putsch in 1923, Adolf von Harnier, who dealt with philosophical and religious questions, rejected the Nazi ideology . Especially after witnessing the high treason trial against Hitler as an eyewitness in 1924 . Due to his family character, he was a staunch supporter of the monarchy . He saw the parliamentary-democratic system of the Weimar Republic as a form of government with inferior rights. His aim was to partially restore the conditions before the November Revolution of 1918 and the rights of the Bavarian king. He refused to detach Bavaria from the German Empire . From 1931 he became involved in the Bavarian Homeland and Royal Association (BHKB). After coming to power in 1933, he refused to join the NSDAP and the NS-Juristenbund . He also left on July 19, 1933, together with his brother Georg von Harnier (1901–1963) under protest, the German Aristocratic Association . Although he was already admitted as a lawyer at the Munich Higher Regional Court and the Munich I and Munich II regional courts , after the NSDAP came to power, he decided not to work on a constitutional or political level and worked as a freelance lawyer in the Upper Palatinate and Munich. From 1933 to 1936 he stayed mainly in Regendorf, where he a. a. supported his brother Georg in the management of the family estate. It was already known there when the NSDAP came to power that the Harniers were staunch opponents of the Nazi regime. On August 21, 1933, the Regendorfer municipal council complained to the Regensburg district office about the brothers Georg and Adolf von Harnier. They would have forbidden both the Hitler salute and the Horst Wessel song for the annual memorial service in front of the war memorial donated by the family . On August 22, 1933, Georg von Harnier was taken into protective custody. His legal representation took over Adolf von Harnier, against whom a case was pending at the regional court of Regensburg for the contempt of the German greeting . The case was soon dropped by the senior public prosecutor.

1934 Adolf was of Harnier at the University of Erlangen "The position of Egypt since 1922" with the thesis doctorate . In the same year he converted to the Catholic faith in the Munich Benedictine Abbey of St. Boniface . In 1936 the family had to vacate Regendorf Castle and sell it to the city of Regensburg. In 1937 Adolf von Harnier married Gabrielle Freiin Kotz von Dobrz in Heiligenkreuz, West Bohemia . In the same year he opened a law firm in Munich, for which he employed a “ half-Jew ” as a secretary.

At the turn of the year 1936/37 Adolf von Harnier took over the intellectual and political leadership of a monarchist resistance group against National Socialism, which had been founded by Heinrich Weiß in 1933 and which subsequently became known as the “Harnier Circle”. Its aim was to restore the Bavarian monarchy as a legal form of government, in which Christian-humanistic, federal and constitutional values ​​as well as social obligations were to be guaranteed. The circle consisted predominantly of Catholics of all ages and professions; 13% of the members were priests. However, Adolf von Harnier rejected a violent overthrow. Since he expected the collapse of the Nazi system soon, the Harnier Circle was supposed to prepare the organizational reconstruction of a monarchy on a democratic-Christian basis. In 1937 he wrote the secret news bulletin No. 2 for the Harnier district, which was already infiltrated by informers at that time, with the appeal:

"For how much longer? State power is in the hands of a madman; the madman in the hands of criminals! The state treasure is plundered by them, the interests of the nation are betrayed; People are murdered, our people are raped. On comrades, help! The state is in danger! It's about the fatherland! It's about Bavaria! "

After the November pogroms at the end of 1938, when Adolf von Harnier et al. a. numerous priests persecuted by the National Socialists defended and fearlessly persecuted and disenfranchised Jewish citizens represented. He wanted to enable them to leave Germany in good time and prevent the Aryanization of their property. Among many others, his clients included u. a. the owners of the Aufhäuser bank , the Uhlfelder department store and the art dealer Otto Bernheimer .

On the eve of the wave of arrests on August 3, 1939, Adolf von Harnier was arrested by the Gestapo and interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters in the Wittelsbacher Palais . After five years of pre- trial detention in Neudeck prison, he was sentenced in the main hearing from June 13 to 16, 1944 by the People's Court in the Munich Palace of Justice to 10 years in prison and loss of civil rights . This also involved the revocation of the doctorate by the University of Erlangen. After the war ended in 1945 , he did not live to see his liberation. On the day of his death, May 12, 1945, the Americans had already occupied the Straubing prison and Adolf von Harnier was supposed to be released, but had died of physical exhaustion beforehand.

Commemoration

literature

  • Eduard Werner: Heroes and saints in dictatorships. Media Maria Verlag, 2017, Illertissen 2017, ISBN 978-3-945401-30-9 , p. 60 f.
  • Georg Schweiger, Peter Pfister : Dr. Adolf von Harnier. In: Helmut Moll (ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th, revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 489-491.
  • Louis Freiherr von Harnier: Adolf Freiherr von Harnier. A picture of life. In: Thomas AH Schöck (Hrsg.): Revocation of the doctorate at the University of Erlangen in the time of National Socialism. Erlangen-Nuremberg University Library 2010, pp. 43–49.
  • Karl-Joseph Hummel , Christoph Strohm : Witnesses to a Better World. Christian martyrs of the 20th century. Published on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Church in Germany. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-374-01812-2 , pp. 384-401.
  • Marion Detjen : “Appointed as an enemy of the state”: Resistance, resistance and refusal against the Nazi regime in Munich . Published by the City of Munich, Buchendorfer Verlag 1998, ISBN 3-927984-81-7 , pp. 36, 153, 161, 170, 172 ff. And 341.
  • Christina M. Förster: The Harnier-Kreis: Resistance to National Socialism in Bavaria . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1996, ISBN 3-506-79979-7 (also dissertation).
  • Annedore Leber , Karl Dietrich Bracher : Adolf von Harnier Freiherr von Regendorf. In: The conscience stands up: Life pictures from the German resistance, 1933–1945 . Mainz 1984, ISBN 3-7758-1064-1 , pp. 116-118.
  • Wilhelm Seutter von Lötzen : Bavaria's loyalty to the king in the resistance. Memories 1933–1964. Feldafing 1964, ISBN 3-921763-57-6 .
  • James Donohoe: Hitler's conservative opponents in Bavaria 1930–1945; a study of catholic, monarchist, and separatist anti-Nazi activities . Leiden (NL) 1961, pp. 130-146 and 281-311.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on BBKL
  2. ↑ Genealogy Kotz von Dobrz
  3. ↑ Elke Fröhlich-Broszat , Falk Wiesemann : Social situation and political behavior of the population in the mirror of confidential reports . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 1977, ISBN 978-3-486-70835-6 , p. 670.
  4. ↑ Bernd Mertens and Margareta Feketitsch-Weber: The withdrawal of doctoral degrees at the Law Faculty of the University of Erlangen in National Socialism , Erlanger Research - Special Series Volume 15, Erlangen 2010, ISBN 978-3-930357-99-4 , pp. 35-37 and 74–76 ( with photo on p. 36 and notice about withdrawal of doctorate on p. 37 ).
  5. ↑ Commemoration on the occasion of the 70th year of death (with photo).
personal data
SURNAME Harnier, Adolf von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harnier, Baron Adolf von; Harnier, Adolph von; Harnier, Freiherr von Regendorf, Johann Adolf Hermann Ernst von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and attorney as well as resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1945
Place of death Straubing