Bremen at the time of National Socialism

The time of National Socialism in Bremen began with the appointment of the NSDAP politician Richard Markert as Police Senator of Bremen on March 6, 1933, one day after the Reichstag election . In the history of the city of Bremen , the Nazi era  , which lasted over twelve years - as everywhere in the German Reich  - was characterized by the oppression and persecution of minorities. The National Socialists set up several labor camps in which prisoners of war and supporters of the anti-fascist resistance had to do forced labor under the most difficult of conditions , and hundreds of them died in the process.

The years of the Nazi dictatorship were, besides the French period in Bremen (1810–1813), the only time since 1646 during which the Hanseatic city did not exist as a federal state or a free city , but was incorporated into a territory. This Reichsgau Weser-Ems with a " Reich governor " for Bremen and Oldenburg at the top, in personal union also Nazi Gauleiter was Weser-Ems, had its headquarters in Oldenburg (Oldb) . In May 1939 , Bremen, with over 354,000 inhabitants , was ranked 19th on the list of the largest German cities in the “Greater German Reich” .

More than 4,000 people were killed and large parts of the city were destroyed in the 173 air raids on Bremen during World War II. With the invasion of British troops on April 26, 1945, the National Socialist tyranny ended.

politics

The rise of National Socialism in Bremen

On December 2, 1922, the first local NSDAP group in Bremen was founded in the house in front of the Steintor 181 . Its membership was between 80 and 100 from 1925 to 1927. The city was assigned to the NSDAP Gau Lüneburg - Stade (from 1928 East Hanover ) chaired by Bernhard Rust .

Around 1928 the NSDAP received only 1.1 percent of the vote in the Bremen citizenship elections . The local group was divided and its chairmen changed frequently. From September 1928 it was subordinate to the Gau Weser-Ems with its seat in Oldenburg (Oldb) . Its leader, Carl Röver , dissolved the Bremen local group and re-established it. Three party districts were formed in the city: Neustadt, Ost and West.

On December 11, 1929, Röver appointed Kurt Thiele as the new local group leader. Under Thiele, the importance of the party in Bremen grew in line with the trend in the empire and due to the beginning global economic crisis . At the beginning of 1930 ten new districts were established in the city.

In the run-up to the Reichstag elections on September 14, 1930 , Adolf Hitler visited the Hanseatic city for the first time. On July 30, he gave a campaign speech in the Weser Stadium . In the election, twelve percent of the voters in Bremen voted for the NSDAP, in the Reich 18.2%. In the general election on November 30, 1930, Hitler gave a speech on November 28 in the Casino event center . The NSDAP now had 1,000 members in Bremen, received 25.4% of the votes and was able to move into Bremen's citizenship with 32 members.

Election results in Bremen	Citizenship 11/30/1930	Reichstag November 6, 1932	Reichstag March 5, 1933
NSDAP	25.4%	21.2%	32.6%
SPD	31.0%	31.8%	30.4%
DVP	12.5%	8.5%	5.4%
KPD	10.7%	17.4%	13.2%
DNVP	5.7%	18.7%	14.9%
DStP	4.1%	1.2%	1.0%
center	2.1%	2.0%	2.3%

On the streets of Bremen there were now more and more fights between right and left groups. Two National Socialists died in 1931. On May 2, 1932 Otto Bernhard was appointed the new local group leader. This enforced that the Bremen local NS group was upgraded to a NS group on July 1st. The district administration was initially located at Rembertistraße 32 , then at Breitenweg 8 and finally at Hollerallee 79, today's registry office. In the Reichstag elections in July 1932 , around 31% of Bremen's votes went to the NSDAP, which was again well below the nationwide result of 37.3% in the city. In the following weeks, consideration was given to setting up a separate party district in Bremen, which led to serious disputes with the Weser-Ems Gauleiter Röver. In the next Reichstag election on November 6th , which took place only four months later because of the unstable political situation, the NSDAP suffered a severe loss of votes in Bremen and only achieved 21.2% (minus 10 percentage points), while it was in the Reich despite Losses remained the strongest political force with 33.6% (minus 3.7 percentage points). Hitler came to Bremen on October 28, 1932 to discipline the divided local party organization.

When Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, the majority of Bremen's citizens initially reacted with restraint. In the course of the propaganda that began soon afterwards and the simultaneous systematic persecution of its political opponents, the NSDAP experienced a tremendous boom in Bremen as in the Reich.

"Seizure of power" by the NSDAP

The Reichstag election on March 5, 1933 made this clear. With a result of 32.6 percent, the NSDAP returned to the level of July of the previous year. Nevertheless, the party in Bremen once again remained well below its result in the entire Reich, where it received 44.5% of the vote.

On the day before the elections, the district leader Otto Bernhard called for a reshuffle of the Senate and the dissolution of the citizenship. One day after the elections, a large crowd gathered in the market square in the morning, demanding the resignation of the Senate with chants. Protesters hung some small swastika flags on the facade of the town hall.

After consulting with Senator Wilhelm Kaisen , Mayor Martin Donandt decided to have the police clear the market square. Police Colonel Walter Caspari , however, expressed doubts that the police could refuse to take action against the demonstrators. The question was unnecessary, however, since the crowd had initially dispersed.

Hundreds of people showed up again in the afternoon. At 3 p.m. a swastika flag was drawn over the shield of the Roland . An hour later a delegation of the National Socialists, led by Gauleiter Röver and Kreisleiter Bernhard, entered the town hall and repeated their demands for the reshuffle of the Senate and dissolution of the citizenship. In the event that these could not be fulfilled, they put forward an alternative condition: the three social democratic senators should give up their office and police power should be placed in the hands of the NSDAP. The Senate did not give in at first, but agreed to hoist the old imperial flag in black, white and red . The SPD senators Kaisen, Kleemann and Sommer resigned. However, since the Senate refused to respond to further demands, the Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick appointed Richard Markert as the new Bremen Police Senator that evening . Thereupon the Senate immediately agreed to dissolve as soon as the Bremen citizenship had created the constitutional basis for it. This news was communicated to the waiting crowd at 8 p.m. and an hour later the swastika flag was waving from the Bremen town hall .

After the members of the SPD and KPD were soon deported to prisons and concentration camps or had to go into hiding as a result of the Reichstag fire ordinance of February 27, the NSDAP and DNVP had an absolute majority in the Bremen citizenship.

Just a few days after the resignation of the old Senate, a number of the influential personalities of the upper-class business districts of Bremen paid their respects to the acting mayor Markert and congratulated him on taking office. Among them were the president of the Chamber of Commerce Gustav Scipio , its vice president Wilhelm Biedermann, the director of the cotton exchange Ernst Schier, the director of the Dresdner Bank ( Bremer Bank ) Alfred Hölling as well as the coffee Hag owner Ludwig Roselius and the director of the Atlas works Rudolf Blaum . Numerous congratulatory telegrams from individuals and associations of various social groups to the new Senate, which date back to March 1933, document the efforts of broad circles of the Bremen bourgeoisie to come to terms publicly with the new rulers as early as possible.

On March 16, Vice President Biedermann gave a speech at the stock exchange meeting of the Bremen merchants in the presence of representatives of the new Senate, in which he first presented in detail his version of the stab in the back , which emphasized "armedlessness and defenselessness [Germany] in the midst of an armed Europe" then declared:

“What the efforts of patriotic circles - I also remind you of our deserved fellow citizen Adolf Vinnen - did not succeed in wartime, which the best hoped for in the following 14 years under constant humiliation , was achieved by the current Chancellor Adolf Hitler in a long and tough struggle . A nationally thinking, externally self-confident, internally striving for economic recovery and social justice has awakened anew. "

Contrary to the actual autarky efforts of the new rulers, he declared that “Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler fully recognized the importance of strong foreign trade and wants to work for it.” He concluded the speech, which received “lively approval” at the end, with the request “to At this hour to confess to our German fatherland, to its glorious history and to the belief in German strength and German international standing ”, with which the ideas of an elimination, which are very widespread in circles of the influential Bremen economic bourgeoisie - as in the Weimar Republic as a whole - the "Versailles Peace Dictate" and the armament to become a renewed German great power finally seemed to take concrete forms.

In the course of the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists, Colonel Caspari also had to resign on April 10, although he had spoken out against police operations at the demonstration four days earlier. As compensation, he was subsequently made police general. The dismissal of Casparis was largely met with incomprehension. The writer and Prussian Major General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck also expressed open criticism. In May 1933, Interior Minister Frick finally appointed Gauleiter Carl Röver as Reich Governor for Bremen and Oldenburg. The state of Bremen had thus lost its independence for the first time since the Napoleonic era .

Administration of the NSDAP from 1933

At the beginning of March 1933 the position of the district leader was filled. Paul Wegener took over the position of Bernhard, who had been appointed senator . He was replaced by Bernhard Blanke in July 1934. This stipulated that a local group should have at least 50 members. If it does not do this, it can be described as a base. The division into local groups and bases had already been decided two years earlier. The number of local groups and bases was to increase from 29 at the end of 1933 to 56 in 1939. Each local group consisted of individual cells, each consisting of four to eight blocks. These blocks were divided into 40 to 60 house communities each.

On December 14, 1934, Hitler made his third major visit to Bremen. It was his first official visit to the city as “Führer and Reich Chancellor”. He attended the launch of the East Asian steamer Scharnhorst on the AG Weser . On the way back, his special train collided in Walle with a bus full of amateur actors, resulting in several deaths. Hitler himself continued his journey to Berlin. Almost five months later, on May 4, 1935, Hitler's last visit to Bremen took place, during which he took part in a test drive of the Scharnhorst. Another visit to the Hanseatic city was planned for July 1, 1939. The inauguration of the west bridge built between Neustadt and Stephaniviertel (today's Stephanibrücke ), his presence at the launch of the heavy cruiser Lützow and a speech in the Weser Stadium were planned. However, the critical foreign policy situation prevented the visit.

During the territorial reform of 1939, the northern local groups of Bremen (Grambke, Burg and Vegesack ) were combined into a new district of Bremen-Lesum , which should eventually contain 14 local groups. Otto Denker became district leader there.

The Nazi Gauleiter Weser-Ems Carl Röver died on May 13, 1942. Paul Wegener, who had been district leader in Bremen from March 1933 to July 1934, was appointed as his successor. Wegener deposed the Bremen district leader Blanke, his own successor, and instead gave the office to Max Schümann (who fled on April 25, 1945). The district leader in Lesum, Denker, was replaced by Karl Busch on November 1, 1942. The district management had meanwhile withdrawn to a bunker in the public park to protect against air attacks .

Bremen district leader:

• July 1, 1932 – March 1933: Otto Bernhard
• March 1933 – July 1934: Paul Wegener
• July 1934 – May 1942: Bernhard Blanke
• May 1942 – April 1945: Max Schümann

Lesum district leader

• November 1939–1. November 1942: Otto Denker
• November 1, 1942-25. April 1945: Karl Busch

Bremerhaven district leader

• around 1930 to 1934: Julius Lorenzen

Nazi organizations

As in the whole of the German Reich , there were numerous National Socialist organizations in Bremen as a means of bringing the population into line. While the majority of these groups had already existed as small, insignificant groups before the Nazis came to power in 1933, some were only brought into being after the "seizure of power".

storm Division

The first National Socialist group in Bremen was the Sturmabteilung (SA). It first appeared in the Hanseatic city in 1926 and at the end of the year had almost 40 members. The group was led by Friedrich Gravemann until 1927, who then switched to the KPD. His successor was Hans Haltermann from Berlin. Under his leadership, the Bremen SA grew to 60 men in 1927. Her main tasks were the so-called hall and demonstration protection, which she often enforced with violence. At the end of 1930 Werner Wegener took over the leadership of the group, which in February 1930 was increased by a 44-strong reserve force. The number of members doubled in the following months, and in 1931 the organization in Bremen had 700 members.

The prohibition of the SA from April 18 to June 18, 1930 did not detract from the increase. On the contrary: a few weeks after the ban was lifted, 1,500 members were counted. The group was now large enough to set up an offshoot, Standard 73. The Bremen SA was subordinate to the SA group "North Sea" under the direction of Wilhelm Freiherr von Schorlemer, which had its seat originally in Hanover and since the beginning of 1933 in Bremen (Rembertistraße 32). This was followed by moves to Delbrückstrasse 18 and then to Hollerallee 75. The SA group "North Sea" had other branches in Bremen that did not belong to the local group there, such as Brigade 62 "Unterweser" at Kohlhökerstrasse 61 (later relocated in the Holleralle 81), the Marine Brigade 2 and the Reiter-SA. After the Röhm putsch in 1934, the SA in Bremen visibly lost its power over the SS. It remained a strong and large group.

Hitler Youth

In early 1930 a group of the Hitler Youth (HJ) formed in Bremen . In 1932 the membership increased from 150 to 500. While the Bremen HJ group had been a sub-ban in its early years, it became a ban in October 1932, the leadership of the HJ area 7 "North Sea" (identical to the NSDAP area "Gau 37 Weser-Ems") in Oldenburg under. Area leaders were u. a. Lühr Hogrefe and Willy Lohel (until 1945), and for the Association of German Girls (BDM) in the Hitler Youth Hilde Wenzel. After the "seizure of power", the number of members increased considerably due to new entrants and the forced integration of the Bündische Jugend and the Stahlhelmjugend in April 1933. The Bremen HJ-Bann (HJ-Bann no. a. HJ-Oberbannführer Carl Jung, HJ-Bannführer Heinz Wichmann (until October 7, 1936), HJ-Oberbannführer Herbert Finkentey until 1941, HJ-Oberbannführer Schröder. The last leader was HJ-Oberbannführer Johann-Martin Segelken (1914-1991) from Farge , from February 24, 1944 to April 1945. Johann-Martin Segelken was a co-founder of the NSDAP local group in Farge on October 10, 1931, since December 1 1934 full NSDAP member no. 3010919, multiple wounded first lieutenant of the NS-Wehrmacht, and decorated with the golden HJ badge of honor. Johann Martin (and not, as of Herbert Black Forest specified, Heinrich) Segelken, NSDAP district leader Busch and Nazi party member and SA-Hauptsturmführer Senior Government Fritz Köster were on May 1, 1945 when the local commander of the 50th Army Corps, General Rasp , Presented in Wallhöfen near Osterholz to secure the surrender of Bremen-Nord to the English without a fight. Johann-Martin Segelken lived in Urach / Wuerttemberg in 1947 and was denazified by the Spruchkammer in Nürtingen in November 1947 (classification in category III "minor offenders", sentenced to 3000 RM fine and 3 months of clean-up work, which he carried out in 1948 on his parents' farm at Rekumer Str. 1 was allowed to do).

The HJ-Bann 75 comprised 18 simple sub-groups (tribes), 4 naval tribes, 3 aviator tribes, 1 aviator followers, 4 motor tribes and 4 message followers. The naval HJ had a ship at the Kaiserbrücke . From 1938 membership in the "State Youth" was compulsory. The "military training" was a central task from 1939 on. The Hitler Youth tried to achieve a priority with the Kinderlandverschickung since 1941. HJ members were deployed as flak helpers , which led to conflicts with the schools. Since 1944 the Hitler Youth was used in the entrenchment service on the North Sea coast. After the devastating Allied bombing raid on Bremen in the night of August 18-19, 1944, the Hitler Youth posted slogans the next day: "The Bremen Hitler Youth replied, Mr.Churchill: We march through night and hardship for Hitler." From October 1944, the HJ was the third contingent in the Volkssturm to build anti-tank traps.

The German Jungvolk (DJ) was a youth organization of the Hitler Youth for boys between 10 and 14 years, who were called Pimpfe , since 1931 . The transition from DJ to Hitler Youth was celebrated annually until 1944.

National Socialist Teachers' Association

The National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB) had already formed a small local group in Bremen in 1930, which, however, remained meaningless for the time being. Its chairman was Walther Kreikemeyer. From 1933 the NSLB's influence on school life in Bremen grew. The members represented Nazi ideology in schools and ensured that teachers who might not support the system were fired. The “ Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service ” of April 11, 1933 also excluded all so-called “non-Aryans” from civil service. In addition, the NSLB later operated the Kinderlandverschickung in cooperation with the NSV . Kreikemeyer was appointed district administrator in 1933 and district manager in 1934. The headquarters of the association, the district administration, was located at the Domshof before it was forced to move to the house Schüsselkorb 3 in 1942 due to destruction by Allied air raids .

National Socialist company cell organization

In Bremen, like everywhere else in the Reich, the National Socialist Company Cell Organization (NSBO) was formed at the beginning of the 1930s . It was founded in the Hanseatic city in January 1931. It acted as a union in the companies. As early as 1932, the Bremen NSBO ​​had almost 1,500 members. The NSBO ​​experienced an upswing when the National Socialists "seized power" in 1933. For example, they won 25 percent of the votes in the Bremen works council elections in March of the same year. The Labor Day celebrations (May 1st) were organized by her after some of its members had occupied the union house for a short time on April 18th . A new occupation took place on May 2nd. The union leaders were replaced by NSBO ​​officials and the individual unions were brought into line with the German Labor Front (DAF). In June 1933 the DAF already had a good 12,000 members in Bremen and by May 1934 had 27 local groups, which were divided into company cells, street cells and street block cells. In the autumn of 1934, the DAF vocational school was founded with its headquarters at Am Wall 179, which was renamed the Reinhold Muchow School two years later . The organization, to which 53 Bremen local administrations already belonged in 1938, had a large network of sub-groups with which it tried to control all operations. In the war years, the DAF was responsible for both the supervision of the labor camps of prisoners of war in Bremen and the work of women in the factories. The last propaganda event of the German Labor Front in Bremen took place on January 18, 1945 in the Glocke .

protection Squad

On May 15, 1931, the first Bremen Schutzstaffel (SS) was formed from 30 Bremen SA members by a decree of the leader of the SA subgroup Weser-Ems (Oldenburg headquarters), SA Oberführer Otto Herzog (politician) . In 1931 Otto Löblich took over the leadership of the new SS storm. In 1932 the city became the seat of Sturmbann II / 24, who had his seat at Herdentorsteinweg 37. However, this was later outsourced. In 1933 the SS in Bremen already had 200 members. Bremen was the main base of section XIV. The section headquarters was initially on Lothringer Straße, then at Rembertistraße 18 and, since 1936, in Haus Riensberg, today's Focke Museum . The Bremen SS had control of Standard 88. During World War II, many SS members were drafted into the military, which is why the influence of the organization waned during these years.

In Das Große Bremen-Lexikon Herbert Schwarzwälder states that there were "numerous representatives of the Bremen economy who were 'supporting members of the SS'".

National Socialist People's Welfare

The National Socialist People's Welfare Association (NSV) had its headquarters in Bremen in the Schüsselkorb three building after it was founded in 1933 as a welfare organization of the NSDAP. In essence, she took on charitable tasks that church organizations had previously carried out. During the war she collected donations, organized the deportation to Kinderland , looked after refugees and those who had been bombed out, and set up people's kitchens. In 1940 the main office moved to Rockwinkler Landstrasse 69, the so-called Hartmannshof.

National Socialist Motor Corps

The headquarters of the "Motor Group North Sea" of the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), which was spun off from Motor-SA in 1934, was located at Delbrückstrasse number 18 . Their area of ​​influence was the NSDAP-Gau Weser-Ems. The group had the Motor Brigade 62 at General-Ludendorff-Straße number 132. The NSKK ran a motorsport school in the Strom district of Bremen .

State and government

senate

After the entire resignation of the Senate on March 15, 1933, a new Senate was formed on March 18 under Richard Markert (NSDAP) (representative Otto Flohr (DNVP)) consisting of six senators from the NSDAP and three from the German National People's Party (DNVP).

Walter Caspari , once designated as a police senator by the NSDAP, had to say goodbye as police chief. The office of Senator for Law, Police and Internal Constitution was initially illegally transferred on March 8th by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick to the Governing Mayor Markert and from March 18 to the SA-Sturmbannführer Theodor Laue (NSDAP).

On April 11, 1933, the senators were given departmental responsibility and the deputations were dissolved. Legal scholars could be appointed by the Senate without the previous election committee.

The State Administration Act of October 1, 1933 made the President of the collegial Senate a Governing Mayor with authority to issue guidelines. The now five departments (economy, finance, education, home affairs as well as justice, labor, technology and welfare) were led by six senators.

See also : List of Senators from 1933 to 1945

mayor

Since the "seizure of power" by the National Socialists, there has been a governing mayor in Bremen from October 1, 1933. The addition of rulers should emphasize his leading position in the practically powerless Senate. The mayors from 1933 to 1945 were all members of the NSDAP:

• March 18, 1933-23. October 1934: Ernst Otto Richard Markert (acting on March 18 - September 30, 1933)
• October 29, 1934-16. April 1937: Karl Hermann Otto Heider
• April 16, 1937-16. June 1944: Johann Heinrich Böhmcker
• July 1, 1944-26. April 1945: Richard Duckwitz , acting

Bremen State Council

On August 1, 1933, a powerless, rarely meeting Bremen State Council with up to twenty members was set up to advise the Senate. The mostly political NS, SA and SS members (including NS politician Kurt Thiele (1933–1942?), SS police leader Alfred Rodenbücher (only 1933), NS district leader Julius Lorenzen , SA leader Horst Raecke (1935 / 36)) were represented by some conservative representatives (retired Senator Erich Vagts DNVP, 1933–1945), Regional Bishop Heinrich Weidemann , General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck , retired businessman Senator. D. Hermann Ritter (1933–1945), businessman Karl Lindemann , President of the Chamber of Commerce Karl Bollmeyer (1939–1945) added.

Takeover and conformity

With the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933, the Reich Government was also able to change the federal structures of the Reich, contrary to the Reich Constitution. The coordination in the Reich also affected the federal states. Through the first Gleichschaltungsgesetz ( provisional law for the synchronization of the states with the Reich ) of March 31, 1933, the right to legislate the state passed from the state parliament to the state governments.

Resistance to the takeover of power in Bremerhaven was broken until March 28, 1933, when Bremen's Mayor Markert dismissed Mayor Waldemar Becké ( German State Party ) and unlawfully appointed the NS district leader Julius Lorenzen (NSDAP) as provisional mayor. The NS auxiliary police occupied the town hall theatrically. In Vegesack, too, Markert dismissed the mayor Werner Wittgenstein (German State Party) on March 29th and appointed SA Storm Leader Westphal as acting mayor. In the rural communities of Bremen, the SPD community leaders were dismissed on March 18.

The alignment then took place without any problems in the municipalities of Bremerhaven and Vegesack as well as in the rural communities on the basis of the Law of Equalization of March 31 and the laws of May 15 and June 30, 1933 passed by the Senate. replaced by a mayor's constitution and the mayors could be appointed by the governing mayor of Bremen. The SPD was excluded from the city council on May 15.

In neighboring Prussian Wesermünde , where the SPD was still the strongest party, the SPD mayor were removed from their posts on March 29, 1933. Lord Mayor Walter Delius ( German People's Party ) remained in office until 1945. After 1933 he became a member of the NSDAP.

Citizenship

The citizenship was limited under President Kurt Thiele (NSDAP) only to an advisory role. The SPD was excluded by ordinance on July 7th. On October 14, 1933, the Reich government dissolved all state parliaments and transferred the tasks to the state governments. On January 30, 1934, all popular representations were finally abolished by the law on the rebuilding of the Reich .

Reich Governor

With the second law for the alignment of the states with the Reich of April 7, 1933, the Reichsstatthaltergesetz , the independence of the states was further dissolved. Bremen and Hamburg did not succeed in establishing a Hanseatic governorship with Hamburg and Lübeck. The Reich Ministry of the Interior , in agreement with Markert and the Senate, ensured that the Gauleiter in the Weser-Ems Gau Carl Röver (NSDAP) was appointed joint Reich Governor for Oldenburg (Land) and Bremen on May 8th . The city of Oldenburg and not Bremen became the seat of the governor and Bremen had to “pay homage” to Röver's entry into Bremen on May 13th.

Power struggle

From March 1934, there were increasing conflicts between Mayor Markert and the coarse governor Röver, especially when he demanded that Bremen become an administrative district in the Weser-Ems area. Markert tried to weaken the influence of the NSDAP Gauleiter Röver on Bremen. The dispute with party trials and mutual accusations led Hitler to send Reich Minister Hanns Kerrl to Bremen as an "arbitrator". Markert was deposed on October 23, 1934. His successor was the previous Senator Karl Hermann Otto Heider (NSDAP).

Hitler visits Bremen

Hitler was in Bremen several times:

• 1932: On the occasion of the election campaign at that time in the stadium on Osterdeich
• Dec. 1934: To visit the AG-Weser shipyard ; Tens of thousands await him in the main train station. The children received no school, the shops were closed, the buildings were flagged.
• July 1939: the visit was canceled.

dishes

As in the whole of the German Empire , the judiciary in Bremen was greatly simplified and standardized. As a result, several courts were partly or completely omitted from 1939 onwards.

With a law of September 14, 1933, a higher administrative court was established in the city. The judicial control of the National Socialists led to a break with a Bremen tradition. Up until now, the presidents of the Bremen Regional Court had been elected in the self-administration of the judiciary through the trust of the judges in office. However, after Adolf Meyer retired on March 31, 1936, his successor Karl Rüther was appointed directly by Roland Freisler , then State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and later President of the People's Court .

On August 28, 1939, the decree on the simplification of administration was passed . This had significant consequences for Bremen. On the one hand, the tax court in Bremen , which was occupied by officials from the tax offices, was dissolved and, on the other hand, Section IV, Paragraph 2 of the ordinance stated that it was at the discretion of the competent administration whether an administrative judicial procedure should take place. Since the administration often did not consider this necessary, the administrative court hardly received any entries or complaints. It persisted, but negotiations were very rare. The Bremen District Court was dissolved and divided up in 1943.

Special dishes

The non-pardon of Walerian Wróbel, who was sentenced to death by the Bremen Special Court on July 8, 1942 .

On March 15, 1940, a special court was set up at the Bremen Regional Court . Its nominal chairmanship took over the district court president Karl Rüther. His deputy was the district court director Emil Warneken, who usually chaired the court sessions. A chairman, two judicial assessors and a prosecutor were present at the negotiations, which usually lasted a good two months and were held in public. The prosecution led Eduard Loose. A special department of the public prosecutor's office was assigned to the special court under the direction of the First Public Prosecutor Waldemar Seidel.

The Bremen Special Court was responsible for clarifying certain violations of the law in times of war, such as listening to " enemy broadcasters " and making critical statements against the state or its leadership (see the Treachery Act ), criminal offenses using the obligation to blackout, looting after air raids and theft at the post office and the railway (in each case according to the Ordinance against Pests of the People ), violations of food rationing and the prohibited handling of prisoners of war . Although the defendants were entitled to a defense counsel, the sentences were mostly harsh. The proceedings could be resumed but were used extremely rarely; Even approved pardon requests by the convicted were hardly successful.

From 1940 to 1945 911 people were indicted in 536 proceedings before the special court that sat in the regional court building at Domsheide 16. 108 acquittals, 83 fines, 700 imprisonment sentences and four pardons were compared with 55 death sentences , 43 of which were carried out - mostly in the prison of the Hamburg Higher Regional Court and in Bremen announced by red posters. Usually, death sentences were only pronounced against so-called “ pests of the people ”. From 1943 on, the penal laws were massively tightened with a view to the intensifying bombing war and the poor general situation in order to create deterrent examples. The death sentence against 17-year-old Walerjan Wrobel became widely known , as a memorial plaque commemorates.

The last trial took place on April 24, 1945, three days before the Allied invasion. Three days later, the British dissolved all German courts.

police

The Senator for Internal Administration was Theodor Laue (NSDAP) from 1933 to 1937 and Hans-Joachim Fischer (from 1931 NSDAP) from 1939 to 1945 . His representative Georg Pott (since 1933 NSDAP) was responsible for the management of the police headquarters.

In 1936, by decree, Hitler linked the party office of Reichsführer SS with the new state office of Chief of Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior . Heinrich Himmler assumed the office and initially formed the two main departments of the Ordnungspolizei (OrPo) with SS-Obergruppenführer Kurt Daluege and the Security Police (Sipo) with SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich as their head. The Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSuPF) in Hamburg was responsible for Bremen . The police stations in Bremen were subordinate to the Bremen Senator. The Reichsführer SS and his departments were able to issue instructions to the Bremen police.

In 1938 a police law of the Senate transferred the powers of the previous police headquarters to a police president (SS-Oberführer Curt Ludwig until 1941). Police Colonel Johannes Schroers (NSDAP since 1933) became the commander of the police in 1938

The State Police , from October 1935 Secret State Police (Gestapo), was formally subordinate to the Interior Senator with the authority of the Reichsführer SS, represented since 1939 by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

The security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD), from 1935 also a state agency, was an independent agency in the Reich with intelligence tasks. The SD had also been part of the RSHA since 1939

See also : Police Bremen

Culture

School system

The conservative, racially fanatic school senator Richard von Hoff (NSDAP) kept the liberal school reformer Karl Kurz , appointed in 1932, as the state school supervisor. In 1933, 44 communist and social democratic teachers were dismissed and other teachers were given leave of absence or were transferred to prison sentences. The three experimental schools in Bremen run by young social democratic teachers were closed. Several school principals lost their management positions. The Bremen teachers 'union was transferred to the NS teachers' union and the NSLB increased its influence. In 1933 only 52 (= 3%) teachers were in the NSDAP; In 1937 633 teachers were also party members. Gradually, Nazi school councilors moved into the authority. In 1933/34, heredity and racial hygiene became subjects of instruction. The Hitler salute became binding. In 1934 the Reichslesebuch replaced the old Roland primer in the primary schools as a NS version . The history book Volk und Führer was introduced for higher schools . Regular flag honors were introduced in the schoolyard and Hitler speeches were broadcast over the loudspeaker. The Low German language should be cultivated through lessons. By the end of 1934, many Nazi educators then held important positions as senior and district school councilors in the school administration and as headmasters.

In 1936, English became the first foreign language in the curriculum. By decree of the Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education in 1937 the grammar schools were given the uniform designation Oberschule . Only the old-language old grammar school kept its name. In 1938 the secondary schools were named after the Nazi victim Horst Wessel , colonialist Carl Peters , General Lettow-Vorbeck , Captain Paul König , Africa researcher Rohlfs or colonial merchant Lüderitz . The two Catholic private schools became public in 1938.

During the Second World War , upper-class students increasingly graduated from high school and then became soldiers. Over a thousand pupils had to do auxiliary services for the Hitler Youth (HJ) instead of lessons and guard and messenger services for the police and party and for the Wehrmacht as HJ naval helpers , flak helpers and air force helpers . Since 1941/42, children increasingly had to be evacuated from bomb-threatened Bremen. More than 5,000 children were sent out through Kinderlandverschickung . At the end of 1944, schoolchildren had to do digging work around Bremen. In Volkssturm also the youth of the vintages were used from 1925 to 1928 and the Wehrmacht.

See also : Bremen school system

Cultural institutions

• Kunsthochschule: An important change in art policy was the transformation of the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule in 1934 . to the Nordic Art School . It was supposed to “draw from the foundations of the German-Nordic folklore, to help build a species-specific culture” in the Nazi state.
• Museums: Director Hugo Schauinsland was dismissed under unworthy circumstances in 1933 at the Municipal Museum for Natural, Ethnic and Commercial Studies (today the Überseemuseum ) . Under his successor Carl Friedrich Roewer , the museum was initially called the State Museum for Natural, Ethnic and Commercial Studies, and from 1935 onwards the German Colonial and Overseas Museum with special exhibitions on the colonies and racial studies.
• Libraries: The trade union library (Central Workers' Library) in the Volkshaus was taken over by the Nazi organization Deutsche Arbeitsfront in 1933 . The reading hall Bremen association was dissolved on May 19, 1933 and the director Arthur Heidenhain (1862–1941) retired at the end of 1933. The Bremen State Library at that time , headed by Hinrich Knittermeyer, took on this task of the still independent library in the basement of its building on Breitenweg, which was connected to the Central Workers' Library and the library of the Winter Relief Organization to form the Volksbücherei working group . All holdings were "cleaned up" in accordance with the National Socialist ideology under the direction of Knittermeyer. H. socialist, Jewish or critical literature removed. In 1936 the name was changed to Volksbüchereien and the Nazi activist Dr. Kurd Schulz as head. During his term of office he continued to actively " clean up " the stocks and "replace" them, preferably with peasant and local novels, as he had done before in Thuringia . He emphasizes the modernization of library facilities that he has promoted "as an instrument for National Socialist decision-making and training".

Church in Bremen

The church welcomed "the new era" with flags, bells, festive services and speeches. She declared in 1933 that the official church was "fully behind the efforts of our ruling men to lead our people to unity". Many pastors, however, were reluctant to campaign politically for the NSDAP. Cathedral preacher Heinrich Weidemann (NSDAP since 1933), however, on April 25, 1933, called on the church to rid itself of everything Jewish. Three days later, 36 out of 51 pastors welcomed “the new era” and a Protestant German Reich Church . In September 1933, the Bremen Evangelical Church was incorporated into the Reich Church. In 1934, Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller (NSDAP) appointed Weidemann as regional bishop of Bremen. In the DC circuit of the German Church which "was also leader principle " was introduced.

Pastor Gustav Greiffenhagen from the St. Stephen's Church in Bremen and his congregation contradicted the official church. The Stephanigemeinde protests against the establishment of the imperial church and in September 1933 eleven parishes (including St. Wilhadi in Utbremen) joined the protest. They rejected the Führer principle. Greiffenhagen was a founding member of the Confessing Church in Bremen in 1934 , to which nine pastors in Bremen professed. The Protestant Church was divided into groups, such as that of the German Christians around Weidemann or the Confessing Christians as opposition and other groups. In July 1934 Greiffenhagen was prohibited from exercising his office. At times he was taken into protective custody by the National Socialists . He found the support of many parishioners and pastors.

The Catholic Church had no difficulties. In September 1933, the Bishop of Osnabrück Wilhelm Berning said in Bremen: “We German Catholics love our new state and are loyal to it.” The Catholic private schools were initially allowed to remain under strict state supervision. In 1938, the mayor Heinrich Böhmcker , who was hostile to the church , managed to get the two Catholic schools to become state-owned in 1938.

The hostility to the church among the rulers but also among the population, combined with leaving the church, increased. In the autumn of 1935, Weidemann separated from the German Christians and founded the Coming Church movement , which advocated a “de-Jewified” “nationality”. The naming of two churches in Bremen after Reich President Hindenburg and SA leader Horst Wessel was even rejected by the National Socialists. There was considerable tension between Reich Church Minister Hanns Kerrl (NSDAP) and the radical regional bishop Weidemann, so that Kerrl wanted to remove Weidemann from this office as early as 1936. Weidemann was expelled from the NSDAP in 1938, dismissed as regional bishop in 1941 and from the Bremen State Council in 1942.

All church circles were silent on Jewish policy. Occasionally, however, Protestant church representatives campaigned for baptized Jews.

Military in Bremen

The Wehrmacht was also represented in Bremen from 1935 onwards as a result of the rearmament promoted by the Nazi regime . The headquarters of the 22nd Infantry Division was located at Rembertistraße 28. The barracks on Stader Straße housed the III. Battalion of 65th Infantry Regiment, as well as Nebelabteilung 2. Panzerabwehrabteilung 22, Artillerie-Regiment 58 and Nachrichtenabteilung 22 were housed in the barracks on Niedersachsendamm left of the Weser. The individual locations were relatively fixed before the war, but were changed and changed at regular intervals from 1939 to 1945. The navy had its seat in Bremen at Bahnhofsstrasse 32, and the air force was entitled to an area at Bremen airport .

Everyday life in Bremen from 1933 to 1939

Almost eleven months after the National Socialists 'seizure of power', construction of a motorway in Bremen began on November 25, 1933. The first groundbreaking was celebrated with a lot of propaganda effort and the construction was presented as a successful job creation measure. In fact, emergency workers were used for the construction in the majority . According to the law on job placement and unemployment insurance of July 1927, such measures were promoted by the Reichsanstalt with loans and grants if the work was in the public interest. While there were still 467 emergency workers in the Bremen employment office in April 1931, their number fell to four by March 31, 1932. However, the National Socialists needed them in order to be able to realize their ambitious building projects, and so on January 31, 1934 2,588 were already registered.

During the construction phase, which was very exhausting for the residents because of the noise and the dirt, the Bremen economy exhibition took place from June 9th to 24th, 1934 on the Bürgerweide north of the old town . The city's political leadership wanted them to be understood as compensation for the inconvenience. This event, also known as the Braune Hansamesse in post-war Bremen , was planned and organized by the Institute for German Economic Propaganda . Exhibitors included industrial and agricultural companies, cultural institutions, various National Socialist organizations and the city's public transport and waste disposal companies, who provided information about their work or presented new products.

Bremen 1938: View through Obernstrasse, hung with swastika flags, to the southeast

Shortly afterwards, the city took over the Weser Stadium from Werder Bremen and changed the name to Bremer Kampfbahn . From then on, sport only played a subordinate role there. The grassy area was primarily used for party meetings of the NSDAP or propaganda events such as Wehrmacht Day . Air raid exercises also took place here from the summer of 1934.

On July 25, 1936, the motorway from Bremen to Hamburg was opened to traffic. A good three weeks later, on August 17th, one day after the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Berlin , Bremen hosted the so-called Post - Olympic Games . At this event, Japanese swimmers competed against the German Olympic team, and international athletics competitions as well as demonstrations by German and Finnish gymnasts took place on the arena. In addition, a handball game of the US men's national handball team was played against a selection from Lower Saxony.

A little over a year later, on November 27, 1937, the Bremen section was extended with the opening of the so-called Blockland Autobahn . The new piece had two exits (Bremen-Mitte and Lesum) and was inaugurated in the presence of Fritz Todt , General Inspector of German Roads.

In 1938, another major exhibition followed from May 25 to June 19. It was called Bremen - Key to the World and took place in 18 halls on the Bürgerweide . In 1939 a single home was set up in Georgstrasse . The house was originally a hostel for home , in which wandering craftsmen, the homeless and strangers could find accommodation for the night. It had already been converted into a people's inn in 1936. The inauguration of the West Bridge was celebrated on July 1, 1939. For its construction, which took three years, part of the Stephaniviertel had to be demolished. When it was officially handed over, the construction was named Adolf Hitler Bridge. In return, the Great Weser Bridge had to give up this name, which it had had since April 1, 1933, and was now called the Lüderitz Bridge.

Press

The synchronization of the press began in 1933 when the Bremen publishers were incorporated into the Reich Association of German Newspaper Publishers in Berlin. The press was centrally directed by the Reich Propaganda Ministry. From August 1933 the Gau Propagander leader Ernst Schulze, appointed by Berlin, was responsible for the Gau Weser-Ems (with Bremen) until 1942.

The SPD newspaper Bremer Volkszeitung (Bremer Bürger-Zeitung) was banned on March 2, 1933, and its printing company Schmalfeldt & Co received the Bremer National Socialist newspaper for use.

NSDAP news bulletin

The official NSDAP news paper in Bremen until 1945 was the Bremer Zeitung (BZ), which has appeared twice a week since January 10, 1931 under the name Bremer Nationalozialistische Zeitung . It cost 15 Reichspfennige per unit and 2.30 Reichsmarks per month  . Since 1931 it has been published every working day, later every seven days of the week. Funding was often jeopardized by repeated bans in the Weimar Republic and an initially low circulation of 3,000 copies. From 1933 onwards, this did not change despite the sharp increase in circulation from 18,000 copies in June 1933 to 32,000 the following month. The newspaper had to be funded by the state. On November 1, 1933, the name was changed to Bremer Zeitung , and in May 1934 the NS- Gauverlag Weser-Ems GmbH Bremen took over the printing and increased the circulation to 35,000 copies by 1937. The newspaper was mainly used for party propaganda and, during the war, for spreading perseverance slogans.

Newspapers in the state of Bremen

The bourgeois newspapers of Schünemann Verlag in Bremen were the conservative-liberal Bremer Nachrichten (BN) (1937 circulation: 63,000) and the economically oriented, most recently liberal-national Weser-Zeitung (1933 circulation: 80,000). In 1933 the Bremer Nachrichten welcomed the new government and all measures against the communists. After only minor criticism, the newspaper was banned for three days on March 13, 1933. The two newspapers were more cautiously but repeatedly warned and banned again for three days in early 1934. A criticism of the improper behavior of the Hitler Youth even led to the siege of the BN by the Hitler Youth. An application for a ban by the Hitler Youth was not approved by either the Reich Ministry of the Interior or the Reich Ministry of Propaganda.

In 1934 the two newspapers merged to form Bremer Nachrichten with Weser-Zeitung . In July 1936 the two publishers Walther Schünemann (1896–1974) and Carl Eduard Schünemann II (1894–1980 ) were expelled from the Reich Press Chamber by the Reichsleiter for the Press Max Amann (NSDAP). The book and newspaper publishers had to be separated and the newspaper publisher had to accept a 51% stake in the NS Vera publishing house . The publisher Carl Schünemann secured his position in 1937 by joining the NSDAP.

In Bremerhaven there was the Nordwestdeutsche Zeitung (today Nordsee-Zeitung ). Publisher Kurt Ditzen joined the NSDAP in 1937.

See also : Bremer Zeitungswesen  and Bremen Publishing

Persecution, coercion and oppression

As in the entire German Reich, the NSDAP tried to suppress all resistance in Bremen from the start. In the first year of National Socialist rule alone, 1,400 people were taken into protective custody, 450 were arrested for "high treason" and 26 were brought to justice. In the police station at the Wall were interrogated for political reasons arrested and then spent in prisons and penitentiaries, what today a memorial plaque. The prisoners received a so-called "special treatment" in the "Gossel House", the former Red House of the KPD at 95 Buntentorsteinweg . The Gestapo prisoners sat in the Ostertorwache . A sculpture "The Freedom Fighter", donated by the GDR sculptor Fritz Cremer , was erected in the ramparts in 1984 and dedicated to Cremer to his murdered friends from the Schulze-Boysen / Harnack group .

Jews in Bremen

The Jewish community in Bremen had 1,438 members in early 1933. and thus made up 0.2 percent of the urban population. The main synagogue was located at Kolpingstrasse 6. It was designed in 1876 according to plans by J. D. Dunkel. Another smaller synagogue with a capacity of 100 visitors stood in the Aumund district on the corner of Neue Straße and An der Aumund Church. With the Jewish cemetery in Hastedter Deichbruchstrasse, the community also had its own burial site.

As in the entire German Empire, Jews were discriminated against and persecuted in Bremen during the Nazi era. A few weeks after the NSDAP came to power, there was already open hostility towards the Jews, which culminated on April 1, 1933 in a boycott of Jewish businesses organized and monitored by the SA . However, this was rather negatively received by the people of Bremen and not adhered to. To the population the discrimination against Jews appeared to be unfounded, unjust and unworthy. She held back, as it was called at the time, “moderately back”. A lawyer received a letter of thanks from the Jewish community for openly criticizing the boycott. A contemporary witness from Bremen reported:

“[…] In 1933 a boycott of Jewish shops was called for. My mother - not “friendly to Jews” - then ordered me to put on my young people's uniform and get bread from the Gröger baker on Ostertorsteinweg, where we would not otherwise buy. There was a boycott poster on the shop window, and an SA guard stood in front of the shop entrance to get in my way. I answered their slogans with a snout; confused, they backed away. […] By the way, other people also bought in the shop. "

The yellow star

On the night of November 9-10 , 1938 , the so-called Reichspogromnacht or “Reichskristallnacht”, the Jewish cemetery was devastated and many Jewish graves were desecrated. Shops and private houses of Jewish owners were looted, and in some cases destroyed. Both synagogues in Bremen were destroyed by SA men . At the location of the former synagogue at Kolpingstrasse 4-6 , a memorial plaque on the Kolping House has been commemorating this event since 1982.

During this pogrom night, five Jewish fellow citizens were murdered by the National Socialists within what is now Bremen's urban area and a neighboring community : Martha Goldberg and Adolph Goldberg , Heinrich Rosenblum, Leopold Sinasohn and Selma Zwienicki (also Selma Swinitzki). A memorial created by Hans D. Voss near the Landherrn-Amt building has been commemorating them since 1982 . In memory of Martha and Dr. Adolph Goldberg in 1985 on the initiative of students in a public square in Burglesum Goldberg Place renamed.

Shortly after the Reichspogromnacht, the overwhelming majority of male Jews - including 162 of them to the Oslebshausen prison - were first rounded up and then transported to various concentration camps , where they only had to stay for a short time before they were allowed to return to Bremen. Here they were advised to emigrate abroad with their families as soon as possible. The Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration , headed by Reinhard Heydrich , was supposed to accelerate the organization of the emigration of German Jews. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany , which was set up with the 10th ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act, was called in for support. When the war began in September 1939, it became almost impossible for German Jews to leave Germany. On October 18, 1941, Heinrich Himmler finally prohibited the entire Reich from allowing Jews to emigrate. By 1941 around 930 Jews from Bremen had managed to emigrate.

Since the November pogroms, some private houses served as Jewish houses , such as the house at Kohlhökerstraße 6. It is known that until at least 1941 in Parkstraße 7 and Löningstraße 3 several Jews were admitted to these Jewish houses. The Jewish cemetery was verifiably used until 1941, probably even until 1945.

Jewish children were “dispensed” from school after the November pogroms. As a substitute, first and second grade pupils have been taught at Kohlhöckerstrasse 6 since the summer of 1939.

Since September 1941, Jews throughout the German Reich were required to wear a clearly visible yellow star on their chests . Just two months later, on November 18, 1941, 440 Jews had to compete in front of the Am Barkhof school . Together with prisoners from the Stade administrative district, they then marched to the Lloydbahnhof and were deported from there by trains to the Minsk ghetto . There they had to do forced labor for almost eight months before they were killed on July 28 or 29, 1942; only six of these Jews deported from Bremen survived. Since 1991 a plaque at the main train station to the left of the main entrance has been commemorating the attack on the Soviet Union and the subsequent deportation of Bremen's Jews to the Minsk death camps.

The residents of the Jewish old people's home at Gröpelinger Heerstraße 167 were also victims. At that time there were 254 Jews living in Bremen. 114 of them were brought to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 23, 1942 . Some survived and returned after the end of the war, but many were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and murdered there.

In Bremen, in addition to those who were able to flee in time, almost exclusively Jews who lived in so-called mixed marriages , i.e. with a non-Jewish spouse, survived National Socialism . An example of this is the last acting administrator of the community and representative of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany , Karl Buck.

Concentration camps and forced laborers

From 1934 onwards, political prisoners who were captured in Bremen were transported to the Sachsenhausen or Oranienburg concentration camps . During the war there were various concentration and labor camps in Bremen. All were satellite camps of Neuengamme concentration camp . The inmates of all Bremen camps had to do forced labor in the city. Among other things, they were used in factories and shipyards. By exhaustion, hunger, cold and disease were hundreds of them died.

Camp Missler

The Mißler camp was the first labor camp in Bremen. It was built on March 31, 1933 on the site of the Mißler company on Walsroder Strasse. The approximately 170 prisoners were mainly Social Democrats and Communists. The inmates were severely mistreated by the camp supervisors, an auxiliary police set up by the SS, after which SA members then took over the guard. However, the conditions did not change. The camp was cleared on September 11, 1933. The inmates were then either brought to Langlütjen or had to do forced labor in the Ochtumsand rinsing area .

Camp Farge

The unfinished submarine bunker "Valentin" in Rekum

In October 1943, 3,000 Polish, French and Soviet prisoners were transferred from different camps to the new Farge concentration camp . The "Valentin" submarine bunker was to be built there. A total of around 13,000 forced laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners were deported to the vicinity of Farge for the construction, most of whom were held outside of Bremen. The camps were about three to four kilometers from the construction site and consisted, among other things, of an underground fuel bunker with a temporary roof and a few barracks. Camp leader of the Farge concentration camp was the Hauptsturmführer of the reserve of the Waffen SS Ulrich Wahl. The camp and the bunker construction site were guarded by 600 marines . There were a total of seven camps in the heath area between Farge and Schwanewede . Living and working conditions were very poor and at least 553 of the inmates were killed. Up to 2,000 people are believed to have died during the construction work on the bunker.

After the Bahrsplate and Schützenhof camps were evacuated and their prisoners were transferred to the Farge camp, there were temporarily over 5,000 people there. On April 10, 1945, the Farge camp was also evacuated. The poorly ill prisoners were transported by train to a camp in Sandbostel, the others had to march there. The last group was brought back to Neuengamme by train.

Hindenburg barracks

The Hindenburg barracks was on Boßdorfstrasse. On August 2, 1944, 500 Hungarian Jewish women from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp arrived in Bremen by train and were taken to the barracks. They had to sleep in the horse stables. Another transport followed at the end of the same month with 300 Polish Jewish women who also came from Auschwitz. The 800 women had to do forced labor in the city and, among other things, help with clean-up work after air raids. In the early weeks, the camp leader was SS-Unterscharführer Peter Pittmann and from mid-September SS-Hauptscharführer Johann Hille. On September 26, two of the women who remained in the camp due to illness died in a bomb drop. On the same day, the remaining inmates were transferred to the new Obernheide camp.

Camp Neuenland

Interior of the unfinished submarine bunker "Hornisse" (2006)

The Neuenland camp on the site of the steelworks in Mittelbüren existed as a Neuengammes subcamp from August 16 to November 28, 1944. (The name is misleading because Neuenland refers to the area north of Bremen airport.) The camp manager was SS-Obersturmführer Hugo Benedict . The approximately 1,000 French and Soviet prisoners of war had to do air raid work mainly on the AG Weser.

For example, a dock was supposed to be protected with concrete and converted into a submarine bunker "Hornisse" . Prisoners from the Blumenthal and Schützenhof camps were also used for this work. In the finished state, the bunker should have a length of 370 meters and a width of 65 meters; however, it was never completed.

After the truck was not transported due to a lack of fuel, the forced laborers initially had to walk the five-kilometer route to their workplaces. Because this was too time-consuming, the Neuenland camp was evacuated. The prisoners were transferred to the new Osterort camp.

Borgward warehouse

The approximately 3,000 forced laborers in the Borgward works made up almost half of all workers in the Bremen group, which also had its own small labor and concentration camp. It was built on August 25, 1944 by the SS for 1,000 Soviet and Polish male prisoners who were transferred from Auschwitz. The camp existed for a good two months before it closed again on October 12th. Some of the prisoners were transported back to the main camp or to the Farge subcamp .

Bahrsplate concentration camp

The Bahrsplate concentration camp in Blumenthal , set up by the SS on September 6, 1944, served as a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp and was located on the Bahrsplate , a large meadow directly on the Weser . The camp leader was SS-Oberscharführer Richard-Johann von Endt. About 800 male prisoners were initially held. Some of them, around 650 Jews, had to work for the AG Weser . To do this, they were transported up the Weser by ship. When the increasing danger of air raids made this impossible, this work detail was transferred to the Schützenhof camp in December. The other inmates also worked for the AG Weser, but on the nearby premises of the Bremen wool combing shop , where they assembled units for submarines. In the meantime the camp had been enlarged to 929 inmates after the relocation of one command with new prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp. These came from many different nations, including the Soviet Union, France, Belgium and Poland. On April 9, 1945, the SS dissolved the Blumenthal camp. While the Jewish prisoners were being transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , the others were taken to the Farge camp. From there they had to march to Bremervörde, from where they were brought back to Neuengamme concentration camp by train. A few were also taken to the Sandbostel reception camp.

Obernheide camp

After the Hindenburg barracks had been cleared, the 800 inmates were transferred to the new Obernheide camp in Stuhr, which consisted of three barracks. The camp leader was SS-Hauptscharführer Johann Hille and supervisor Gertrud Heise . As before, the women had to clean up. However, some of them were also assigned to the Lüning & Sohn and Rodiek companies as forced laborers . The Uphusen camp was specially built for Rodiek . Initially, the transport to the workplaces took place by train, after the destruction of the Stuhr train station by truck. When the fuel ran out, the women had to walk the more than 20 kilometers. At least ten prisoners in the Obernheide camp were killed. Finally the barracks were evacuated on April 4, 1945. After a long walk, the prisoners in Uesen met the inmates of the Uphusen camp and had to walk on to Verden , from where a freight train took them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Osterort camp

The Osterort camp was the successor to the Neuenland camp and took over all prisoners. His barracks were on the premises of the Norddeutsche Hütte AG . As in Neuenland, the warehouse manager was Hugo Benedict. As before in the old camp, most of the prisoners had to help with the construction of the “Hornisse” submarine bunker. However, 50 of the 1,000 inmates were assigned to their own work detachment. They were used on the blast furnace of the Norddeutsche Hütte AG . The camp was evacuated on April 6, 1945. The prisoners were initially transferred to the Farge camp. From there, part was transported to Neuengamme concentration camp and another part to the Sandbostel reception camp near Bremervörde .

Schützenhof camp

Starting in December 1944, around 650 Jews who had been transferred from the Bahrsplate concentration camp were held prisoner in the Schützenhof camp not far from the Weser AG. Their main task was the construction of the "Hornet" bunker. In the last weeks of the war, the need for labor sank due to a lack of materials, and some of the forced laborers had to clean up the city. On March 25, 1945, 582 inmates were still alive after more than 200 prisoners had died from exhaustion and malnutrition. On April 8, the prisoners were transferred to the Farge camp, from where they were either transported back to Neuengamme, Bergen-Belsen or Sandbostel two days later.

Camp Uphusen

In October 1944 the SS approved the construction of an Uphusen labor camp not far from the Bremen border. It was supposed to function as a branch of the Obernheide camp. On February 7, 1945, around 100 Hungarian Jewish women were relocated to Uphusen. The camp consisted of a barrack on the premises of the Rodiek company . There the women were mainly used for forced labor in concrete production. A smaller part of the inmates had to work in Uesen for the Diedrich Rohlfs company, which manufactured makeshift homes. On April 4, the small camp was evacuated, and after walking to Verden, the prisoners were transported from there to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp together with the inmates of the Obernheide camp who had joined them in Uesen .

Hashude Housing Welfare Agency

In Woltmershausen , the Hashude Housing Welfare Institution , a camp-like settlement with 84 houses for 500 so-called " anti-social " people was created. Its residents were brought together here because Bremen was to become a city free of beggars and "anti-social" people. They were supposed to be reeducated and not allowed to leave the institution. The compulsory housing facility existed from 1936 to 1940.

Bremen during World War II

The war initially affected Bremen only marginally. However, the city was an important industrial location, especially the German war economy . These included the three large shipyards AG Weser , Bremer Vulkan / Vegesacker Werft , aircraft ( Focke-Wulf , Weserflug ) and vehicle construction ( Borgward / Goliath ), steel production (Norddeutsche Hütte, now ArcelorMittal Bremen ) and the two oil refineries in Korff / DAPG and Vacuum Oil . That is why there was permanent alert, because because of these operations one always had to expect to become the target of Allied air strikes.

From around 1942 onwards, the “ Metal donation of the German people ” started to collect raw materials for the armaments industry. For this purpose, numerous bronze figures from Bremen monuments, statues and fountains were dismantled and melted down. In this way, for example, the Gustav Adolf monument, the war memorial 1870/71, the Kaiser Wilhelm I monument, the first Franzius bust on the Great Weser Bridge (then Lüderitz Bridge ) and the Wilhadi fountain at the Domshof disappeared .

Air strikes

1943: Air raid on Bremen

On March 24, 1940, Royal Air Force (RAF) planes dropped tens of thousands of leaflets over the city, which at that time had a population of around 425,000, warning of a close air raid. In the attack almost two months later on May 18, 1940, 16 people died. On June 4, the British issued the first Bremen bomber directive, which set oil refineries and aircraft factories as primary targets. In July, a second directive put the Bremen shipyards with their submarine construction first. From September the RAF regularly flew night raids. The third bomber directive of October 30, 1940 called for demoralization of the population through nightly area bombing . These extensive bombings intensified the damage that had previously remained relatively minor. The next directive focused the main focus of the RAF on the aircraft works and shipyards in the Bremen area. On the night of February 12th to 13th, 1941, there was a targeted attack on the Focke-Wulf aircraft works.

The situation worsened when most of the German fighters were withdrawn for the war against the Soviet Union . In the early morning hours of October 21, 1941, 92 RAF aircraft dropped around 140 tons of bombs on Bremen.

During the next major attack, 170 RAF aircraft dropped 246 tons of bombs in the night of June 3rd to 4th, 1942. The RAF used over 1,000 bombers in the major attack on June 26, 1942: almost 600 houses were destroyed; 86 people died. Flak and Luftwaffe fighters were able to shoot down 49 RAF bombers. The following attacks were carried out by a smaller number of aircraft, but caused significantly more damage. The next night on June 28, 1942, the next attack with 144 machines took place.

From June 1941, the police banned photography of bomb damage. The painter Willy Menz made drawings of the ruins during the bombing with the permission of the Senator for Internal Administration Hans-Joachim Fischer , which he later depicted in oil paintings. His painting Bremen - Osterstr. September 14, 1942 is in the Joseph Hierling Collection of the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt .

From the beginning of 1943, the 8th US Air Force , the so-called Mighty Eighth , also flew daytime attacks against industrial plants in Bremen from bases in eastern England . The RAF continued to only fly night attacks. The main targets of the USAAF were the Bremer Vulkan (March 18th), Focke-Wulf (April 17th) and the AG Weser and the Atlas-Werke (June 13th). In the first year, the USAAF suffered considerable losses in these attacks despite the weakened air defense forces in Bremen. The heavy night attacks by the British increased again from October 8, 1943. Gradually, Bremen looked more and more like a large field of rubble. The remaining industrial facilities were evacuated as a precaution. Numerous children left Bremen for their own protection when they were sent to the Kinderland . During the attack on December 20, the Neue Börse on the market square burned down .

The heaviest air raid of the entire war hit the city on the night of August 18-19, 1944. 273 aircraft dropped 1,120 tons of bombs over the densely built-up west of the city, killing 1,053 people. On August 30, USAAF bombers dropped another 917 tons of explosive devices. On September 1, the 118-meter-high tower of St. Ansgarii in the old town, which was then the tallest in the city, collapsed and fell onto the nave . The church was badly damaged; the side walls and the Zütphen chapel were largely preserved. The reason for the collapse was an explosive bomb that had hit the foundation a year earlier. On October 6, 246 RAF aircraft bombed Bremen's old town again. In addition to the single home , the Astoria Variety Show and the Raths Pharmacy were also hit. The attack of October 12, 1944 was aimed at the Borgward parent plant in Sebaldsbrück , which opened in 1938 ; In neighboring Hastedt, the Goliath factory , which also belongs to Borgward, was completely destroyed. In 1944, more cultural monuments were destroyed in downtown Bremen than in any other war year. Among others, fell on plans by Lüder von Bentheim in the style of Renaissance built granary , the St. Stephani Church , the portal of the little river bridge, the sun pharmacy Sögestraße  18 (also a design Bentheim) and the Pflügersche house on the Schlachte 31 B victim to the bombs.

View over the destroyed Walle to the southeast towards the center. The bunker Zwinglistrasse in the middle between Utbremer (left) and Wartburgstrasse

In February 1945 bombs fell on AG Weser again. The state archive on the Tiefer was destroyed by an attack on February 24th . On March 11, 1945 the USAAF dropped 861 tons of bombs and tried to destroy the Weser bridges. On the night of March 21st to March 22nd, the Adolf Hitler Bridge (West Bridge, today Stephanibrücke ) was badly damaged and completely destroyed on March 30th. Part of the Jewish cemetery was destroyed in an air raid on April 20. The last Allied air raid hit Bremen on April 22nd, when the district of Hastedt was the target. Among other things, more than 100 explosive bombs were dropped on the Weser weir, 12 of which hit the structure in full. As a result of the explosions, the individual sectors sagged and released the flow cross-section above the solid foundation. As a result, the water runoff increased sharply and the water level in the Upper Weser fell rapidly. 61 people died and 76 were injured in this attack.

In just over five years, the Allies flew a total of 173 air raids on Bremen, dropping 5,513 tons of explosive devices, killing more than 4,000 residents. In addition to the city center, almost 65,000 apartments were destroyed, which at that time corresponded to around 62 percent of the living space. The west of Bremen with the districts of Walle and Gröpelingen was particularly hard hit .

Ground fighting

Following Hitler's decree of September 25, 1944, members of the Volkssturm were also recruited in Bremen from November . All “men who are capable of weapons between the ages of 16 and 60” who have not yet fought were used. So that the young people could also be obliged, after completing the seventh grade they received a maturity note in the certificate with which they could be drafted into the labor service. In Bremen, the Volkssturm organized itself into companies. The company and Unterführer were mostly middle-ranking SA members. The management of the action in Bremen was incumbent on the district leader Max Schümann . A total of around 25,000 men and boys were registered for the Volkssturm in the city. Among them were 500 Hitler Youths . The swearing-in of the people liable to the Volkssturm took place in Bremen on November 12th. This was immediately followed by military training. Mainly the handling of the bazooka was taught. The operational readiness for the Volkssturm was not particularly high in Bremen because of the obvious hopelessness of the fighting. In April 1945 only about 3,000 Volksstürmer were still in action in the Hanseatic city.

From February 1945, the Allies dropped leaflets via Bremen that reflected the actual course of the war and were in stark contrast to Nazi propaganda . The headings were something like

British across the Rhine - tank battle in the Ruhr (March 24)

or

Hanover and Bremen: Before the end (April 10)

Since April 8th, Bremen was under artillery fire with interruptions from the British troops advancing from the south, which had already taken Stuhr and were now facing artificial flooding. On April 20, between 6:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., the Allies fired around 400 grenades with leaflets into the city, which contained the following text:

---

THE CHOICE IS YOURS!

The British Army stands before Bremen. Supported by the

British Air Force, she is about to invade the city.

to take. - There are two ways of taking it:

either

using all the army and air force for

Available funds. You have nothing to do with

can resist in the long run

or

through the occupation of the city after unconditional

gift.

The choice is yours

between these two possibilities.

It weighs on you

responsibility

for the resulting unnecessary blood loss, if

you choose the first way,

Otherwise

sends a negotiator under the protection of the white

Flag in the British positions.

We give you 24 hours to decide.

---

The font caused lively discussions among the population. Gauleiter Wegener , Kreisleiter Schümann , Mayor Duckwitz and Police President Schroers then met and decided not to respond to the ultimatum, which Wegener announced to the Bremen residents via a radio address and through the newspaper. Immediately after the expiry of the ultimatum, the aforementioned air raid on Hastedt followed.

British troops in Bremen on April 26, 1945

The British were able to overcome the floods (see Defense section ) without much difficulty. They also got across the small river Ochtum , as the Wehrmacht's demolition of the bridge over the water was very inadequate. The capture of the Neustadt by the XXX. Corps of the 2nd British Army under the leadership of Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks on April 25 came as such a surprise to the National Socialists in charge that they hurriedly ordered the inner city bridges over the Weser to be blown up so that the Allied ground troops could not cross the river . The middle section of the large Lüderitz Bridge (Great Weser Bridge) and the part of the Kaiser Bridge (now the Mayor Smidt Bridge ) that crossed the Weser were destroyed.

After two days of house-to-house fighting , British troops marched into the ports of Bremen and the old town. This ended the dictatorship of the National Socialists in the Hanseatic city, nine days before the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht .

Several months later, on July 28, the Governor of the American Military Government , Lt. Col. Bion C. Welker , informed the President of the Bremen Senate in a letter:

"Dear Sir,

The official time of the occupation of Bremen is 1800 hours 27th April 1945."

defense

Air raid

The National Socialist leadership attached great importance to air defense early on, so that years before the war began, regular exercises were carried out in the event of an air raid.

The high bunker on Scharmbecker Straße in the Ohlenhof district of Gröpelingen

As early as March 31, 1933, a commissariat for air guards, air and gas protection was set up in the city, which was a branch of the Reich Air Protection Association .

A year later, a Bremen authority for air protection followed, in which all service bodies responsible for air protection (for example the police, the air protection school, plant security and technical emergency aid) were brought together. Since 1934 air defense exercises have been held regularly on the "Bremer Kampfbahn" ( Weserstadion ). In 1935 the state government passed a law according to which every citizen had to take part in air raids. In addition, the text of the law contained requests to darken. The air defense agency only existed for two years; It was dissolved in 1936. In their place, the police now served as the central administration for civil air defense. Because Bremen was classified as a first order air raid shelter in 1937 , the construction of shelters was accelerated rapidly.

At the outbreak of war and the first air raids by the Allies, however, not enough bunkers had been completed for the population, so that earth bunkers and fragmentation trenches were also dug. It was not until October 1940 that the construction of around 150 air raid shelters was planned - in accordance with the “ immediate Führer program ” .

For this purpose, the Security and Emergency Service (SHD) was created. This included the repair service (the successor organization to technical emergency aid ) and the Bremen fire brigade . In 1942 the SHD was absorbed into the air raid police .

On November 6, 1940, construction of the first high-rise bunker in Bremen began on Zwickauer Strasse. 116 bunkers had been built in the city by the end of the war. In the following year, several underground bunkers, including under the station square and the Domshof, were completed. Because of the considerable material requirements for the bunkers, the reconstruction of the houses was often neglected. Forced laborers were also used to build the shelters.

Anti-aircraft

During the Second World War, however, numerous anti-aircraft guns (flak) were set up in Bremen in the preceding years .

The first batteries were built on April 5, 1937 in the northern district of Grohn. From January 1 of the following year, the Flak Division I. Flak Regiment 27 had its headquarters there, which was renamed Flaka Division I. Flak Regiment 26 in November 1938 . The Grohner air defense was made up of lightweight 2-cm-aircraft guns ( Flak 30 / 38 ), the average 3.7cm Flak and the heavy "Eight-eight" cannons together. All Bremen flak units were under the Luftgaukommando XI in Hanover, which was later relocated to Hamburg.

At the beginning of the war, the heavy artillery was positioned just outside the city limits, while the light and medium flak were supposed to protect the houses in Bremen. The Grohn anti-aircraft regiment had six anti-aircraft sub-groups. From mid-1940 the name was changed to Flakabwehrkommando Ostfriesland and Major General Hans-Jürgen von Witzendorff took over the management. The staff moved to the Osterdeich 27 building . Altogether 45 anti-aircraft batteries belonged to the Flak Defense Command Ostfriesland in Bremen, 29 heavy and 16 light ones. Many larger factories also had their own security with light flak.

Although the Bremen flak units received tracking devices in the summer of 1940, the numbers shot down remained low. The result was another reorganization, in the hope of being able to increase effectiveness: On February 10, 1941, Bremen was assigned to Flakbrigade VIII , which had its headquarters at Osterdeich 29 and consisted of the three flak groups North, South and Center. Each of these groups had four or five subgroups.

In October 1941 the 8th Flak Division was founded with the command headquarters in Osterdeich 29, but it soon moved to a bunker on Parkallee . Until December 12, 1941, Lieutenant General Kurt Wagner was in command of the division, followed by Major General Max Schaller. So there were three anti-aircraft units in the Hanseatic city of Bremen: The Flak Defense Command East Friesland , Flak Brigade VIII and the 8th Flak Division . Each of these groups had numerous sub-groups, and all were under Luftgaukommando XI.

Well-known locations of Flak in Bremen were, for example, Grohn, the Weserstadion (three flak towers), Lankenau and the company premises of Focke-Wulf . From 1942, 10.5 cm flak were also set up. In 1943 three new sections for city defense were formed. The staff of section A was in Schwanewede , that of section B in Bremer Scharnhorststrasse and that of section C in the village of habenhausen, which was not yet incorporated at the time .

Around noon on April 20, 1945, the staff of the 8th Flak Division escaped from its bunker to Worpswede . The division lost a total of 330 guns in the war, 180 heavy and 150 light.

The majority of the Bremen flak batteries were served by Russian “ volunteers ” (Hiwis) and, above all, young flak helpers and air force helpers , who were increasingly deployed from 1943 onwards. The trigger for the obligation were decrees and ordinances of various Reich ministries, which extended the age limit for use in the flak to those born between 1926 and 1928. The organization and distribution of the young people was assigned to the then director of the Lüderitz School in Dechanatstrasse, Friedrich Hackenberg. Although some schools in Bremen sent their students to Silesia and Pomerania as flak helpers, the majority stayed in the Hanseatic city. In May 1944, 1,150 helpers served in the Bremen flak batteries, 644 of them came from the Hanseatic city and the rest from the surrounding area.

Floods

Considerations to defend Bremen against the Allied ground troops by controlled flooding can be proven from 1944 onwards. In October of that year a reconnaissance staff on behalf of the Wehrmacht reached the city. On November 10th, the latter turned to the waterways directorate whether it was possible to trigger targeted floods for defense purposes. In 1945, on February 7, a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Fischer , in which the reconnaissance staff also took part. At this meeting the so-called “all-round defense” was discussed. Ten days later the staff met again, and finally on February 21 a card was sent to the Reich Defense Commissioner with the planned flood plains . The plan was to flood the Weser low above the Weser weir outside the winter dykes up to the Achim village of Bollen, as had been done quite a few times during the winter months. For this purpose, the water level should be increased to 6.00 meters above sea level. In addition, plans were made to flood the Ochtum lowlands on the left with its extensive fields and meadows south of Bremen. This was to be achieved by introducing Weser water through the Leeste-Brinkumer inflow canal into the retention areas intended for flooding and into the Ochtum itself. The aim was to create a closed body of water almost nine kilometers long and up to 1.7 kilometers wide, extending from Huchting in the northwest to Arsten in the southeast.

At the end of March 1945, the NSDAP district leader Max Schümann gave the order to begin with the necessary work. For this purpose, the technical emergency aid, the waterways office and the water management office Bremen were brought together. On the same evening, the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann , who was also “Reich Defense Commissioner North-West”, revoked Schümann's instructions. It only took the arrival of a lieutenant general on April 2 and his order at 4:55 p.m. to resume work. It began with the flooding along the so-called “Ochtum Front”, whereby in the area downstream, the water pressed into the Weser by a small storm surge only had to flow through the sluice . The flooding of the Ochtumwiesen was completed by April 8th. Some farmers had initially refused to have their fields flooded because they wanted to let their cattle out into the meadows soon, but they were convinced by propaganda arguments. In the night from April 19 to 20, the Weser lowlands were flooded by the damming at 6 meters above sea level.

The Wümme meadows northeast of the city were also flooded. The same was planned for the adjoining St.-Jürgens-Land. However, it turned out that because of the moisture and the swamp it was not passable for tanks even without artificial flooding.

Caused by the air raid on Hastedt on April 22, 1945 and the associated destruction of the Weser weir, the water level on the Upper Weser sank very quickly back to normal, so that the floods in the Weser lowlands could no longer be fed. To preserve the flooding, several sluices and dykes were closed .

Other protection

The main focus of civil protection was on fire fighting and protecting the buildings from debris or bomb fragments.

The self-protection administered and promoted by the Reichsluftschutzbund was mandatory for the population in the war years. The citizens organized themselves in house and block communities, districts and local groups. Fire guards were set up and fire alarms were set up in almost every street. Some potential targets were also camouflaged so that they could not be seen from the air. Extinguishing water ponds were created all over the city so that the fire brigade's water supply could be guaranteed at all times. Archives and museums outsourced their valuable files and art objects, while the people of Bremen tried to save their own belongings and to remove them from their houses in many places as a precaution. The most famous sights of Bremen were also protected. The arcade at the town hall was reinforced and the Roland statue on the market square was given a splinter guard.

Another important aspect of protecting at least part of the population was the Kinderlandverschickung (KLV). Although the HJ from Bremen was reluctant to take action against the KLV, as it saw its influence on the children waning, a Führer decree of September 28, 1940 urged action. It stipulated that, if possible, whole classes should be sent out, with the six to ten year olds being assigned to foster families and older children taking part in Hitler Youth camps. An important ulterior motive was that the mothers were no longer to look after their children themselves and could be used for factory work. On January 29, 1941, the first special train left Bremen with around 500 children. The respective shipments should take six months. As of August 1943, entire schools were also sent, with the exception of the sixth to eighth grades, whose students were hired as flak helpers. By March 1945, most of the children of the Bremen families were back in the Hanseatic city.

Commemoration

It was only towards the end of the 1970s that private initiatives in Bremen began to erect monuments and memorial stones in memory of the victims of the National Socialist dictatorship.

In 1978, a memorial plaque designed by Ulrich Conrad was attached to the Aumund church to commemorate the destruction of the Aumund synagogue during the November pogroms of 1938. For the former main synagogue, Claus Homfeld designed a bronze plaque that was attached to the house on Kolpingstrasse four to six (Kolping House) on June 14, 1992. Five years later, on November 18, 1997, a third commemorative plaque was placed at the entrance to the school at Barkhof to commemorate the deportation of 440 Jews on November 18, 1941, which began here. A memorial stone with the inscription set into the lawn of the Neustadt Wallanlagen is supposed to mark the same event

Never forget!

remind.

Memorial for the victims of the "Reichskristallnacht" at the Landhernn office in Schnoor

The memorial for the victims of the “Reichskristallnacht” from November 9th to 10th 1938 - the so-called Reichspogromnacht  - during which not only “crystal” and shop windows were broken in Bremen, but also five Jewish citizens were murdered by the National Socialists, has been standing since 1982 near the Landherrn-Amt building in the Schnoorviertel on Dechanatstrasse / corner Am Landherrnamt - near the synagogue on Gartenstrasse (today Kolpingstrasse), which was destroyed in 1938. The memorial , built from simple black, panel-like cubes, was designed by the Informel artist Hans D. Voss and is made of concrete painted black. The memorial bears a plaque with the following inscription:

OUR JEWISH CITIZENS
MARTHA GOLDBERG
DR. ADOLF GOLDBERG
HEINRICH ROSENBLUM
LEOPOLD SINASOHN
SELMA SWINITZKI
WERE MURDERED IN THIS CITY ON THE
NIGHT OF November 9-10, 1938

On the Osterholz cemetery there is a memorial plaque for concentration camp victims and forced laborers who had to serve in Bremen. A special project are the so-called Stolpersteine , which go back to an idea by the Cologne sculptor Gunter Demnig . They are small concrete blocks with a brass plaque. The name of a person persecuted and killed by the Nazi regime as well as their life data are engraved on it. These stones are embedded in the footpath in front of the house where the victims had their last residence before their deportation. There are around 56,816 such stones nationwide (as of January 2020), in Bremen there are 703 (as of May 30, 2013).

On August 29, 2007, the 65th anniversary of the execution of Walerian Wróbel , who was sentenced to death by the Bremen Special Court , the Deichweg in Werderland on the southern bank of the Lesum was renamed Walerian-Wróbel-Weg in a ceremony at the Lesum Barrage . In front of the criminal chamber of the Bremen Regional Court there is also a plaque reminding of all 54 people sentenced to death by the special court.

Memorial at the submarine bunker "Valentin" in Rekum

The forced laborer is also commemorated by several memorials. On September 16, 1983, a memorial created by the Bremen artist Friedrich Stein was inaugurated at the Valentin submarine bunker in Rekum had to perform. Various initiatives, such as Flowers for Farge , campaigned for the erection of the memorial .

At the beginning of 2002, the path on which the prisoners of the Farge camp were driven daily to do forced labor on the bunker construction site was marked with steles that serve as stations for a history trail.

A memorial plaque on the grounds of the Bremen steelworks commemorates the Neuenland camp, which was installed there in 1984 by the group of colleagues from the Klöckner-Hütte Bremen . The Bahrsplate memorial is intended to commemorate the camp in Blumenthal. There has been a memorial plaque since 1985 on a concrete base surrounded by a rose garden. This goes back to an initiative of the anti-fascist working group of the Gustav-Heinemann-Bürgerhaus in Bremen-Vegesack . Since 1991 the panel has been framed by two sandstone sculptures by the sculptor Paul Bichler . Another memorial commemorates the Obernheide concentration camp. It was set up in August 1988 on the former camp site in Stuhr . The camp was located outside of the Hanseatic city, but the prisoners worked within the city limits. In memory of the labor camp in Uphusen, Lower Saxony, whose inmates had to work in Bremen, in the summer of 1991 an initiative by the Geschichtswerkstatt Achim e. V. erected a memorial on Bruchweg. It bears the inscription:

In 1945 the Uphusen forced labor camp with 100 Jewish women was located here as a branch of the Neuengamme concentration camp.
In memory of the victims of fascism -
as a warning to everyone.

Legal proceedings

From 1945 to 1964, 113 people were charged with Nazi crimes in Bremen. 62 defendants were convicted, 34 acquitted, in 13 cases the proceedings were dropped by the courts and in three cases the courts refused to open the main proceedings. Four people were convicted of murder and eight of manslaughter . At one point the court ruled for life imprisonment . Eight people were released through amnesty .

The first case in 1951 against SS- Sturmbannführer (Major) Otto Löblich in 1951 was discontinued due to the statute of limitations ; In the second trial, in 1952, Löblich was sentenced to six years in prison for one jointly completed manslaughter and two joint manslaughter attempts. SS men, led by Löblich, shot at members of the Reichsbanner on March 1, 1933, injuring two and killing one.

In the 1947 proceedings against the Behring brothers for the murder of Heinrich Rosenboom in the November pogroms in 1938 , the public prosecutor demanded a life sentence. The court sentenced the defendants to six or eight years in prison on the grounds that the perpetrators had carried out the order to kill because of an internal “numbness and petrification”. The verdict led to violent public protests - it culminated in a unique general strike against an injustice judgment, a controversial discussion in the Bremen citizenship and a rally on the Domshof . The higher regional court overturned the judgment. In 1948 the brothers were sentenced to eight and twelve years' imprisonment for manslaughter . In 1951 the brothers were pardoned.

In 1948, two defendants received prison sentences of five and six years respectively for the arson at the synagogue in Geestemünde and the looting of shops. In 1953, three accused of murder and attempted murder of Jews in the Golleschau concentration camp were sentenced to prison terms ranging from life to six years.

SS- Obersturmführer (Oberleutnant) Fritz Hildebrand, Jewish clerk in the Lviv SS staff , was sentenced to eight years in prison in 1953 for aiding and abetting four murders in Lemberg during the mass murder in Lemberg in 1941 . Another trial was conducted against him with new incriminating material from the period 1943/44. He was sentenced to life in May 1967.

The couple Adolph Goldberg and Martha Goldberg and Leopold Sinasohn were murdered in the November pogroms in 1938 . The commanding SA- Oberscharführer (Unterfeldwebel) Fritz Köster was sentenced in 1948 to life in prison and on appeal proceedings to 15 years, the perpetrator SA-Oberscharführer August Frühling to ten years in prison. Eight other perpetrators received sentences ranging from two to 15 years in prison; two further judgments were softened to four years during the revision. Spring was released in 1951 and Köster in 1953.

Bremer and Bremerhaven residents in the resistance

Alphabetical list of well-known resistance fighters

• Hermine Berthold (1896–1990), worker, politician (SPD) and member of the Bremen citizenship from 1930 to 1933 and from 1946 to 1959.
• Gustav Böhrnsen (1914–1998), politician of the KPD, SDAP and SPD, SPD member of the citizenry
• Hermann Böse (1870–1943), music teacher and conductor
• Hermann Cornelius (1898–1945), member of the KPD
• Willy Dehnkamp (1903–1985), Reichsbanner
• Leo Drabent (1899–1944), member of the KPD
• Adolf Ehlers (1898–1978), politician of the KPD, SDAP and SPD, member of the SPD, Senator and Mayor of Bremen
• Hans Hackmack (1900–1970), journalist and newspaper publisher, SPD member in the Bremen citizenship
• Albert Häusler (1899–1977), KPD, DKP, VVN member, KPD member of the citizenship and Senator of Bremen
• Willy Hundertmark (1907–2002), VVN, KPD and DKP member
• Rolf Kluth (1914–1993), library director
• Hannes Koschnick († 1944), KPD and RGI functionary
• Hans Meier (resistance fighter) (1914–2000), editor and writer, member of the KPD and DKP
• Hans Meyer (1913–?), Politician of the KPD, KPD member of the citizenship
• Heinz Meyer (1897–1959), SPD politician, SPD member in the German Bundestag
• Wilhelm Meyer-Buer (1911–1997), politician of the KPD, KPD member of the citizenship
• Hans Neumann (1908–1944), KPD member
• Käthe Popall (1907–1984), KPD politician, member of the Bremen Senate .
• Folkert Potrykus (1900–1971), KPD politician, member of the Bremerhaven city council
• Gertrud Staewen (1894–1987), Protestant welfare worker, member of the Confessing Church , member of the SPD
• Franz Stapelfeldt (1877–1954), director of Großwerft AG Weser and chairman of the board of DeSchiMAG , had early contacts with the resistance group around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (hence Gestapo imprisonment from October 1944 to March 1945) - due to his leading role in building Bremen into an armaments center NS-Staats ( NSDAP member since 1936, Wehrwirtschaftsführer from 1940), his assessment is controversial in Bremen
• Anna Stiegler (1881–1963), politician of the SPD, member and vice-president of the citizenship
• Hermann Wolters (1910–1974), politician (KPD / SPD) and senator

See also

• National Socialism in Bremerhaven / Wesermünde

literature

• Jörg Wollenberg: The labor movement between self-surrender, smashing and anti-fascist resistance 1933-1945 - The example of Bremen. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue I / 2013.
• Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Volume 4: Bremen during the Nazi era . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-283-7 .
• Herbert Schwarzwälder: The seizure of power by the NSDAP in Bremen in 1933 . Carl Schünemann Verlag, 1966.
• Regina Bruss: The Bremen Jews under National Socialism . (Publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen 49), self-published by the State Archives, 1983 PDF online version
• Almuth Meyer-Zollitsch: National Socialism and Protestant Church in Bremen . (Publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen 51), self-published by the State Archives, 1985.
• Inge Marßolek , René Ott, Peter Brandt: Bremen in the Third Reich - Adaptation, Resistance, Persecution . Schünemann, 1986, ISBN 3-7961-1765-1 .
• Charlotte Niermann, Stephan Leibfried: The persecution of Jewish and socialist doctors in Bremen during the "NS" era . Steintor, 1988, ISBN 3-926028-27-0 .
• Wilhelm Lührs : "Reichskristallnacht" in Bremen - Prehistory, course of events and judicial management of the pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 . (Published by the Senator for Justice and Constitution of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen in conjunction with the Israelite Community of Bremen), Steintor, 1988, ISBN 3-926028-40-8 .
• Barbara Johr, Hartmut Roder: The bunker . Edition Temmen , 1989, ISBN 3-926958-24-3 .
• Regina Bruss u. a .: We walked through a silent city - material for schools - for the victims of the Reichspogromnacht 1938 and over the Bremen Jews from 1933 to 1945 . (Small writings of the State Archives Bremen 16, 3rd edition), self-published by the State Archives, 1991.
• Criminal Justice in Total War - From the files of the Bremen Special Court 1940-1945 , volumes I to III, Steintor-Verlag, 1991, ISBN 3-926028-70-X .
• Susanne Engelbertz: Bremen - City of Bremen, Bremen-North, Bremerhaven . (Local history guide to sites of resistance and persecution 1933–1945, Volume 6), Verlag für akademische Schriften, 1992, ISBN 3-88864-040-7 .
• Thomas Gehrmann: Under the swastika - a search for traces in the old town. In: StattReisen Bremen (Hrsg.): Bremen - tours through history. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-86680-330-5 , pp. 83-102.
• Sylvelin Wissmann: It was just our school days - the Bremen elementary school system under National Socialism . (Publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen 58), self-published by the State Archives, 1993, ISBN 3-925729-15-1 .
• Peter Kuckuk (ed.): Bremen large shipyards in the Third Reich . (Contributions to the social history of Bremen 15), Edition Temmen, 1993, ISBN 3-86108-203-9 .
• Günter Heuzeroth , Peter Szynka: Under the tyranny of National Socialism. Volume 4.2: Those who lived in the dirt . Dr.- und Verl.-Cooperative, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-925713-19-0 .
• Hartmut Müller, Günther Rohdenburg (ed.): End of the war in Bremen . Edition Temmen , 1995, ISBN 3-86108-265-9 .
• Reinhold Thiel : Bremen's air defense in World War II . Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-929902-34-6 .
• Christoph Ulrich Schminck-Gustavus : Bremen broken . Edition Temmen , 1998, ISBN 3-86108-256-X .
• Hermann Gutmann , Sophie Hollanders: War and Peace in Bremen. Pictures from 1914–1939 . Johann Heinrich Döll-Verlag , 1999, ISBN 3-88808-246-3 .
• Hans Hesse, Jens Schreiber: From the slaughterhouse to Auschwitz - the Nazi persecution of the Sinti and Roma from Bremen, Bremerhaven and Northwest Germany . Tectum-Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-8288-8046-0 .
• Susanne Gieffers: Memories of Bremen as it used to be . Wartberg Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-8313-1083-1 .
• Dieter Schmidt: Bunker "Valentin" . Edition Temmen , 2001, ISBN 3-86108-288-8 .
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Andrea Tech: Labor Education Camp in Northwest Germany 1940–1945 . (Bergen-Belsen-Schriften 6), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , 2003, ISBN 3-525-35134-8 .
• Max Markreich : History of the Jews in Bremen and the surrounding area , edited by HB Barach-Burwitz; Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-692-1 .
• Josef Kastein. What it means to be a Jew - a childhood in Bremen . Edited by Jürgen Dierking and Johann-Günther König . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2004, ISBN 3-86108-549-6 .
• Hans Hesse: Constructions of innocence - denazification using the example of Bremen and Bremerhaven 1945–1953 . (Publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen 67), self-published by the State Archives, 2005, ISBN 3-925729-46-1 .
• Bremische Bürgerschaft (Hrsg.), Karl-Ludwig Sommer: The Nazi past of former members of the Bremische Bürgerschaft. Project study and scientific colloquium (= small writings of the Bremen State Archives. Issue 50). State Archive Bremen, Bremen 2014, ISBN 978-3-925729-72-0 .
• G. Rohdenburg, K.-L. Summer: Memory book for the people of Bremen who were persecuted as Jews . (Kleine Schriften des Staatsarchiv Bremen 37), 2006, ISBN 3-925729-49-6 .
• Hans Wrobel: The burden with the history of injustice - Bremen and the justice legacy of the years 1933-1945 . Neue Juristische Wochenschrift Heft 35/1988, Beck, Munich 1998. ISSN  0341-1915
• Marc Buggeln: Concentration camp prisoners as the last manpower reserve of the Bremen armaments industry. In: Labor Movement and Social History. Journal for the regional history of Bremen in the 19th and 20th centuries No. 12; Bremen 2003.

Web links

• Search for traces Bremen 1933–1945 Internet platform of the project Remembering for the Future
• Historic.de The "Garrison Bremen" and military installations in the surrounding area
• Air raid damage 1940–1945 Photo documentation in the Bremen State Archives

Remarks

1. ↑ The Reichstag election results refer only to the Bremen votes. Sources: Herbert Schwarzwälder: Bremen in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) (= History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Volume 3), Christians, 1983, p. 609 f .; Inge Marssolek, René Ott, Peter Brandt: Bremen in the Third Reich - Adaptation, Resistance, Persecution . Schünemann, 1986, pp. 77 f., 111.
2. ^ Black Forests : Hitler in Bremen . In: Das Große Bremen Lexikon, p. 393, Bremen 2003.
3. ^ Inge Marßolek , René Ott, Peter Brandt: Bremen in the Third Reich - adjustment, resistance, persecution . Schünemann, 1986, ISBN 3-7961-1765-1 , p. 131 f.
4. ↑ Various business cards, congratulatory telegrams etc .: State Archives Bremen 3-S.1.a. - Senate in general, No. 277.
5. ↑ To classify the rally by representatives of the economy in the stock exchange in the timing of events cf. also ZEITTAFEL In: Herbert Schwarzwälder : The seizure of power by the NSDAP in Bremen in 1933 . Carl Schünemann Verlag, 1966, p. 156 ff.
6. ↑ Bremen Chamber of Commerce: Commitment of the Bremen businessman to the new government . Communications from the Bremen Chamber of Commerce, 14th year, Bremen March 27, 1933, archive of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce.
7. ↑ D. Göbel, J. Huffschmid, D. Pfliegensdörfer, W. Voss: The emperor left, the leader left - the armories remained . Disarmament working group at the University of Bremen, Bremen 1984.
8. ^ Website on collision with bus
9. ↑ State Archives Bremen Sign. 4,66-I.-10.390
10. ^ Fritz Peters: Twelve Years of Bremen 1933 - 1945 . Ed .: Historical Society, Bremen. Bremen 1951, p. 111, 256 .
11. ↑ State Archives Bremen Sign. 4,66-I.-10.390
12. ↑ Fritz Köster. Memories. Archives of the Heimatverein Bremen-Lesum
13. ^ Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Evaluation And Dissemination Section: The Hitler Jugend. (pdf) The Hitler Youth Organization. In: Basic Handbook. 1945, accessed December 12, 2018 . 
14. ↑ Erika Thies: I recognized my brother by his feet. 60 years ago the old west of Bremen went under / memory of the 18th / 19th. August 1944. In: Weser-Kurier . Bremen August 18, 2004.
15. ↑ Black Forest: Hitler Youth . In: The Great Bremen Lexicon. Bremen 2003, p. 393 f.
16. ^ Black Forests : German Young People . In: The Great Bremen Lexicon. Bremen 2003, p. 194.
17. ↑ On the smashing of the labor movement and trade unions in Bremen in 1933 cf. Jörg Wollenberg: The labor movement between self-surrender, smashing and anti-fascist resistance 1933-1945 - The example of Bremen. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue I / 2013.
18. ^ Herbert Black Forest: The Great Bremen Lexicon . Volume 2: L-Z . 2nd updated, revised and expanded edition, Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 830.
19. ↑ The Bremer Nachrichten report: “Calls for healing get loud and swell more and more. The guide rises in the car and says hello. Standing, he drives on through the Hitler Youth and the ranks of the labor service men. "
20. ↑ https://www.radiobremen.de/mediathek/audio106650-popup.html
21. ^ Hartmut Müller / Günther Rhodenburg: End of the war in Bremen. Edition Temmen, Bremen, 1995, ISBN 3-86108-265-9 , p. 109.
22. ↑ Memorial sites for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation, volume 1. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 , p. 206 f.
23. ↑ Erwin Miedtke: Arthur Heidenhain, the first librarian in the "Reading Hall in Bremen" from 1901-1933. An appreciation, in: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 96, 2017, pp. 79–101
24. ↑ Christoph Köster: The whole world of the media - a century of Bremen city library. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-673-5 , p. 51.
25. ^ Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen, 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 442.
26. ^ Hermann Gutmann, Sophie Hollanders: War and Peace in Bremen. Pictures from 1914–1939 . Johann Heinrich Döll Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-88808-246-3 , p. 119.
27. ↑ Leopold Sinasohn was murdered by an SA unit from Lesum (today part of Bremen) in his house in Platjenwerbe (today part of Ritterhude).
28. ↑ ^{a b} Herbert Schwarzwälder : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen, 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 443.
29. ↑ Alfred Gottwald, Diana Schulle: The deportations of Jews from the German Reich 1941–1945. Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-059-5 , p. 95.
30. ↑ Memorial sites for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation, volume 1. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 , p. 208 f.
31. ↑ Jörg Wollenberg: From Voluntary Labor Service to Concentration Camp - On the history of the early concentration camps using the example of Bremen-Mißler and Ahrensbök-Holstendorf . In: Informations zur Schleswig-Holsteinische Zeitgeschichte 36, 1999, pp. 3–38.
32. ↑ Farge naval tank farm (Schwanewede). relkte.com, accessed August 29, 2012 . 
33. ↑ Heiko Kania: New findings on the number of victims and forced labor camps. (pdf) 2002, accessed December 20, 2018 . 
34. ↑ Johr, Roder: The Bunker 1989. - Schmidt: Bunker "Valentin" 2001.
35. ↑ Group of colleagues at Klöckner-Werke AG (ed.): Riespott - KZ an der Norddeutsche Hütte . Reports, documents and memories about forced labor 1935–1945 . Self-published, Bremen 1984; E. Hemmer, R. Milbradt: "Strolling" threatened Gestapo imprisonment - forced labor at the North German hut during the Nazi regime . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-591-1 .
36. ↑ Marc Buggeln: Bremen Sebaldsbrück (Borg Ward). S. 386. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Hrsg.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . S. 386. 9 volumes (published until 2008: 8 volumes). CH Beck, Munich 2005–, ISBN 978-3-406-52960-3 (i. Dr .; index of contents ( memento of July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )); Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 .
37. ^ Raymond van Pée: Ik was 20 in 1944. Relaas uit Neuengamme en Blumenthal . 3rd edition, Epo, Berchem 1997, ISBN 90-6445-917-7 ; Heinz Rosenberg: Years of horror - ... and I was left to tell you . Trans. U. edited v. Hannah Vogt . Steidl, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-88243-046-X .
38. ↑ Hartmut Müller: The women of Obernheide. Jewish forced laborers in Bremen 1944/45. ed. v. Senator for Labor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Donat Verl., Bremen 1988, ISBN 3-924444-37-4 . - Lilly Kertész: consumed by the flames. Memories of a Hungarian Jew - with a documentation of students from the Cooperative Comprehensive School Stuhr-Brinkum . Ed. V. Use Henneberg. Donat Verlag , Bremen 1999, ISBN 3-931737-73-X .
39. ^ Karlheinz Gerhold: The labor camp in Uphusen . In: Home calendar for the district of Verden 1990 (published 1989), pp. 165–168.
40. ^ Willy Menz : Bremen - Osterstr. September 14, 1942. In: Joseph Hierling Collection. Expressive realism . Kunsthalle Schweinfurt . (Extinguishing work and ruins in Bremen). Ingrid von der Dollen, Rainer Zimmermann, Gerhard Finckh: The Joseph Hierling Collection. Expressive realism. P. 229, picture and picture description number 213. In: Schweinfurter Museumsschriften 166/2009. Ed .: Erich Schneider, ISBN 978-3-936042-49-8 .
41. ↑ www.spurensuche-bremen.de
42. ↑ Günther Schwarberg : I'll never forget that. Memories from a reporter's life , Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86521-560-4 , p. 116 f.
43. ^ Karl Marten Barfuß, Hartmut Müller, Daniel Tilgner (eds.): History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen from 1945 to 2005 . Volume 1: 1945-1969, pp. 87-89. Edition Temmen , Bremen 2008, ISBN 978-3-86108-575-1 .
44. ↑ Justice and Nazi Crimes Volume XI, Procedure No. 379, Az .: LG Bremen 3Ks2 / 53. See: Justice and Nazi crimes online version ( Memento from August 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
45. ↑ "I cannot breathe in this country" , Lilo Weinsheimer in Die Zeit from March 17, 1967
46. ↑ Exhibition collective: The November Pogrom 1938 in Bremen (PDF; 10.9 MB)

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 28, 2007 .