Café Lück

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Steinweg 22, corner of Theaterwall 1: “Café Lück”, and “Park-Hotel” around 1910.

The Café Lueck , 1909 as Park-Hotel called, was a well-known and exclusive café and hotel in Braunschweig , which at the corner Steinweg 22 / Theaterwall was operated one from 1861 to 1961. It was the scene of two historically significant events during the National Socialist era in Braunschweig.

history

The Steinweg around 1898: On the right the "Café Lück" built by Constantin Uhde in 1861

The three-story building was built in 1861 according to plans by the Brunswick architect Constantin Uhde for the confectioner August Lück († 1870), “Hof- Traiteur u. Grand Duke. Hessian purveyor to the court ”, built. The café was opened on September 14, 1861, only a good two weeks before the Braunschweig State Theater, just a few meters away diagonally opposite, was inaugurated on October 1, 1861.

The café soon developed into a popular meeting place for artists and theater people in Braunschweig. The conservatory- like porch on the east side, known as the “glass box”, as well as music bands that played in the coffee garden contributed to the exclusive reputation of the house. Many local and national artists and actors such as Heinz Rühmann visited the café and stayed in the hotel.

In 1895 Karl Kalms († 1938) took over the house and converted the company into a stock corporation , of which he became director. From then on, the company was called "Conditorei und Restaurant Café Lück". In the following years, the company acquired several properties in the vicinity of the café on Theaterwall and Mauernstrasse . From 1908 to 1909 he had the existing building rebuilt according to plans by the architect Otto Eggeling and at the same time added a large hotel complex, the “Park Hotel”. The reopening of the café and hotel took place on September 1, 1909.

The hotel building was damaged during the Second World War in 1944, but otherwise - in contrast to its immediate surroundings - it survived the devastating bomb attack on the city on October 15, 1944 . After the war ended, the Allies confiscated the building and used it until 1952. It was used as a hotel again until it was demolished in 1961. Today there is a modern building in the same place, in which, among other things, the "Café Haertle" is located.

Historic place

Naturalization of Adolf Hitler

ZörnerErnstEmil.jpg
Federal Archives Picture 146-1989-011-13, Hans Frank.jpg


Two participants in the meeting of February 17, 1932:
Ernst Zörner and Hans Frank

Two significant events for the recent history of the city and country of Braunschweig took place in the “Café Lück” . They are directly related to the rise and end of National Socialism in Braunschweig.

The first event took place on February 17, 1932: At around 10:00 p.m., NSDAP politician Ernst Zörner , President of the Braunschweig State Parliament and friend of Adolf Hitler, and Zörner's brother-in-law , Braunschweig entrepreneur Carl Heimbs (Heimbs Kaffee), a board member , met in the café of the German People's Party (DVP) and probably also Friedrich Alpers , NSDAP member, Braunschweig minister and members of the SA and SS . Hitler's legal advisor, Hans Frank , also came from the Berlin party headquarters of the NSDAP especially for this meeting .

The reason for the meeting was the  attempts to naturalize Adolf Hitler , which had been carried out since around 1925 - partly in a conspiratorial manner . After several of these attempts had failed, some spectacularly, in the previous years, a number of NSDAP politicians and national conservative members of the Braunschweig Landtag had been busy since early 1932 to obtain Hitler's German citizenship for the presidential elections on March 13, 1932 . To Hitler from the countryside Braunschweig should - not from the city of Braunschweig - the place of a Government Council at the Brunswick Legation Imperial Council in Berlin will be procured.

The meeting ended when Heimbs offered to present himself to Heinrich Wessel (DVP), Vice-President of the Braunschweig State Parliament, and to campaign for Hitler's naturalization. As a result, only one week later, on February 25, 1932, Hitler was employed by the State of Braunschweig as a member of the government at the State Culture and Surveying Office with compulsory service as a clerk at the Braunschweig embassy in Berlin.

Ulrich Menzel describes "the meeting at the Parkhotel [as] the key event that explains [sic!] Why, despite the many concerns and opposition, [Hitler] was granted naturalization in time." The historian and politician Ernst shared this assessment August Roloff , founder of the civil unity list (BEL).

Handover by the city of Braunschweig

The second event took place in the early morning hours of April 12, 1945. Less than a month before the end of World War II, units of the 30th US Infantry Division of the 9th US Army approached Braunschweig from the west in order to take the badly destroyed city without a fight if possible.

After the surrender negotiations at the Wedtlenstedter Schleuse (about 10 km west of the city center) between Leland S. Hobbs , the commanding general of the 30th US Infantry Division and Lieutenant General Karl Veith , Braunschweig's last combat commander, failed after a few minutes on the evening of April 10th and the city was bombarded by heavy artillery for hours on April 11th, several columns of US vehicles drove into the city on various routes in the evening to explore them and to hand over the city. The problem with the US troops was that they had no city ​​maps of Braunschweig.

Main entrance to the café and hotel around 1911. On the right the “glass box”, here Germans and Americans met on the night of April 11th to April 12th, 1945.

Therefore, shortly after 01:00 on April 12, four US vehicles with a lieutenant and some soldiers stopped in front of the "glass box" of Café Lück, which they had apparently mistaken for a taxi stand , probably to get maps . They entered the building and were studying a map of the city when a police patrol came in and informed them that the mayor Erich Bockler (who had not been in office for ten hours at this point) wanted to speak to them. Hours earlier, Dietrich Klagges , Prime Minister of the State of Braunschweig, had asked the director of the Park Hotel Hans Joachim Kalms to be available as an interpreter for negotiations with the Americans because of his good knowledge of English . So the Americans initially went to the ministry with Kalms, but Klagges could not be found there. Finally, everyone went to the nearby police bunker in Münzstrasse , where the two-sided protocol of the handover was signed by Erich Bockler and Police Captain Karl-Heinz Stahl on April 12, 1945 at 02:59 and handed over to the Americans. The war was over for Braunschweig.

Karl-Joachim Krause described these two events at the same place in his book Braunschweig Between War and Peace , published in 1994 . The events before and after the capitulation of the city on April 12, 1945 as the " stair joke of history ":

"The beginning and end of the National Socialist regime in Braunschweig can therefore be identified in the same place."

- Karl-Joachim Krause: Braunschweig between war and peace. The events before and after the capitulation of the city on April 12, 1945. p. 73.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Robert L. Hewitt: Workhorse of the Western Front. The Story of the 30th Infantry Division. Part five - The Battle of Germany. Washington DC 1946, ISBN 978-0-89839-036-0 , p. 262.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Menzel : The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. Research reports from the Institute for Social Sciences (ISW), the Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2014, ISSN  1614-7898 , p. 110.
  3. ^ Karl-Joachim Krause: Braunschweig between war and peace. The events before and after the capitulation of the city on April 12, 1945. p. 73.
  4. ↑ a b c Dieter Heitefuß: Memories of old Braunschweig 1930–1960. Braunschweig 1995, ISBN 3-9803243-3-8 , p. 48.
  5. ^ A b Norman-Mathias Pingel: Lück, Café. In: Luitgard Camerer, Manfred RW Garzmann, Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf, Norman-Mathias Pingel (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . P. 148.
  6. ↑ Jürgen Hodemacher : Braunschweigs streets - their names and their stories, Volume 1: Innenstadt. Cremlingen 1995, ISBN 3-927060-11-9 , p. 307.
  7. ↑ website of the "Café Haertle"
  8. ^ Ulrich Menzel: Annotated Chronicle for the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. Pp. 109-110.
  9. ^ Ernst-August Roloff : Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich. Hanover 1961, p. 93.
  10. ^ Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich. P. 94.
  11. ^ Letter from State Minister Küchenthal to the Braunschweig Ambassador Friedrich Boden in Berlin. on vernetztes-gedaechtnis.de
  12. ↑ Naturalization - Professor Hitler - Contemporary History. In: Der Spiegel . dated September 27, 1961.
  13. ↑ Ulrich Menzel: The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. P. 110 and p. 278 (“Breakthrough”).
  14. ↑ Ulrich Menzel: The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. P. 263.
  15. ↑ a b Copy of the conversations between Werner Spieß , director of the Braunschweig City Archives , with hotelier Hans Joachim Kalms around May 1, 1945. Two typewritten pages, signature of the Braunschweig City Archives: H III 2: 85, sheet 1.
  16. ↑ Claudia Böhler: Dr. Erich Bockler (1945). In: Henning Steinführer , Claudia Böhler (Hrsg.): The Braunschweiger Mayors. From the establishment of the office in the late Middle Ages to the 20th century. P. 415.
  17. ↑ Wolfgang Ernst: Places of survival - Bunker in Braunschweig. From planning to the present. in: Braunschweig workpieces. Volume 108. Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-42-4 , pp. 124-128.

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 '57.7 "  N , 10 ° 31' 50.3"  E