Friedrich Spieser

Friedrich (Fritz) Spieser , since 1945 mostly under the pseudonym Friedrich Hünenburg , (born October 1, 1902 in Waldhambach ; † February 23, 1987 in Burg Stettenfels , Untergruppenbach ) was an Alsatian autonomist, publicist, publisher and member of the NSDAP who stood up during of the Second World War, among other things, for the annexation of the German-occupied Alsace to the German Empire .

Life

Childhood and school education (1902–1926)

Spieser spent his childhood in Waldhambach as the fourth child of the Lutheran pastor Hans Spieser . In 1914 the family moved to Zabern because of his father's illness , where the boy attended high school. Since he protested in 1918 after Alsace was reintegrated into France against the introduction of exclusively French-language teaching, he was excluded from teaching. From 1920 he was able to continue his school attendance, first at the private Fecht Institute in Kirchheim unter Teck , headed by Bernd Isemann , and then, after its closure, at the reform high school in Stuttgart . Friedrich Lienhard , from Alsace , writer and spokesman for the local art movement , helped him to find a place to live in a training center for Protestant clergy. There Spieser was accepted into the Köngener Bund . During this time in Stuttgart, Spieser also got to know the university professor Paul Schmitthenner , also from Alsace , a representative of homeland security architecture , who made a great impression on him with his ideas. After the death of his father in February 1922, Spieser returned to Alsace. He was released early from French military service for health reasons. After a temporary job as a German teacher at a private Protestant school in Glay (near Montbéliard ) and a longer stay in a sanatorium, he worked as a private tutor for the noble Ingelheim family at Gamburg Castle and Mespelbrunn Castle . In evening classes he prepared for his Abitur and in 1926, at the intercession of an Alsatian patron, he received recognition of his degree from the French Ministry of Education.

Study time and autonomist activities in pre-war Alsace (1926–1939)

Spieser then first enrolled at the theological faculty of the University of Strasbourg . As a German-speaking Alsatian studying Lutheran theology in French in Alsace, he saw it as an “educational fraud”, so he switched to the University of Grenoble , where he attended various philological lectures from 1928 to 1929 and obtained the academic degree license ès lettres .

On April 26, 1926, Spieser founded the Erwin von Steinbach Wanderbund , Alsatian youth hikers (often also called Erwinsbund ) in Alsace , who carried out hikes, music, (German-speaking) singing and folk dance events with young people , especially in northern Alsace and in Bitscher Country . In addition, this association published a collection of German-language folk songs. The main role models for the Erwinsbund were the Wandervogel and the Bündische Jugend in Germany. Like other German-speaking and autonomist associations in the former Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine, the Erwinsbund was financially supported by the German Foreign Ministry through intermediaries.

In 1930 Spieser returned to Germany, enrolled at the University of Göttingen and listened in particular to Herman Nohl , a pedagogue and philosopher who was close to the youth movement . At the University of Marburg , Spieser became a German scholar and folklorist Kurt Wagner with a thesis on the development of the folk song to become a Dr. phil. PhD , which drew heavily on the research of the Catholic priest and Lorraine folklorist Louis Pinck . In August 1931 Spieser married Agnes Eleonore zu Dohna-Schlobitten , a daughter of Richard zu Dohna-Schlobitten , whom he had met while studying in Göttingen.

At the end of the 1920s, while hiking, Spieser came across the ruins of the Hüneburg near Dossenheim (Alsace) , which attracted him very much. In the early 1930s, Spieser tried to purchase them with the financial means of his wealthy wife, but they were allegedly unable to take their funds out of Germany. Therefore, the Hamburg businessman Alfred Toepfer stepped in with his FVS Foundation (today: Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS ). He met Spieser several times and lent him the amount of 60,000 French francs for the purchase of the property, which took place on September 17, 1932. During the expansion of the ruin, he found further donors, such as the Volksbund für das Deutschtum Abroad and expanded the Hüneburg from 1934 to 1935, made more difficult by harassment from the French authorities. Spieser was able to neutralize this somewhat by setting up a hiking hostel on the Hüneburg , which was affiliated to the official French youth hostel association ( LFAJ ). Spieser was occasionally short of money and asked Toepfer for money. In 1937, Spieser began to publish the Strasbourg monthly journals in the Hünenburg publishing house he founded, with the support of Toepfer . Magazine for the German Volkstum on the Upper Rhine , a magazine for regionalist writers and artists. His cultural-political activities repeatedly led to violent attacks in the French-language press in Alsace.

First exile in Germany (1939-1940)

With the aggravation of the political situation in connection with the Sudeten crisis , Spieser was interrogated on suspicion of espionage for Germany and the Hüneburg was searched by the police. After the " smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic " (see Munich Agreement ) by the Wehrmacht , as part of the measures taken by the Daladier government against Alsatian autonomists, the Strasbourg monthly books and the Erwinsbund were finally banned on April 21, 1939. Spieser was warned of an arrest by the French authorities and fled via Luxembourg to his wife's family in East Prussia . After the beginning of the Second World War , Spieser wrote a long letter to Hitler on September 10, 1939 , in which he asked him to liberate Alsace and give it the status of Reich Protectorate, following the example of Bohemia and Moravia . During the Drôle de guerre , Spieser addressed memoranda to the Gauleiter of Baden and the High Command of the Wehrmacht , in which he gave assessments of the mood of the Alsatian soldiers in the French army and advice on how to treat the Alsatian population after the upcoming occupation. On June 5, 1940, the French national Spieser was sentenced to death in absentia by a French military tribunal in Nancy for high treason .

Activities in occupied Alsace (1940–1944)

After the occupation of Alsace by German troops, Spieser returned as a member of the Wehrmacht. He took part in the activities of an organization that was supposed to bring the National Socialist worldview closer to the Alsatian population ( Elsässischer Hilfsdienst ). Although he was not yet a member of the NSDAP at the time, he was appointed SS-Sturmbannführer on September 7, 1940 by Heinrich Himmler on the occasion of a visit to the Hünenburg . At the end of November 1940, Spieser was a leading member of a delegation of Alsatian autonomists that was received by leading National Socialists in Berlin . The body of Karl Roos was transferred to the Hüneburg, which had been confiscated and badly damaged by French troops . Formations from the Alsatian Aid Service , its successor organization, the Alsatian sacrifice ring, and units of the newly founded Alsatian Hitler Youth , most of which came from the Erwinsbund , took part in the solemn funeral . In 1940, Spieser and a bookstore re-founded his Hünenburg publishing house in Strasbourg , named after Hünenburg , in which his Strasbourg monthly editions were published again. The company flourished until 1944. From this point onwards, the Strasbourg monthly books , which had previously dealt with literature related to the homeland, came close to the National Socialist ideology.

Second and final exile in Germany (1944–1987)

Spieser's tombstone

From September 1944 onwards, Spieser and his family stayed mainly with relatives of his wife in Germany and only returned to Alsace on a daily basis. In 1945, while on the run through Germany, he managed to evade capture by American and later Soviet troops under a false name. Because of his active collaboration with the Nazi regime , he was wanted by the French judiciary from September 1945. His whereabouts over the next few years are not clearly known: While Spieser himself later reported on a stay in Sweden, there are suspicions that he was hiding at Lich Castle . On September 4, 1947, Spieser was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Strasbourg. The confiscated Hünenburg was expropriated in favor of the French state and later sold. In 1952 Spieser published his memoirs in his revived Hünenburg-Verlag (Stuttgart) . In 1957 he acquired Stettenfels Castle near Heilbronn . The partially dilapidated castle was restored and turned into a meeting center, in the premises of which family celebrations, poetry readings, song performances and conferences (including the Erwin von Steinbach Society , named after the master builder Erwin von Steinbach ) could take place. This use, like some of the building elements, was reminiscent of the Hünenburg. After a long illness, Spieser died on February 23, 1987 and was buried in the Untergruppenbach cemetery.

Spieser's political ideas

Spieser was shaped by his father, who, in addition to his clerical office, worked as a dialect researcher and comparative linguist and campaigned for the German language of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine . In a continuation of this family tradition, Friedrich Spieser's thinking referred to political terms of German Romanticism such as Volkstum and Volksgeist . Cultivating the folk and customs were of great importance to him in order to bring the “rootless” industrial workers and intellectuals of the big cities back into the “ national community ”, whose ideal was the “unspent and down-to-earth” peasantry . Spieser's intensive preoccupation with family research also served this search for one's own roots.

During his school days in the 1920s, Spieser was influenced by conservative bourgeois artists around the architect Paul Schmitthenner as well as by the youth movement and was enthusiastic about their idea of ​​converting abandoned castles into youth hostels . His activity as a private tutor in noble houses reinforced this enthusiasm and his fascination with the tradition-conscious German nobility, whom he idealized as well as the peasantry. When he returned to Alsace for the first time, Spieser quickly made contact with “Heimatreueue” (ie regionalist or autonomist) circles without, however, tying himself to party politics. Rather, he actively devoted himself to cultivating customs ( Erwinsbund ). During his subsequent studies in Germany, Spieser sought and found confirmation of his convictions. After returning to Alsace after completing his studies, he intensified his activities in the Erwinsbund and began to turn the Hünenburg into a meeting place for like-minded people. His editorial work during this time also served the purpose of preserving and strengthening the German people and the Alsatian culture in Alsace (especially the Alsace-Lorraine new home calendar and the Strasbourg monthly books ). In 1932 Spieser was involved in founding the Alsace-Lorraine youth team . In its public appearance, this association initially oriented itself towards Bundish models, but later increasingly towards National Socialist models, represented separatist goals and expressed itself in its publications anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist.

As early as 1932 Spieser began to be interested in “ folk medicine ” and dealt with eye diagnostics , magnetopathy , dowsing and astrology . Since he considered these occult phenomena to be worthy of science, he welcomed the establishment of an institute for psychology and clinical psychology at the Medical Faculty of the Reich University of Strasbourg and supported the institute in 1942 with a considerable sum as the Hünenburg Foundation . Spieser encouraged the head of the institute, the psychologist and parapsychologist Hans Bender , to do research on dowsing.

In German-occupied Alsace, Spieser was considered one of the leading cultural politicians. The security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD) assessed Spieser as "politically absolutely reliable". On January 1, 1942, he became a member of the NSDAP. In order to “reorganize Europe” in the sense of Nazi propaganda , Spieser developed the plan to tie in with the Burgundian empire of Charles the Bold in the restructuring of Western Europe . He advocated breaking up France on an ethnic basis: Lorraine , Burgundy and Savoy should be added to the German Empire, although the last two were never German-speaking. Alsace was to be integrated directly into the German Empire, but to retain its “Alemannic peculiarity”. Spieser's regionalist position temporarily opposed the politics of the Baden Gauleiter and head of civil administration in Alsace, Robert Wagner , who, as part of his policy of Germanization, sought massive resettlements of Alsatians and Lorraine residents to the east.

In his 1000-page autobiographical story Thousand Bridges , published in 1952, Spieser described his career and remained very subjective, euphemistic and sketchy in the description of his political activities. In his foreword, his wife as editor drew the picture of a convinced European who wanted to build bridges between Germany and France and who only wanted to enable the peaceful coexistence of both states with his words and deeds.

evaluation

“The ideas that he endeavored to spread originate from the wide range of pre-National Socialist currents of social welfare as we know them in Germany. But like all the people, associations and institutions who settled in this area, Friedrich Spieser, the young team and the Hünenburg publishing house quickly got caught up in totalitarian National Socialism. The polemic against individual measures by the National Socialists, as expressed here and there in the Strasbourg monthly journals and in letters from their editor, appears in a certain sense to be a repetition of the arguments that took place before or shortly after 1933 between 'völkisch' and similar circles on the one hand and the NSDAP on the other hand also took place in Germany. "

- Heinz-Dietrich Loock : The Hünenburg-Verlag Friedrich Spiesers and National Socialism

Spieser's autonomist position, to defend the regional identity of Alsace against a “High German” conformity, and which resulted, for example, in his polemics against the National Socialists' oral decree, led to the German government banning the Strasbourg monthly in 1941.

Publications (selection)

Books and articles:

• Frau Nachtigall: Folk songs from the 12th century to the present day . Edited with Carl Reyß, Lami, Strasbourg 1928.
• The life of the folk song in a Lorraine village: Hambach, Saargemünd district . Konkordia, Bühl (Baden) 1934. ( Elements for Folklore and Religious Studies , 8).
• Battle letters from Alsace . With a foreword by Robert Ernst Volk and Reich, Berlin 1941.
• Alsace versus France . Printed as Ms. Political education of the Reichsstudentenführer of the NSDAP, Munich 1941. Part of the contributions to foreign and foreign policy training for the comrades of the NSD student union .
• The Alsatian . In: Otto Meissner (Ed.): German Alsace. German Lorraine. A cross-section of history, folklore and culture . Berlin: Otto Stolberg, 1941, pp. 66–85
• The honor of Alsace , in: Strasbourg monthly books. Journal for the German Volkstum on the Upper Rhine, 4th Hünenburg Verlag, Strasbourg 1942.
• Alsace - beautiful German country on the Upper Rhine . With a foreword by Robert Ernst, 1st edition Volk und Reich publishing house, Berlin / Prague / Vienna 1942. Second edition ed. Deutsches Auslandsinstitut Stuttgart , Verlag Volk und Reich, Amsterdam (Berlin, Prague Vienna) 1943.
• A thousand bridges: a biographical story from the fate of a country . Hünenburg Verlag, Heilbronn 1952
• And yet the forest rustles . Hünenburg-Verlag, Stuttgart 1952
• Folk song in stone (surrounded by contrapuntal thoughts) . Hünenburg-Verlag, Heilbronn 1956

Magazine editor:

• Strasbourg monthly magazine - (from No. 4/1940 with the subtitle) magazine for the German people on the Upper Rhine. Published from 1937 to issue 8/1944, Verlag Hünenburg, Strasbourg (post office Zabern (Alsace)).

literature

• Heinz-Dietrich Loock: The Hünenburg publishing house Friedrich Spiesers and National Socialism . In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History . tape 2 . Stuttgart 1966.
• Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 1973 (Studies on Contemporary History. Published by the Institute for Contemporary History ), ISBN 3-421-01621-6 .
• Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 .
• Kurt Hochstuhl: Between Peace and War: Alsace in the years 1938–1940. A contribution to the problems of a border region in times of crisis . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. Main 1984, ISBN 3-8204-8254-7 ( European university publications . Volume 250).
• Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, ISBN 2-904920-17-X ( Collection "Recherches et documents" . Tome 59).

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Spieser in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, pp. 59 .
2. ^ Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars, European university publications, series 3, volume 42 . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1975, p. 366 .
3. ↑ Friedrich Spieser: Thousand Bridges: A biographical story from the fate of a country . Hünenburg Verlag, 1954, p. 154 and pp. 591-592 .
4. ↑ Friedrich Spieser: Frau Nachtigall . Strasbourg 1928.
5. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: La politique de nazification en Alsace . In: Saisons d'Alsace . No. 65 . Strasbourg 1978, p. 92-93 . ; s. a. Christian Baechler: L'Alsace-Lorraine dans les relations franco-allemandes de 1918 à 1933 . In: Jacques Bariéty (ed.): La France et l'Allemagne entre les deux guerres mondiales . Press Universitaire de Nancy, Nancy 1987, p. 69-109 . ; a different account, according to which Spieser was only active in the Erwinsbund from 1931 , can be found in Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence (USA) 1978, p. 58 .
6. ↑ Friedrich Spieser: The life of the folk song in the context of a Lorraine village: Hambach, Saargemünd district . Diss. University of Marburg, 1934 .; s. a. Works
7. ^ Georg circle : Alfred Toepfer and Alsace . In Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich , Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen , Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 , pp. 87-93
8. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, pp. 59 .
9. ^ Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, p. 130-135 ( Collection "Recherches et documents" . Tome 59).
10. ^ L'Alsace française . May 10, 1939.
11. ^ Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, p. 143-145 ( Collection "Recherches et documents" . Tome 59).
12. ↑ Heinz-Dietrich Loock: The Hünenburg publishing house Friedrich Spiesers and the National Socialism . In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History . tape 2 . Munich 1966, p. 430-431 .
13. ↑ Walther Killy : Literaturlexikon , Volume 11, SI − VI, Berlin / Boston 2011, p. 125
14. ^ Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, p. 163 ( Collection "Recherches et documents" . Tome 59).
15. ^ Friedrich Hünenburg (d. I. Spieser): Thousand Bridges: A biographical story from the fate of a country . Hünenburg-Verlag, Stuttgart 1952.
16. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ M. J. Bopp: The evangelical clergy in Alsace and Lorraine from the Reformation to the present . Degener, Neustadt ad Aisch 1959, p. 521-522 .
18. ↑ Heinz-Dietrich Loock: The Hünenburg publishing house Friedrich Spiesers and the National Socialism . In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History . tape 2 . Munich 1966, p. 411-413 .
19. ^ Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, p. 154 ( Collection "Recherches et documents" . Tome 59).
20. ↑ Friedrich Spieser: The honor of Alsace . Hünenburg Verlag, Strasbourg 1942.
21. ↑ Heinz-Dietrich Loock: The Hünenburg publishing house Friedrich Spiesers and the National Socialism . In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History . tape 2 . Munich 1966, p. 403 . ; Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser: Le reconstructeur de la burg . In: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Groupe de recherche sur le château de Hunebourg. Société Savante d'Alsace, Strasbourg 1997, p. 148–150 and 163–164 ( Collection “Recherches et documents” . Tome 59).
22. ↑ Heinz-Dietrich Loock: The Hünenburg publishing house Friedrich Spiesers and the National Socialism . In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History . tape 2 . Munich 1966, p. 445-446 .