Colmar plot process

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

The Colmar Conspiracy Trial , named after the Alsatian city of Colmar , in which the trial took place in 1928, and the focus of the indictment, is variously referred to as the Colmar Autonomist Trial . This can be traced back to the fact that at that point in time the majority of the defendants - at least publicly - advocated autonomy for Alsace, i.e. greater self-government for Alsace within the French Republic . On the other hand, the French administration often equated the aspirations for political and linguistic autonomy for Alsace with separatism , i.e. the desire to break away from France and the alleged goal of integration into the German Empire or the Weimar Republic .

prehistory

From the end of November 1927 to March 1928, accompanied by numerous house searches , the arrest of initially around 24 people from the environment of the " Alsace-Lorraine Home League " founded in 1926 and the "Independent State Party for Alsace-Lorraine" formed in 1927, both associations with strong "autonomist" profile. Accordingly, the arrestees were often connected to magazines and newspapers with an "autonomist" color, which were banned by the authorities at the same time.

Even from the custody out competed Joseph Rossé , Eugen Ricklin , Paul sound , René Hauss and Karl Baumann to a mandate in the Chamber of Deputies . In the first ballot on April 22, 1928, Ricklin, Rossé and Hauss received so many votes that they moved into the second round on April 29, the runoff election. Ricklin and Rossé were then elected to the Chamber on April 29, 1928.

The trial in Colmar

Colmar main trial May 1928: In the background the two benches with the defense attorneys, in front, and the defendants, behind them.

Main process

The trial in the Colmar jury began on May 1, 1928 with 15 defendants. The judiciary had released nine arrested persons from pre-trial detention without charge before the trial : Karl Conrad, Hertling, North, Lobstein, Roesch, Weber, Karl Fix, Thomann and Schneider.

The 15 defendants at the start of the trial on May 1 were:

Accused: Marcel Stürmel (1919)
Accused: Paul Schall
portrait d'Eugène Ricklin
Accused: Eugen Ricklin (around 1915)
  • Karl Baumann, 32 years old, editor-in-chief of "Truth"
  • Joseph Fashauer, 47 years old, formerly a Catholic priest , co-founder of the Alsace-Lorraine Homeland Federation and the "Volksstimme", former editor-in-chief of the "Volksstimme" and the "Elsässer Kurier"
  • Agnes Fashauer-Eggemann, 32 years old, messenger of funds from Switzerland for the establishment of the "Volksstimme"
  • René Hauss, 32 years old, printer, co-founder of the Alsace-Lorraine Homeland Federation
  • Charles-Philippe Heil, 47 years old, former Protestant pastor , Alsace correspondent for the " Frankfurter Zeitung ", co-founder of the Heimatbund and of "Das Neue Elsass"
  • Joseph Kohler, 37 years old, employee of "Truth"
  • Henri Reisacher, 43 years old, confectioner
  • Eugen Ricklin , 65 years old, doctor , co-founder of the Heimatbund and the "Volksstimme"
  • Joseph Rossé , 35 years old, editor-in-chief of the "Elsässer Kurier", co-founder of the Heimatbund and Volksstimme
  • Paul Schall , 29 years old, journalist , editor-in-chief of the future, co-founder of the Heimatbund
  • René Schlegel, 34 years old, editor-in-chief of the satirical magazine Schliffstan
  • Friedrich Schweitzer, 29 years old, geometer
  • Henri Solveen, 37 years old, painter , writer , editor of the magazine "Der Eiserne Mann" and the "Alsace-Lorraine home calendar"
  • Marcel Stürmel, 28 years old, co-founder of the Heimatbund, journalist at Alsatia , a press group
  • Eugen Würtz, 36 years old, head of Colportage evangélique, co-founder of " Zukunft "

The defendants were defended by lawyers Berthon ( Paris ), Jaegle ( Strasbourg ), Fourrier (Paris), Klein (Strasbourg), Palmieri ( Ajaccio ), Thomas ( Saargemünd ) and Peter (Strasbourg) and Feillet ( Brittany ).

Eleven of the 15 defendants were acquitted when the verdict was pronounced on May 24, 1928. The four defendants Fashauer, Ricklin, Rossé and sound were to a year in prison sentenced to five years' residence ban "for plotting a conspiracy, but already in the following July due to an amnesty released.

Separate negotiations in Colmar in 1928

The defendants Baumann and Kohler were sentenced to eight months' imprisonment for espionage in a further trial immediately following the main trial in Colmar on June 8th, and then acquitted on July 13th in an appeal before the Court of Appeal in Colmar.

In the context of the arrests or arrest warrants, seven other people could not be caught, partly because they had been living in Germany for years and partly because they had evaded arrest. They were therefore convicted in absentia in a separate trial by the Colmar jury court on June 12, 1928:

In this prison pronounced penalties from 10 to 20 years, partly imposed many years of travel restrictions, so when Robert Ernst with 20 year ban on residence. Furthermore, they were deprived of their civil rights .

Besançon 1929

Karl Roos, convicted in absentia, presented himself to the public prosecutor in Strasbourg on November 10, 1928. The subsequent, newly opened court case against him, the charge was still a "plot against the state security", was relocated from Alsace to the almost neighboring Doubs department in Besançon in order to allow a quieter course. The jury met from June 10-22, the verdict granted Roos acquittal.

literature

  • The Colmar Plot Trial . Verlag Alsatia, Colmar 1928. 4th edition.
  • Alsace-Lorraine communications . Complete volume 1928. Elsaß-Lothringischer Hilfsbund-Verlag, Berlin.
  • Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1973
  • Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1975.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1975. pp. 137-138
  2. ^ Alsace-Lorraine communications . Complete volume 1928. Elsaß-Lothringischer Hilfsbund-Verlag, Berlin. P. 20
  3. ^ Alsace-Lorraine communications . Complete volume 1928. Elsaß-Lothringischer Hilfsbund-Verlag, Berlin. Pp. 215-216.
  4. ^ Alsace-Lorraine communications . Complete volume 1928. pp. 228-229
  5. ↑ The explanation on photography published by the French National Library is probably incorrect. She lists 14 visible defendants, 13 are actually visible. Furthermore, the order is given as "de gauche à droite", but the defendant Eugen Ricklin sits clearly on the far right, with Paul Schall on the left. The order goes from right to left, as was customary at the time and as indicated on photographs of the defendant bank published in parallel. The defendant Reisacher as the 14th person is probably missing from the picture, contrary to the information provided by the national library, because Reisacher is also not listed on the very similar, parallel photographs of the defendant bank in the book of the Colmar Alsatia publishing house on the trial.
  6. ^ Rothenberger, "The Alsace-Lorraine Home and Autonomy Movement", pp. 159–167
  7. ^ Alsace-Lorraine communications . Complete volume 1928. Elsaß-Lothringischer Hilfsbund-Verlag, Berlin. P. 10, p. 20, p. 89, pp. 187-188, p. 235, p. 273, pp. 474-478
  8. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1973. pp. 19-20
  9. ↑ The Colmar Plot Trial . Verlag Alsatia, Colmar 1928. 4th edition
  10. ↑ Elsaß-Lothringische Mitteilungen , complete volume 1928, p. 356
  11. ↑ Elsaß-Lothringische Mitteilungen , Complete Volume 1928, p. 602, pp. 610–611
  12. ↑ Rothenberger, p. 171, p. 176