Bruno Topff

Bruno Topff, 1918

Bruno Gustav Eugen pot- (* 2 November 1886 in Potsdam ; † 9. November 1920 in Sonderburg / Sønderborg, Denmark today) was a German uniform Schneider and Marine. From 6 to 9 November 1918, he was chairman of the Sønderborg soldiers Council and put in this position, the November Revolution on the island of Als ( North Schleswig ) without bloodshed by. According to an unhistorical legend that is widespread in regional memory, Bruno Topff supposedly proclaimed the "Republic of Alsen" and himself as its president.

Life and work until the end of 1918

The former naval station in Sønderborg ( Sønderborg Kaserne )

Bruno Topff was born in Potsdam in 1886 as the son of the master builder Arved Topff and his wife Louise. The father can only have run a modest construction business because he had to move from Potsdam to Berlin-Rahnsdorf to avoid the pressure of competition. Otherwise he would probably not have apprenticed his son Bruno to a tailor. Bruno Topff eventually advanced to Oberschneidergast, as a sailor was called at the time who was responsible for the tailoring workshop of a warship or a barracks. At the beginning of November 1918 he was seriously ill with lungs in the Sønderborg naval hospital. On 5th / 6th November 1918, the news of the Kiel sailors' uprising reached Sønderborg on Als, where between 4,000 and 5,000 marines and infantry soldiers were stationed in the Sønderborg naval station. Topff then left the hospital (allegedly by jumping out of the window) and was elected chairman of the soldiers' council on November 6th.

Topff's first concern was the maintenance of public order. He had naval guards set up on the streets and forbade the serving of alcohol, no doubt to prevent the soldiers stationed in Sønderborg from getting drunk and drunk through the streets in the intoxication of their newfound freedom. Due to his political stance towards a communist or supporter of the Spartakusbund , Topff had the Sønderborg naval station and its ships no longer flagged with the imperial war flag , but with a red flag. On the morning of November 7th, Topff visited banks, savings banks and the post office in the confiscated car of District Administrator Kurt Schönberg to check the cash levels. Topff also banned the export of food from Alsen and had a portion of butter from local stocks distributed to all families in the city. In addition, Topff had Captain Specht arrested on November 7th, who wanted to take action against the revolutionaries with his soldiers. From the point of view of the mutinous sailors, Topff had thus prevented a “ counter-revolution ”. Finally, Topff attended numerous meetings in the villages of the island and spoke about the revolution. However, Topff's regime lasted less than 70 hours: on November 9, 1918, he had to relinquish the chairmanship of the soldiers' council for health reasons.

Life after the November Revolution

Topff was arrested in December 1918 and brought before the court martial of the city of Schleswig. There he was acquitted on January 19, 1919 because the suspicion of criminal acts had not been confirmed and because his peaceful revolution "perhaps prevented more radicals from taking power," as the verdict stated.

Topff returned to Sonderburg and opened a tailor's shop there. In February / March 1919, following anonymous denunciations, several unsuccessful house searches for illegal weapons were carried out. As a result, Topff wrote a letter to the editor on March 20, which was published in the Sonderburger Zeitung on April 2 and in which he presented himself not as a revolutionary but as a guardian of law and order:

“When our fatherland threatened to sink into deep, terrible chaos and anarchy on November 9th, I was one of those who had the courage to rein in an unleashed and partly unbridled crowd for the time being. Here in Sønderborg I did it all by myself. I immediately recognized the situation at the time and my only endeavor was to prevent bloodshed, robbery and looting. Who knows with what requests the rude elements among us, and there were not a few, approached me? Who knows what I silently prevented? Who saw how I had to appease here and intimidate them with a thunderstorm, here to prevent acts of violence, there to consolidate my authority? "

- Bruno Topff : Letter to the editor of April 2, 1919

On November 5, 1920 Topff was admitted to the hospital department of the Danish school for the disabled in Sønderborg. Shortly afterwards, on November 9, 1920, he died of pulmonary tuberculosis here . His widow Anni Topff reported to Berlin on the same day. She immediately transported the remains of her husband by ferry and train to Berlin, where she buried them in the New Twelve Apostles Cemetery . On November 6, 1993, on the 75th anniversary of Toppf's assumption of power , the Bruno Topff Society and the Sønderborg Municipality had a commemorative plaque affixed to his family grave in Berlin of the island of Als “.

Later legend formation

The Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske was chairman of the workers 'and soldiers' council of the city of Kiel during the November Revolution of 1918 . In 1920 he published a volume of memories in which he portrayed Topff - without naming him - as a half-mad man:

“I had a man who was on Alsen brought to the hospital twice because he had become completely insane as a result of lack of sleep. He ran away every time. For the third time I had him shown to me by gunmen and then locked in arrest. The investigation did not reveal that he had committed any serious crime. That he wanted to rule the island alone was only the result of a passing madness. The judge advised me to release him, his wife had come to take him home. The next day he came to me in a squeaky clean uniform and said, “ Mr. Governors have locked me up. I thank you for that. Now I am quite sensible again. "A year later I received a very nice letter from him."

- Gustav Noske : From Kiel to Kapp. On the history of the German revolution

Historians doubt Noske's account for several reasons: As chairman of the Kiel Soldiers' Council, he had no formal authority to remove his Sønderborg colleague. How it was supposed to be possible for him to have Topff briefed twice in his reign of only 70 hours and finally arrested remains a mystery. In particular, the orderly course of the November Revolution on Alsen should not have offered any reason to intervene.

The fact that Topff is said to have proclaimed himself president of a Alsen republic is not supported by contemporary documents, but only claimed in subsequent reports, such as B. with A. Thyssen, who wrote almost 50 years after the events - translated from Danish - (1966):

“Immediately after our arrival at the naval station in Sønderborg, we and the officers who stayed behind received the order to line up on the barracks square. A sailor in a waving striped hospital gown and cap [= Topff] jumped onto the table, whereupon he made a thunderous speech. He introduced it with the bombastic words: “ Now we have seized power and the jumping jack game is over. We have just come from Kiel, where we shot 600 officers ”. The latter luckily turned out to be a boast. For one thing, Topff had not been to Kiel, as he was known to have come from the naval hospital in Sønderborg, where he had been admitted with serious tuberculosis. On the other hand, we knew that the Kiel sailors' uprising had taken place without these alleged victims. In his speech Topff warned emphatically against any kind of resistance to the revolution by threateningly pointing out that the cannons of the armored cruiser SMS König were aimed at the barracks, which was moreover true, and that firing would take place at the slightest sign of resistance . The speech concluded with his proclaiming the island of Alsen an independent republic and announcing that the pontoon bridge that made the connection to the mainland had been broken and that as President of the Republic of Alsen he had taken over the government. Then the officers who stayed behind had to file past the table, where they had to put their sabers at the feet of "President Topff", which made a strong impression on us young sailors and must have been the worst moment in his life for a German officer. "

- A. Thyssen : Omkring "Præsident" Topff

According to the author Robert Huhle, important details such as the proclamation of the Republic in a hospital gown or Topff's alleged boasting that he was involved in the shooting of 600 officers in Kiel are based on the incorrect memory of the contemporary witness: “Imagine a man who claims that he took part in a funny bloodbath in striped hospital underwear in Kiel! ”The fact that Topff could not have sought state independence for the island of Alsen results from the fact that on November 6, 1918 he telegraphed Noske for 100,000 marks for remuneration and food of his men and on November 7th followed an order from Kiel to allow all Sønderborg fleet units to leave for Kiel, which the president of an independent republic would certainly not have done. It was probably the news of the proclamation of the republic in Germany on November 9, 1918, which was misunderstood by some residents of Alsen and referred to their own island as a local patriot.

literature

• Dorrit Andersen: "President" Potff og republikken Als - endnu engang. In: Sønderjyske Årbøger. 1985, pp. 97-136.
• Christian Bo Bojesen: President Bruno Topff og republikken Als i 1918. In: 19 myter i Sønderjyllands historie. Laursen, Aabenraa, Tønder 2002, ISBN 87-7406-073-2 , pp. 171-182.
• Jürgen Festersen: A president for three days. In: Schleswig-Holstein. 9 (2002), pp. 12-15.
• Erhart Hohenstein: Potsdamer Schneider was President , in: Potsdamer Neue Nachrichten, 7 November 2003 online .
• Robert Huhle: Bruno Gustav Eugen Topff and revolutions in Sønderborg . Bruno Topff selskabet, Sønderborg 1984, ISBN 87-87379-31-7 .
• Robert Huhle: The President. In: Democratic History. 2, pp. 163-171 (1987). on-line
• Kaj R. Nissen: Problemer omkring "præsident" Topff. In: Sønderjyske Årbøger. 1965, pp. 83-103.

Web links

• The virtual museum (vimu): The "President" of Alsen

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Hohenstein: Potsdamer Schneider was President , in: Potsdamer Neue Nachrichten, November 7, 2003.
2. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 164.
3. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 170.
4. ↑ Cf. Jürgen Festersen: Bruno Toppf (sic) : President for three days ( memento of the original of October 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: geschichte-sh.de 
5. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 164f.
6. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 165.
7. ↑ letter of Bruno pot-in Special Burger newspaper in April 1919 to: vimu.info
8. ↑ Commemorative plaque for Bruno Topff in the New Twelve Apostles Cemetery in Berlin (picture)
9. ↑ Gustav Noske: From Kiel to Kapp. On the history of the German revolution . Berlin 1920, p. 32. online . In the quotation of this passage from Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 167, and subsequently also on vimu.info , a decisive “ not ” was inadvertently turned out in comparison to Noske's original text , because there is incorrectly quoted: “ The investigation resulted that he had committed serious crimes. "
10. ↑ See Gustav Noske. on: vimu.info and Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 167.
11. ↑ Noske also seems to confuse the events of November 1918 with the results of the trial against Topff in December 1918 / January 1919, because that Topff had not committed any serious crimes was only established there.
12. ↑ A. Thyssen: Omkring "president" pot-, Sønderborg. In: Sønderjyske Årbøger. 1966, pp. 204-208.
13. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 170.
14. ↑ Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 164f.
15. ↑ Cf. Huhle, Der President (1987), p. 168 and Jürgen Festersen: Bruno Toppf (sic) : President for three days ( memento of the original from October 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: geschichte-sh.de