Bloody night of Wöhrden
The National Socialists described a bloody conflict between Communists and SA men on March 7, 1929 after a banned SA meeting in the Dithmarsch village of Wöhrden as the " Blood Night of Wöhrden " . The clash left three dead. Through his propaganda preparation, especially through the NSDAP , he gained national fame.
procedure
The Hanoverian SA chief Karl Dincklage wanted to inspect the Dithmarscher SA at the start of a “propaganda week ” on the west coast. After there had already been multiple clashes between Communists and National Socialists in the weeks before the event, the SA meeting was banned. The NSDAP ignored the ban and declared the meeting to be a "closed general meeting". Despite the ban published in the newspapers, SA formations from all over Dithmarschen gathered in and in front of two local restaurants.
The clashes began after the banned SA event in the then socialist village of Wöhrden. About 300 SA men met the approx. 100 communist counter-demonstrators who later arrived. After verbal arguments, there was finally a fight with rubber truncheons, pieces of steel, knives and daggers. Two National Socialists and one Communist died, seven people involved were treated in hospital with serious injuries and 23 others with minor injuries.
The KPD functionary Christian Heuck , who was seriously injured, and other communists were arrested by the police and initially taken to the Heider court prison.
As a result, all public removals were banned in the entire province of Schleswig-Holstein . Shortly afterwards the ban was extended to Hamburg .
Convictions
In 1930 thirteen communists and only one SA man were indicted and sentenced by the Altona jury in Meldorf . The main defendant was Christian Heuck , who was in custody for six months and was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison. The social democratic press criticized the “one-sidedness of the court”.
propaganda
In addition to reporting in the national media, the KPD and above all the Nazi propaganda tried to exploit the incident for propaganda purposes . The National Socialists staged the funerals as demonstrations of political martyrdom with several thousand participants. Adolf Hitler traveled to Dithmarschen for the funeral of the National Socialists in St. Annen and Albersdorf . Compared to the National Socialist efforts, the communist demonstration on the occasion of the funeral of the communist Johannes Stürzebecher in Wöhrden remained modest.
The name of the events as "Blood Night of Wöhrden" comes from a brochure of the NSDAP Reichstag faction, which appeared in March 1929 with an edition of 30,000 copies and to which Hitler wrote the preface.
After the events, the NSDAP recorded a wave of entry in Dithmarschen. Already four years before the " seizure of power " in Germany, it became the dominant political force in the region. Street battles became normal after this incident.
Museum attention
In the Dithmarscher Landesmuseum the undershirt and the uniform shirt of one of the killed Nazis are shown, which were kept until 1978 by the then NSDAP district leader of the Süderdithmarschen district , Martin Matthiessen :
“'Blood Night of Wöhrden'
One of the SA men who was killed wore the uniform and undershirt. The National Socialists treated them almost like relics. At the end of the war, the then NSDAP district leader from Süderdithmarschen hid the shirts in a suitcase in his attic. Suitcases and shirts were given to the museum in the 1970s. "
See also
literature
- Ulrich Pfeil : From the Empire to the “Third Reich”: Heide 1890–1933. Heide 1997. At the same time dissertation at the University of Hamburg.
- Marie-Elisabeth Rehn : Heider Gottsleider - small town life under the swastika. First edition Basel 1992, reissued 2005, Verlag Pro Business Berlin, ISBN 3-939000-31-0 .
- Willy Schulz: The transfer of power to the National Socialists in Meldorf. Heide 1986, ISBN 3-8042-0343-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heuck, Christian. In: Reichstag Handbook, 7th electoral term. 1933, p. 290 , accessed March 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Heinz-Jürgen Templin: Odyssey of the blood shirts. In: Wöhrden-Online. December 23, 2016, accessed March 7, 2019 .