Friedrich Kurtz

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Friedrich Kurtz (born February 12, 1915 in Pirmasens ; † March 12, 1993 in Annweiler ) was a first lieutenant in the Wehrmacht who on September 18, 1943 resisted an order to shoot ten civilian hostages in the southern Italian port city of Trani for every soldier shot . He gave an example that moral courage and disobedience to orders were possible in World War II . His military disobedience was filmed under the title The Miracle of Trani .

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Little is known about Friedrich Kurtz's early youth. Before the Second World War he learned the trade of a machine fitter in a shoe factory in Pirmasens. Kurtz was in the Hitler Youth and was promoted to youth leader. In 1936 he was drafted into the military in Landau . He embarked on the officer career and volunteered in 1940 for service in a paratrooper unit . After the end of the war he was seriously injured and taken to a hospital in Heidelberg , where he met his future wife. He had three children with her and lived in Neckargemünd until 1963 . He later settled in Annweiler , where he worked as a sales manager in a shoe factory.

Insubordination

On September 8, 1943, the armistice between the war opponents Italy and the Allies was announced and the German troops began to disarm the Italian army.

Two days before September 18, 1943, five German soldiers were shot dead in front of Trani, presumably by British or Canadian soldiers and not by the Italian Resistance . The Wehrmacht soldiers drove to Trani in a vehicle and got into an ambush at the Trani cemetery. First Lieutenant Friedrich Kurtz had received the order to shoot ten male residents for every Wehrmacht soldier killed. On September 18, the Wehrmacht rounded up fifty-four male civilians on the market square, which is now called Piazza della Repubblica , and not as is usually published . The firing squad armed with machine guns was ready. Among the hostages was the only German-speaking hostage, the sculptor Antonio Bassi, who was the party secretary of the Partito Nazionale Fascista of Trani. A climate of fear developed in the city because on September 12th, thirteen people, including eleven police officers, were shot dead by the Wehrmacht in the neighboring city of Barletta . More and more citizens of the city gathered on the market square. In this situation, several women, including the spokesperson Isabella Terrafinom - the wife of the hostage Giovanni Quatera - turned to the mayor Giuseppe Pappolla and Archbishop Francesco Petronelli in Trani. They asked them to intervene in the marketplace. The mayor and the archbishop campaigned for the lives of the hostages on the market square, negotiated with Kurtz and pleaded for their release. Bassi interpreted. The mayor and the archbishop are also said to have stood in front of the hostages. According to a German source, the mayor is said to have offered his life in exchange for the hostages.

In the course of the afternoon Kurtz gave the order to move away without shooting the hostages. Then the Archbishop of Kurtz said goodbye with a handshake and left the market square, the mayor stayed there until the last hostage had left. The exact reasons for Kurtz's decision are not known. An Italian source also assumes that he thought the overall situation in the city may no longer be militarily tenable. His son Fritz Kurtz speculates that his father was a "tough dog" as a military man, but also a "justice fanatic". He probably remembered a shooting he witnessed years earlier. In other sources he is said to have later refused to carry out a shooting. According to his son, Friedrich Kurtz was not a resistance fighter, but a soldier in the National Socialist system .

Friedrich Kurtz was not punished for refusing to give orders, but he was not promoted any further. According to other sources, he was then transferred to the Eastern Front .

Aftermath

On October 18, 1943, the Italian King Viktor Emanuel III. Monsignor Petronelli and Mayor Pappolla presented the silver medal for bravery at a ceremony.

For decades it was not known by name of the first lieutenant who gave the order for the Wehrmacht to withdraw. In 2005 there was a phone call from Italy with Kurtz's 90-year-old wife. The caller wanted to invite Friedrich Kurtz to the inauguration of a stele on Trani's market square, which commemorates the events of September 18, 1943. Since Friedrich Kurtz was no longer alive at the time, his son Fritz and his grandson traveled to Italy for the inauguration.

The names of the 54 Italian hostages and the name of Friedrich Kurtz are immortalized in stone on the stele.

The documentary The Miracle of Trani was shown for the first time on December 8, 2012 on ARD. The film project was awarded a prize by the Hessian Film Funding in 2011, emphasizing that "moral courage and refusal to obey orders were also possible during the Second World War".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Isabella Terrafinom on traniviva.it ( Memento from May 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (Italian). Retrieved May 26, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c d Judith Hörle: Trani's miracle in the classroom on trifelsgymnasium.de ( Memento from May 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved May 23, 2014
  3. ↑ a b c Il September 18, 1943 a Trani: fatti e testimonianze on traniviva.it ( Memento from May 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (Italian). Retrieved May 25, 2014
  4. ↑ a b Antonio Bassi on traniviva.it ( Memento of the original from May 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Italian). Retrieved May 26, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.traniviva.it
  5. ↑ 11-12 September 1943: BARLETTA RESISTE PER DUE GIORNI AI NAZISTI LA RISPOSTA E 'LA STRAGE on pugliantagonista.it (Italian). Retrieved May 26, 2014
  6. ↑ gropperfilm.de: The Miracle of Trani ( Memento from May 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Hessische Filmförderung 2011 (scroll down to section V.) ( Memento from November 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Kurtz, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German first lieutenant in the Wehrmacht
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Pirmasens
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1993
Place of death Annweiler