The nanziger

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As Nanziger ( French Nancéiens ) is a group of Alsatian (including individual Lorraine) called autonomist politicians, who at the beginning of World War II by the French authorities near Nancy ( Nancy were arrested).

arrest

In October 1939, the leaders of Alsace-Lorraine autonomism were arrested and transferred to the military prison in Nancy. Like Karl Roos , who was arrested in February 1939 , they were charged with "espionage for the enemy". However, a trial never came about.

Relocation to the south of France

Because of the advance of the German troops, the military prison was evacuated on June 14, 1940. The "Nanziger" were first transported by bus to Dijon , then to Lyon . There they were divided into two groups and forwarded to the south of France.

The first group consisting of:

was moved to Privas .

The second group with:

was moved to Carcassonne .

On the initiative of Robert Ernst, a special detachment of the Wehrmacht Abwehr was tasked with locating the group, and in the course of negotiations by the Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden it was handed over to German troops on July 17, 1940 in Chalon-sur-Saône . Rossé, Schall and Bickler later complained about the depressing circumstances of the transport and the "sadism" of their guards. They also reported that they were to be transported to Marseille from where they were to be taken to Algeria to be shot. The bombardment of the transport ship by the Italian fleet delayed their removal. The truth of this information could never be proven.

The Manifesto of Three Ears ( Manifests des Trois-Épis )

Back in Alsace , the group was expected by Robert Ernst in a hotel in Trois-Épis . During a two-day retreat, Ernst tried to win the “Nanziger” for a job in the Alsatian Aid Service (EHD) in the construction of the National Socialist “Greater Germany” in order to secure sufficient political influence in the interests of the autonomists at an early stage, which the Baden Gauleiter did Robert Wagner, as head of the German civil administration in Alsace, then managed to prevent his administration and political followers, which were largely imported from Baden, so that the “Nanziger” ultimately received only a few posts of medium importance.

Ernst presented the group with a memorandum for signature, which was sent to Hitler on July 18, 1940:

"My leader!

Today the champions of our Alsatian and German-Lorraine people are: Antoni, Bickler, Bieber, Brauner, Hauss, Keppi, Lang, Meyer, Mourer, Nussbaum, Oster, Rossé, Schall, Schlegel, Stürmel, freed from French dungeons in Alsatian Ground arrived. They had only committed one crime: to remain loyal to their nationality, the German type of the Alemanni and Franks between the Rhine and the Vosges, on the Saar and the Moselle. Peace and justice, understanding between the German and French people was their striving in spite of all emotional stresses, until France, in unbelievable delusion, started the war against the German people and thus finally rejected even this attempt at renunciation. Together with these men, tens of thousands of shop stewards who have met in the Alsatian Relief Service to serve the people, the Reich and the Führer and with them hundreds of thousands for the integration of their homeland into the Greater German Reich in memory of Dr. Karl Roos. "

The signatories were: Antoni, Bickler, Bieber, Brauner, Hauss, Keppi, Lang, Meyer, Mourer, Nussbaum, Oster, Rossé, Schall, Schlegel, Stürmel. Because of this, they were considered traitors in France and the survivors were prosecuted accordingly after the end of the war.

Careers until the end of the war

From November 28 to December 2, 1940, the "Nanziger" went on an information trip to Berlin at the invitation of Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick . They were received there u. a. by Frick, Otto Meissner , Hans Heinrich Lammers and Heinrich Himmler . With Himmler they visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where they were supposed to be demonstrated that foreign reports about German concentration camps were just inventions. On October 30, 1941, Ernst, Schall, Bickler, Schlegel and Mourer took part in the annual commemoration of the Hitler putsch in Munich in the presence of Karl Haushofer and Franz Ritter von Epp , to commemorate their political companion Karl Roos as another “ martyr ” of the Honor National Socialism . On November 23, 1941, the "Nanziger" were appointed "honorary citizens" of the newly founded University of Strasbourg . From 1941 to 1943, Gauleiter Wagner and Strasbourg mayor Ernst organized banquets in their honor.

Some “Nanziger” were reinstated in their previous professional positions (Brauner, Oster). Others received NSDAP district leader status: Bickler in Strasbourg, Hauss in Hagenau , Lang in Zabern , Nussbaum in Molsheim , Mourer in Mulhouse . These positions were not very lucrative financially, and the appointments were only made provisionally. Stürmel became alderman and city councilor in Mulhouse, Antoni became mayor of Finstingen . Schall was appointed deputy editor- in- chief of the party official newspaper Strasbourg Latest News and Rossé became head of the compensation office for "champions of Germanness" in Alsace and finally general director of Alsatia publishing house in Colmar . Most of the “Nanziger” were convicted by French courts of collaboration and treason in the post-war period .

literature

  • Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 ( Studies on contemporary history . Also published in French translation).
  • Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. Main 1976 (European University Writings. Volume 42), ISBN 3-261-01485-7
  • Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz, Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents (University) Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ he called himself "Hans Peter Murer" Germanized from 1940 to 1944
  2. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1973. p. 115
  3. ↑ Lothar Kettenacker, Volkstumsppolitik, p. 116
  4. ↑ Kettenacker, pp. 88-89, pp. 115-116.
  5. ↑ Rothenberger 1976, pp. 242-243.
  6. ↑ Kettenacker, pp. 124-125.
  7. ↑ Bankwitz 1978, pp. 77-80
  8. ↑ Kettenacker 1973, p. 125
  9. ↑ Bankwitz 1978, pp. 77-80 and pp. 101f.