Frankenholz school strike

The former Frankenholz school building

The Frankenholz school strike of 1937 was a resistance against National Socialism in Frankenholz , a district of Bexbach in today's Saarpfalz district .

prehistory

In 1936, Frankenholz was a small mining village that was mainly Catholic . In the last free election in 1932, the NSDAP only got 4% of the vote. The strongest political force at that time was the Bavarian People's Party . When the Catholic headmaster fell ill in 1936, the NSDAP member Phillip Klein was appointed as the new headmaster. Luitpold Layes , the local priest, had confronted the NSDAP. His German youth mobilized more supporters than the National Socialist sports associations of the time. Klein tried to counteract the Catholic influence and on January 25, 1937, ordered the Christian crosses in the school building to be replaced by portraits of Hitler . With the exception of one teacher, the college agreed. The crosses were now hung over the classroom doors, but were no longer in a central position.

course

The hanging of the cross worried the local parents, who turned to Pastor Layes for help. Aware of the Oldenburg cross fight , he assured himself of the support of Ludwig Sebastian , the bishop of Speyer . In a Sunday sermon he disapproved of the cross. In some classes, students demonstratively turned to the cross during morning devotion. However, nothing changed in the arrangement itself. A week later, some of Frankenholz's parents decided not to send their children to school. Klein called a meeting, but it ended in a dispute. The next morning the strike continued.

Thereupon the Reich Commissioner for School Matters ordered early school holidays for Frankenholz. The Gestapo investigated the “ringleaders” of the strike and questioned 60 parents. The teacher who refused to comply was transferred and the striking parents were given a collective fine of 2000 Reichsmarks . Thereupon the workers of the Frankenholzer Grube began to take part in the protests with a slow strike and reduced their funding by half. This led to further sanctions, 14 miners were dismissed and five parents in custody taken.

The affair widened so that Nazi propaganda tried to blame communist activities for the school strike. However, this was denied by Ludwig Sebastian. In the end, Gauleiter Josef Bürckel had to resolve the affair: he lifted the imposed sentences and refrained from further investigations. In addition, he refrained from further actions against the Christian cross. However, this relenting was also seen as a tactic. The parents then wrote a letter of confession in which they rejected any political connotation of their behavior. Shortly afterwards, on the same day when the striking parents sent their children back to school, the Gau also voted on the Nazi community schools, which were accepted by 97%.

literature

• Gerhard Paul : Refusal and Protest in the “Volksgemeinschaft”. The Frankenholz school strike and the cross-border commuter demonstration in Warndt in 1937 . In: Stadtverband Saarbrücken (ed.): Ten instead of a thousand years. The time of National Socialism on the Saar 1935–1945 . 2nd corrected edition. Merziger Druckerei und Verlag GmbH, Saarbrücken / Merzig 1988, ISBN 3-923754-06-X , p. 146-158 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Study group for the research and communication of the history of the German resistance 1933–1945 by the federal executive board and the Saar regional association of the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Association of Antifascists : Local History Guide to Places of Resistance and Persecution 1933–1945. Volume 4: Hermann Volk: Saarland. Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7609-1320-2 , p. 145.

Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 35 ″  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 40 ″  E