Free Republic of Schwarzenberg

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Commemorative sign for the "Free Republic of Schwarzenberg" on a house in the city center

Free Republic of Schwarzenberg is the name that only became in use decades after the underlying events for a German area in the Saxon part of the Ore Mountains that was unoccupied for 42 days after the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945 .

Origin of the term

The name Free Republic of Schwarzenberg is derived from the term "Republic of Schwarzenberg", which the writer Stefan Heym first used for the area in his novel Schwarzenberg in 1984 , and was created in 1990 by the sculptor Jörg Beier from the Schwarzenberg artist group Zone under the direct impression of Events of German reunification shaped. Peter Bukvic and Harald Weber describe the area on their map
as the “occupation-free region in the Western Ore Mountains
.

Historical background

During the last days of the Second World War in the spring of 1945, after the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, the Schwarzenberg district in the Ore Mountains and parts of the Stollberg district remained unoccupied for six weeks. Even the special area of ​​Mürwik in Flensburg , where the last Reich government under Karl Dönitz was, was occupied by British soldiers on May 23, 1945. Neither the advanced American nor Soviet troops occupied the said area in the Ore Mountains, which was mainly controlled by patrols of the 347th US Infantry Regiment stationed in the neighboring Vogtland.

There are several theories and speculations as to why the Allies were not initially occupied directly. What is certain is that the fate of the people in the area was not decided by throwing a coin, as fictionally described in Heym's novel. The version circulated among the population of West Saxony in 1945 that, after consultation with the Soviets, the Americans should advance to the Mulde River . However, since there are three hollows (the Zwickauer Mulde and the Freiberg Mulde combine to form the Mulde ), there was a mix-up here. This assumption is also supported by information provided by the later president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , Günther Nollau , supported in his memoirs (1911-1991). At that time Nollau was staying with his family near Rochlitz on an estate on the Zwickauer Mulde.

Other speculation suggests that the circle was simply forgotten. Another variant reports an allegedly planned exchange of the Erzgebirge uranium area around Johanngeorgenstadt and Schlema (" Wismut ") for parts of Berlin. There is no evidence for the version of a negotiation between Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and the Americans in Bern on April 12, 1945, in which the USA promised to leave the affected area unoccupied so that the German troops in Bohemia could retreat with the aim of putting himself in American rather than Soviet captivity. Dönitz himself did not leave his headquarters at the Naval School Mürwik in Flensburg-Mürwik (see Commander's Villa ) at this time, and the German troops of the XII. Army corps of the Wehrmacht under General Herbert Osterkamp from the Karlsbad, Eger, Pilsen area were able to quickly transfer to the American units in Upper Franconia and Vogtland, where a large reception camp for the US Army had been set up in Muldenberg . With these units of III. US Army under Panzer General George S. Patton laid down 200 German generals by mid-May 1945 alone.

After May 9, 1945, anti-fascist action committees were formed in many of the 21 unoccupied towns and villages . The gradual occupation of the district by Soviet troops took place at the time of the constitution of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in Berlin on June 9, 1945 in accordance with the definition of the zone boundaries according to the at the Yalta conference and in the 1st zone agreement of 12. Allied agreements reached on September 9, 1944. As agreed, the Americans withdrew to Bavaria from the western Saxon regions by July 1, 1945. On June 24, 1945, the Soviet commander in Schwarzenberg issued an order to dissolve all action committees. The members of the Schwarzenberg Action Committee were confirmed in the public offices they occupied (for example the mayor). Some retained their functions until the GDR was founded.

Contemporary witnesses such as the later journalist and writer Helmar Meinel , who at the time was taken by the Americans on two patrols in the area as an assistant interpreter who knew the place, and former actors unanimously report that the establishment of a "Schwarzenberg Republic" was not even an option at the time just as there were no attempts to create a constitution or currency of their own. “Neither the dollar, the ruble nor the old Reichsmark were in demand. The currency unit was a carton of American cigarettes or a pound of salt, ”Meinel recalls. The committees of action, which both the Americans and the Soviets have repeatedly asked for the occupation of the distressed and completely cut off area, were concerned solely with supplying the population with food and maintaining security and order.

It is true, however, that Schwarzenberg issued its own postage stamps for local use during this period. These were postage stamps in which the image of Hitler was overprinted with a black outline of Schwarzenberg Castle. Such overprinted stamps were also used temporarily in other areas of Germany after the end of the war.

Size of the unoccupied area in the Western Ore Mountains

Overview map of the definitely unoccupied locations in the Saxon Ore Mountains according to the source
  • unoccupied locality
  • presumably unoccupied town
  • occupied locations, for orientation
  • The east-west extent was about 38 kilometers, the north-south direction about 45 kilometers, in the area of ​​around 1,500 to 2,000 square kilometers there were an estimated 500,000 people as locals, evacuees and refugees. Maps with information on the boundaries of the area are only published in low detail, so that a list of the communities in the unoccupied area cannot be developed from them, because not only the area of ​​the Schwarzenberg district and parts of the Stollberg district remained unoccupied, but also parts of the district Annaberg-Buchholz and the Zwickau district as well as areas south of Chemnitz. The unoccupied area of ​​the Stollberg district also included areas to the left of the motorway between Härtensdorf and Neukirchen.

    It can be considered certain that these communities were unoccupied: Affalter, Albernau, Anthonsthal, Aue, Beierfeld, Bermsgrün, Bernsbach, Blauenthal, Bockau, Breitenbrunn, Burkhardtsgrün, Carlsfeld, Eibenstock, Elterlein, Erla, Erlabrunn, Gornsdorf, Grünhain, Grünstädtel, Hundshübel , Jahnsdorf, Johanngeorgenstadt, Langenbach, Lauter, Leukersdorf, Lößnitz, Lugau, Markersbach, Meinersdorf, Neidhardtsthal, Neuheide (Schönheide), Neukirchen, Neu-Würschnitz, Niederwürschnitz, Oelsnitz / Erzgeb., Pöhla, Raschau, Raum, Rittersgrün, Scheibenberg, Schlema , Schneeberg, Schönheide, Schönheiderhammer, Schwarzenberg, Sosa, Steinheidel, Stollberg, Stützengrün, Thalheim, Thierfeld, Waschleithe, Weißbach, Wildbach, Wildenthal, Wolfsgrün, Zschocken, Zschorlau, Zwönitz. From the Annaberg-Buchholz district, Crottendorf, Dörfel, Hermannsdorf, Jöhstadt, Neudorf, Walthersdorf and probably Bärenstein were not occupied. Oberwiesenthal was probably not occupied. In the west and north-west of the area, in addition to the places mentioned Härtensdorf and Neukirchen, these were the communities Burkersdorf, Irfersgrün, Kirchberg, Lauterhofen, Obercrinitz, Schönau, Weißbach, Wildenfels, Wolfersgrün. It is unclear whether Hauptmannsgrün, Hirschfeld and Oberheinsdorf were unoccupied.

    Others

    The Schwarzenberg artist group Zone offers forms for a residence permit, naturalization and a passport on the Internet and also for visitors on site. The “European passport of the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg” bears 12 stars as a symbol , based on the example of the European flag .

    See also

    literature

    • Volker Braun : The unoccupied area. (Short story) Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 2004. ISBN 3-518-41634-0 .
    • Jochen Cerny (Ed.): Republic in No Man's Land. A Schwarzenberg reader , Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Sachsen, Schkeuditz, 1997, ISBN 978-3-929994-94-0
    • Werner Groß: The first steps. The struggle of the anti-fascists in Schwarzenberg during the unoccupied period May / June 1945 . Series of publications by the German Institute for Contemporary History Berlin: Studies on Contemporary History, Volume 1, Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1961.
    • Stefan Heym : Schwarzenberg (novel). Bertelsmann, Munich 1984. ISBN 3-570-00140-7 .
    • Johannes Arnold : Uprising of the dead (historical novel). Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale) 1969. ISBN 3-354-00279-4 .
    • Lenore Lobeck: The Schwarzenberg Utopia: History and Legend in "No Man's Land" . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2004. ISBN 3-374-02231-6 .
    • Lenore Lobeck: Schwarzenberg , in: Matthias Donath and André Thieme : Sächsische Mythen. People - places - events. Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 2011 (special edition of the Saxon State Center for Political Education 2011), pp. 301–310.
    • Lenore Lobeck: The Schwarzenberg legend: history and myth in "no man's land" . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2018. ISBN 978-3-374-05494-7 .
    • Gareth Pritchard: No man's land: A History of Unoccupied Germany, 1944–1945. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012. ISBN 978-1-107-01350-6 .
    • Justus H. Ulbricht : From the "no man's land" to the "Free Republic of Schwarzenberg" . in: Sächsische Heimatblätter 59 (2013), Heft 3, pp. 182–187.

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. Jochen Cerny (Ed.): Republic in No Man's Land. A Schwarzenberg reading book , Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Sachsen, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 978-3-929994-94-0 , p. 369
    2. ^ The Office , 1978, Bertelsmann Gütersloh
    3. a b c d e f g Jochen Cerny (Ed.): Republic in No Man's Land. A Schwarzenberg reading book , Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Sachsen, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 978-3-929994-94-0 , p. 91
    4. Peter Bukviv: Antifascist Self-Help in the Westerzgebirge, in: Jochen Cerny (Hrsg.): Republic in No Man's Land. A Schwarzenberg reading book , Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Sachsen, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 978-3-929994-94-0 , p. 89 f.
    5. Pages 365 ff. By Jochen Cerny (Ed.): Republic in No Man's Land. A Schwarzenberg reading book , Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Saxony, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 978-3-929994-94-0
    6. Report in the authorities' report 27/2012, page 1