Ehrenfeld group

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The Ehrenfeld group (also the Steinbrück group ) was a resistance group against National Socialism active in Cologne in the summer and autumn of 1944 , and its members and accomplices included more than a hundred people. In it, one of the had to Hans Steinbrück, concentration camp Cologne Fair escaped prisoner, Edelweiss Pirates of the worker district Ehrenfeld together, teenagers, escaped prisoners and forced laborers, Jews and deserters. On November 10, 1944, thirteen members of the group, including Hans Steinbrück and five young people, were executed by the Gestapo without a court judgment .

After the Second World War , the group and its activities were at the center of an extensive controversy that has continued to the present day, which developed from the question of whether they should be counted as part of the resistance against National Socialism. In this context, numerous artistic representations of the group were created, which today shape the overall image of the subcultural edelweiss pirates.

Historical summary

composition

Cologne-Ehrenfeld was badly damaged by air raids during the Second World War and in 1944 looked like a desert of rubble in which the social structures had largely dissolved. This made the district an ideal retreat for people living in illegality, such as deserters, escaped prisoners and forced laborers or Jews.

Among the people living there illegally counted Hans Steinbrück, who in July 1943 from the concentration camp could escape Cologne Fair. After his escape, he hid with an acquaintance who lived in Ehrenfeld. Forced laborers , concentration camp prisoners and deserters who fled together with this hidden stone bridge . The resulting network of adult helpers and accomplices formed the environment of the Ehrenfeld group. Some of the adults are known to have been politically motivated, others were locally known and convicted criminals.

In the summer of 1944, several young people from Ehrenfeld came into contact with Steinbrück, who were fascinated by the daring Steinbrück who was only a few years older and sometimes viewed him as a substitute for their fallen father. Some of these young people had previously belonged to the Edelweiss Pirate group in Ehrenfeld, from which they have now largely separated. With their strong fixation on Steinbrück, they soon became part of the core of the group.

activities

First Steinbrück set up an extensive weapons and food store in the basement of the house in which he had found shelter, which also served temporarily as quarters for forced laborers who had fled and Jews who had gone into hiding.

After several young people had joined Steinbrück in the summer of 1944, the group's activities gained momentum. However, they continued to concentrate on break-ins for the procurement of weapons and food, whereby the scope of the thefts increased significantly. One of them was the "butter robbery" in which the group captured 26 quintals of butter. Since food in this quantity could not be stored, parts of the booty were sold on the black market.

Because of the greater attention that this approach drew and the careless planning by Steinbrück, several people left the group at this time and distanced themselves from Steinbrück, among them almost all communists, but also some young people.

arrest

During a general identity check on September 29, 1944, an army patrol was informed of the group's hiding place and informed that a deserter was staying there. The patrol searched the basement and confiscated numerous weapons. Two men escaped from the building before the search. The next day the criminal police also carried out a search, during which Steinbrück's hostess and two Jewish women hiding in the house were arrested. In order to arrest the refugees as well, the police posted a guard in front of the house.

Another day later there was a shooting in front of the house and in its vicinity with members of the Ehrenfeld group under Steinbrück's leadership, in which a police officer, an SA member and a Hitler Youth patrol leader were killed. The group around Steinbrück initially escaped unrecognized. The attempt to free the arrested group members turned into a rampage through Ehrenfeld, in which shots were fired at uninvolved passers-by.

In the next few days, more of these amok drives followed, in which young members of the group also took part. At the same time an attempt was made to steal explosives from Fort X on Neusser Wall; this was foiled by the police.

On October 4, 1944 , based on information from the Ehrenfeld group, the Gestapo arrested Steinbrück and numerous members of the group. A total of 63 people had been arrested by mid-October, including 19 young people. None of the arrests took place because of her previous membership of the Edelweiss Pirates.

After his arrest, Steinbrück summarized the group's goals before the Gestapo as follows:

“He and his accomplices would have wanted to do anything to end the war quickly to Germany's disadvantage. For this reason, the weapons store was also set up. This was intended to blow up operations and railway facilities that were important to the war effort when the front had only come closer. The members who later joined the "gang" knew and supported this plan. "

assassination

On November 10, 1944, thirteen members of the Ehrenfeld group, including Steinbrück and five young people, were publicly hanged by the Gestapo in Hüttenstrasse in Ehrenfeld without a previous court decision . They were charged with five murders and attempted theft of explosives as the main offenses. More than 400 onlookers watched the execution.

Were hanged:

Controversies after 1945

The members of the Ehrenfeld group and their actions were perceived and assessed differently by the population and government agencies after the Second World War. Up until the 1980s, the Gestapo's assessments were essentially adopted. The prevailing opinion was that the members of the Ehrenfeld group were criminals . Then - triggered by a television report - a process of rethinking began, which led to the honoring of individual group members as Righteous Among the Nations , the reassembly of a memorial plaque and recognition as resistance fighters.

At the same time, it has also been discussed since the 1980s whether the Ehrenfeld group, in whole or in part, should be counted among the edelweiss pirates or viewed as an independent phenomenon. In the meantime, numerous historians regard the group as an independent phenomenon, while the public often perceives it as a central component of the edelweiss pirates.

Conflict over recognition as a resistance fighter

The Bartholomäus Schinks family applied for his recognition as politically persecuted in 1952. After this was denied a legal battle began which ended in 1958 with the confirmation of the denial.

In 1972 a memorial plaque for those who were hanged on November 10, 1944 was installed for the first time, which was financed by the Cologne Youth Ring. The dispute over the next few years crystallized around them. The board was removed after a few years.

In 1977 survivors of the Ehrenfeld group and members of various Cologne Edelweiss pirate groups joined forces in the "Initiative Edelweißpiraten als Antifaschisten" in order to achieve recognition as resistance fighters in cooperation with the Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime . The initiative got involved in the discussion that had been going on intensively for years, particularly in Ehrenfeld. Through book publications, plays and songs by Brings , the Bläck Fööss or Lilienthal about the Ehrenfeld group, a larger public was reached in the following years.

When Monitor reported in 1978 that the Ehrenfelder had not been recognized as politically persecuted, District President Franz-Josef Antwerpes had the court rulings of the 1950s reviewed. The judgments were confirmed again.

In 1984 the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel recognized Bartholomäus Schink and Jean Jülich as Righteous Among the Nations . This triggered new discussions, which culminated in a request in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. The historian Bernd-A. Rusinek was then commissioned to prepare an expert report on the Ehrenfeld group. In the same year the western part of Hüttenstrasse was renamed Bartholomäus-Schink-Strasse .

Memorial plaque for the Ehrenfeld victims of the Nazi regime

The "Edelweiss Pirates Initiative as Antifascists" achieved one of its goals in 1986 with the installation of a new memorial plaque on the railway underpass on the Ehrenfeld belt. The board only hung there for a few years; it was removed in 2002 when the underpass was widened when the line was being expanded.

When the report prepared by Rusinek was published in 1988, new conflicts arose over the evaluation of the Ehrenfeld group. Rusinek came to the conclusion that it was not a matter of "resistance based on a high ethical conviction and growing out of a sense of political responsibility", but that the will to survive was decisive. Rusinek therefore assessed the fields of honor neither as resistance fighters nor as criminals, but instead awarded them the status of Nazi victims because of the circumstances of their death. Thereupon Cologne CDU politicians called for the memorial plaque to be dismantled and the street to be renamed, while SPD politicians, supported by numerous artists, saw no reason to do so.

Simultaneously with the reassembly of the memorial plaque on November 9, 2003 on the arches of the railway underpass in Schönsteinstrasse near the place of execution , the Cologne District President rehabilitated the members of the Ehrenfeld group and described them as "politically persecuted and resistance fighters". In June 2005, a ceremony for public recognition of the surviving group members took place in the Cologne Regional Council.

The inscription on the memorial plaque in Schönsteinstrasse reads:

"Here on October 25, 1944, eleven citizens of Poland and the USSR who were deported by the Nazi regime for forced labor and on November 10, 1944 thirteen Germans - among them youthful Edelweiss pirates from Ehrenfeld and other fighters against war and terror - were made public by the Gestapo and without a court judgment SS hanged. "

Stumbling blocks were laid for some members of the Ehrenfeld group .

Part of the Edelweiss Pirates or an independent group?

When the Ehrenfeld group was re-evaluated in the 1980s, it was also discussed whether it was part of the Edelweiss Pirates. The controversy on this topic unfolded in the self-labeling of surviving fields of honor as Edelweiss pirates, which was denied by former members of other groups.

A first scientific statement on this was given in the Rusinek report in 1988, according to which “it is difficult to speak of an edelweiss pirate group” ( lit .: short version in Breyvogel, p. 272). Rusinek justified this with the low number of former Edelweiss pirates in the group and the strong influence of Hans Steinbrück. This evaluation was also adopted by other scientists in the following years, while the surviving Ehrenfelders continued to see themselves as edelweiss pirates.

Rehabilitation

Schäfer, Jülich, Koch (2005)

In 1991, Jean Jülich received the Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon. After Jürgen Roters had already publicly recognized members of the Cologne resistance groups as district president in June 2005, it took until April 2011 for him to join the five remaining members, Hans Fricke , Gertrud Koch , Peter Schäfer , Wolfgang Schwarz and Fritz Theilen , as Cologne mayor Was able to hand over the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon.

Reception history

Public reception developed in exactly the opposite direction to the historical-scientific perception. Numerous public appearances by surviving members of the group, book publications, songs and most recently the feature film Edelweißpiraten , which was released in cinemas at the end of 2005, resulted in large parts of the population equating the Ehrenfeld group with the Edelweiss Pirates as a whole.

Literary adaptations

As literary adaptations of the events around the Ehrenfeld group, biographical descriptions , stories and radio plays emerged , almost all of which are also aimed at a young audience. Examples are:

theatre

The play Edelweißpiraten are loyal was written in 1980 on behalf of the stages of the city of Cologne and performed in the 1980/81 season. A radio play version appeared in 1981; it was radio play of the month in June 1981 .

music

Numerous songs by German songwriters and local groups reflect the great subcultural significance of the Ehrenfeld group. Sometimes the Ehrenfeld events and the experiences of the subcultural edelweiss pirates are merged. Well-known song examples include:

With the CD Es happened in Shanghai , published in 2004 by the NS Documentation Center in Cologne , songs by the subcultural edelweiss pirates, originally from the Bündische Jugend , were picked up and reinterpreted by bands from Cologne. These revisions were presented alongside numerous other contributions at an edelweiss pirate festival held in 2005.

filming

In 2002, based on the events surrounding the Ehrenfeld group, the film Edelweißpiraten was shot. Since the film was not included in the program of any major distributors for a long time , the film could only be released on November 10, 2005.

Directed by Niko von Glasow , the main roles were taken over by Ivan Stebunov , Bela B. Felsenheimer and Anna Thalbach . Jean Jülich led the general story as "the old Karl", who also acted as a consultant in the creation of the script .

Edelweiss pirates as a "local brand"

The increased media and cultural presence since the 1990s has meant that the Cologne district of Ehrenfeld now also refers to the Ehrenfeld group in its external presentation under the heading "Edelweiss Pirates". In the city district, the group - as controversial as the processes surrounding them may be - are now an essential focal point of local identity .

literature

  • Wilfried Breyvogel (Ed.): Pirates, Swings and Young Guard. Youth resistance in National Socialism. Dietz, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-8012-3039-2 .
  • Alexander Goeb: He was sixteen when he was hanged. The short life of the resistance fighter Bartholomäus Schink. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-499-14768-8 .
  • Matthias von Hellfeld : Edelweiss pirates in Cologne. Youth rebellion against the Third Reich. 2nd Edition. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-7609-0787-3 .
  • Jean Jülich : Kohldampf, jail and camels. An edelweiss pirate tells his life. With a foreword by Wolfgang Niedecken. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-462-03540-1 .
  • Gertrud Koch, Regina Carstensen: Edelweiss. My youth as a resistance fighter. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-499-62093-6 .
  • Detlev Peukert : The Edelweiss Pirates. Protest movements by young workers in the Third Reich. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-7663-0399-6 .
  • Bernd-A. Rusinek : Society in disaster. Terror, illegality, resistance. Cologne 1944/45. Klartext, Essen 1989, ISBN 3-88474-134-9 .
  • Fritz Theilen: Edelweiss pirates. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-596-27548-2 .

Web links

Commons : Ehrenfelder Gruppe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Rüther (Nazi Documentation Center of the City of Cologne): Exhibition of Navajos and Edelweiss Pirates - Unadjusted Youth Behavior in Cologne 1933–1945 , Text The Ehrenfeld Steinbrück Group is exposed
  2. ^ Executions in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. Museum Service Cologne , accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Pascal Beucker : Not everyone wanted to march. In: taz . November 10, 2005, accessed November 10, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Mark Obert: Jean Jülich doesn't see himself as a resistance fighter. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . July 15, 2004, accessed November 10, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Mattias Pesch: Edelweisspiraten "Role models an civil courage" , in: Kölner Stadtanzeiger from April 14, 2011, p. 26 online (accessed June 23, 2016).
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 6, 2005 .