Fritz Beck

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Fritz Beck (disambiguation) .

Friedrich "Fritz" Ludwig Andreas Beck (* July 14, 1889 in Landsberg am Lech ; † June 30 / July 1, 1934 in Gündinger Wald near Dachau concentration camp ) was a German political activist. Beck was best known as the creator of the International Student Aid Organization in Munich and as one of those killed in the so-called Röhm Putsch .

Fritz Beck (around 1932).

Live and act

Youth and studies up to World War I (1889 to 1914)

Fritz Beck was born in 1889 as the first and only child of the businessman Johann Friedrich Beck (born October 5, 1862) and his wife Barbara, née Hieber (born September 3, 1860 in Landsberg; † June 10, 1896). After the early death of the mother, the father remarried. From the father's second marriage to Anna Rudolph from Wangen im Allgäu, twelve younger Beck siblings emerged. The parents ran an umbrella shop in Landsberg, the range of which was later expanded to include sewing machines and music.

As a child, Beck first attended elementary school in Landsberg and then the Schäftlarn grammar school. He later switched to the humanistic grammar school in Neuburg an der Donau , which was almost 100 kilometers from his place of residence. In 1909 he passed the Abitur in Neuburg. The financial means for his higher education, which his parents could not afford, were made available to him by relatives in Munich.

In the winter semester of 1909/1910 Beck began to study classical philology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, where he was enrolled for a total of 22 semesters (8 of which were on leave). Since Beck's entry in the university's student register ends in the winter semester of 1920/1921 without a degree being mentioned, it can be assumed that he left the university without a degree.

Beck neglected his actual studies early on in order to become increasingly involved in voluntary work. In the end he only pursued his studies as a sideline to his other activities, on which he devoted most of his time.

On March 31, 1910, Beck founded the Landsberg Student Union (LSt) with around twenty fellow students from the Landsberg area . He took over the office of the 1st executive committee, but resigned this on April 8, 1911 for reasons of prevention.

From the winter semester of 1910/1911 onwards, Beck also attended historical, particularly modern, and art history courses in addition to his philological courses. Beck experienced significant influences at this time through his professors Aloys Fischer , Carl Sonnenschein and above all Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster , who sharpened his social awareness. In 1912 Beck took over the chairmanship of the student workers' advanced training courses in Munich and Pasing , which he was to exercise until 1915. Inspired by his mentor Foerster, Beck took over the organization of student training courses in this capacity, from which around 2000 workers of all ages and professions, who were taught by around 150 students, benefited.

Due to his activity as chairman of the advanced training courses, Beck seems to have spent very little time at the university from the summer semester of 1912, which is evident from the fact that although he was enrolled, he only paid very little listening fees. In the summer semester of 1913, Beck rewrote philosophy and took part in particular in educational courses. In the winter semester 1913/1914 he participated in the founding of the Academic Social Committee . During this time he only took up psychological and pedagogical courses that benefited his social work. In the summer semester of 1914, Beck finally only attended Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster's courses.

Activity during the First World War (1914 to 1918/1919)

At the First World War Beck did not participate as a soldier. He was put on hold by the arms service. In October 1914, he and others founded the Munich Academic Aid Association, which was dedicated to supporting academics who stood at the front, lay wounded in hospital or were captured. According to his own statement, he was giving courses for the war blind in the hospital of the American doctor Dr. Young. He also organized guided tours of Munich museums and factories for the wounded in Munich hospitals.

In the winter semester of 1915/1916 Beck was on leave from the university. Later the war welfare organization of the German Student Service called him to Berlin from 1914 . There he took over the head of the department supplying prisoners of war German academics in Russia and England with books.

From November 1916 Beck worked together with Reinhold Schairer for the German Special Committee for POW Aid in Copenhagen . Following the pattern of the Munich student worker training courses, as a secretary he organized courses for prisoners of war in the prisoner-of-war camp in Hall in North Jutland and in other camps. He also arranged for camp libraries to be set up, for books to be sent to prisoners of war and for prisoners to be given the opportunity to take their final exams in the camp. For his work there, he was awarded the 2nd Class Medal of Honor by the Red Cross, an Austrian award, by Prince and Archduke Franz Salvator (certificate dated July 11, 1917) and King Ludwig , "in recognition of special services to military medical care in the war" -Cross for home merit awarded by the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Brettreich.

In 1918 Beck was transferred from Copenhagen to Bern by the POW Welfare Service. After the military collapse of the German Reich and the outbreak of the November Revolution in the autumn of 1918, Beck went to Bern as the secretary of his old mentor Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster: Foerster had recently been promoted to diplomatic representative of Bavaria from Kurt Eisner, who had become the new Prime Minister of Bavaria in the wake of the revolutionary turmoil was appointed in Bern (according to the so-called reservation rights, which Bavaria was entitled to in the constitution of 1871, Bavaria was allowed to send its own diplomatic representatives abroad). Up until 1919 Beck - who was included in the files as part of the embassy staff - was a member of Foerster's involvement in establishing ties with the former war opponents. In particular, Foerster organized food deliveries for Bavaria via Switzerland, drawing on Beck's experience in Copenhagen.

In May 1919 Beck was called to Munich by a unanimous decision of the Munich student body as the first student secretary at a German university.

Beck as student leader (1919/1920 to 1934)

After his return to Munich, Beck was called to Munich in May 1919 as the first student secretary at a German university. He was the first full-time secretary of the newly established general student committee. In the winter semester of 1919/1920 he enrolled again as a student.

At Beck's instigation, a preparatory committee was convened in November 1919 to found the student house association. The foundation of the association Studentenhaus eV followed in March 1920. The purpose of the new corporation, to which a GmbH was placed as an executive body, was to "alleviate the plight of the student youth" and to promote the concerns of the world student union . Beck paid particular attention to those returning from the war. In the following years he was the head and managing director of the German Student Aid Organization and the German Academic Exchange Office (AKA), which was also housed in the rooms of the Student House Association.

In May 1920, under Beck's aegis, the first dormitory of the Student House Association was opened at Ludwigstrasse 9, with the participation of the State Committee for Soldiers' Homes. Within a short time, the opening of further institutions serving the social well-being of the students followed: namely the goods exchange in the gate area of ​​Munich University (October 1920) and the Amalienstraße 87 student residence, which replaced the first student residence (February 1921). In April 1921, the Studentenhaus association finally acquired the property at Türkenstrasse 58 and thus took over the entire student catering in Munich. Beck also opened the student residence in the medical district in April 1921. In the further course of 1921 Beck Studentenhaus established a department for health care (August 1921) and opened a shoe repair workshop at the Technical University (October 1921). In 1922 the student house took over the refreshment center at the university and opened the office and the printing shop (October 1922). In 1923 the Studentenwerk set up a black press at the university (July 1923). In 1924 the student house established its own chamber orchestra (July 1924) and an independent printing department was set up in the property at Türkenstrasse 58 (October 1924).

In February 1921, at Beck's instigation, the Dresdener Genossenschaft, the Münchner Studentenhausverein and the Tübinger Studentenhilfe founded the Economic Aid of the German Student Union as an umbrella organization (renamed Deutsches Studentenwerk in 1929). In June 1921 Industriell Carl Duisberg was won over to take over the chairmanship of the economic aid agency.

In 1926 Beck founded the German-Foreign Student Club in Munich, which was recognized as the local branch of the World Student Union. By his own admission, he hereby expressed his gratitude for the generous help from abroad during the times of inflation and material hardship of German students in the first post-war years. On December 14, 1927, the academic foreign office in Munich was founded, based in the student house.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Beck decided against an offer to go abroad as an employee of the Weltstudentenwerk. Instead, it was important to him to save his life's work from being destroyed by the new regime. When, in the spring of 1933, the process of conformity , in the course of which all non-National Socialist organizations were dissolved or brought on the National Socialist line, began, Beck therefore hastened to come into contact with powerful personalities of the new system who would be ready to protect them to keep the student house. Through his former colleague Maier, who was meanwhile employed in the SA leadership, Beck finally got in touch with Ernst Röhm, the chief of staff of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the party army of the NSDAP : In the summer of 1933 he made the honorary chairmanship of the Munich Student Union . Röhm, who at the time was considered the second most powerful man in the Nazi movement after Hitler, accepted this offer: From June 1934, Röhm acted as chairman of the Studentenhaus association, which was soon renamed the Munich Student Union. Röhm's position was limited to that of an honorary protector of the Studentenwerk, without any real personal or political contacts worth mentioning between him and Beck.

In the summer of 1933 Röhm and the SS chief Heinrich Himmler took part in a conference of the Weltstudentenwerk in Ettal Abbey , which was organized by Beck, as the de facto host. The National Socialists used this conference to make a name for themselves abroad.

From the beginning of April to the end of May 1934 Beck stayed for a cure in Agra, Switzerland. Although he felt threatened, Beck returned to Munich in early June 1934. Beck's nephew Hermann Huber later stated that Beck's attachment to his work was too strong for him to “let it down”.

The Fritz Beck murder case

On the evening of June 30, 1934, Beck was arrested by three armed SS men in his Munich apartment. He was then taken to a wooded area outside Munich and shot there on the night of July 1, 1934 at around 11 p.m. Injuries later found on his body indicate that he was subjected to severe abuse prior to his shooting. Beck's assassination took place in the course of the Nazi government's political cleansing operation in the summer of 1934, known as the Röhm Putsch . The main purpose of the action was the political disempowerment of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the party army of the NSDAP, and their leading personalities around the chief of staff of the SA Ernst Röhm. In addition, a number of persons not belonging to the SA who appeared to the rulers to be potentially dangerous or who had made themselves unpopular with them in the past were "incidentally" eliminated due to the favorable opportunity offered by the blow against the SA. Finally, there were also riots by subordinate bodies and people who used the opportunity of the "great murder" to settle personal bills to their private enemies or to people they hated privately, as well as some special cases (wild rioting and even mix-ups in which people were mistakenly killed because they were confused with the one actually searched for).

In the case of Beck, it is not certain whether he was killed on instructions from "above" or whether local Nazi officials in Munich - specifically members of the National Socialist student body at Munich University - had him killed on their own initiative. After his death, the police raided his home several times, with books and documents being confiscated. In addition, his relatives and employees were interrogated and he was accused of embezzling funds from the student union. Possible reasons for Beck's murder are given in the literature: (1) His formal / external proximity to Ernst Röhm as the main goal of the purge because of Röhm's honorary chairmanship of the student house; (2) Beck's fundamental opposition to the Nazi regime as a devout Catholic, representative of democratic pluralism, advocate of peace and promoter of foreign students. In particular, he was opposed to the racial policy of National Socialism and had expressed this rejection publicly in 1932; (3) His advocacy of the social neutrality of the Studentenhaus association, which was implicitly opposed to the Nazi student body's claim to power.

Beck's body was found on July 1, 1934 in a field near Allach and then taken to the morgue of the city of Munich. His wallet and signet ring were missing. The deceased was identified by a nephew in the presence of the Chief Public Prosecutor Jänicke. He later reported that the body had evidence of the use of force (bruises, etc.) and five gunshot wounds (three pistol and two rifle shots) from different weapons had been seen on the body of the deceased. Investigations into the death of Beck, initially initiated by the public prosecutor's office at the Munich District Court I, were finally put down at the instigation of the Reich Ministry of Justice.

The authors and perpetrators of Beck's murder have not yet been clearly clarified. Beck's stepbrother Martin Beck and the wife of the journalist Giselher Wirsing later stated that Beck, Wirsing and Richard Mayer were in contact with Ernst Röhm and were involved in his alleged coup plans. Martin Beck pointed out in this connection that shortly before his death his brother had hinted at an impending action by Röhm and had given him a package with documents with the instruction to destroy it unopened if something should happen to him, which he did then. After Fritz Beck's murder, Mayer admitted to Martin Beck that Fritz Beck had been privy to Röhm's plans for a putsch that was scheduled for July 1, 1934. He, Mayer, had also asked Beck on behalf of Röhm to contact other relevant governments in Switzerland about how a change of government with Röhm would take place there. A completely different course should be followed, namely socialism, tolerance towards the churches and an end to the racial struggle . Beck's nephew Huber, on the other hand, said that the perpetrators were to be found in National Socialist Munich student circles: They did not kill Beck because he was involved in any coup plans, but only used the "favorable" opportunity of the state-orchestrated murder wave from June 30 to July 2 in order to get rid of a long-standing unpleasant opponent in the “slipstream” of the action.

Unlike most of the victims of the murder in the Munich area, Beck was not cremated in the crematorium of the Ostfriedhof, but was buried regularly. The Landsberg student body and the student union laid wreaths at the funeral. The burial was only reported in the home section of the Upper Bavarian General Gazette on July 6, 1934. Beck's grave is now part of the family grave of the Beck family in Landsberg.

Beck's death was largely concealed in the German press: only an inconspicuous obituary notice - which stated that “God” had decided after his “inscrutable advice” to “unexpectedly call him over” - was allowed to appear .

In the foreign press, on the other hand, the Beck murder case received a relatively large amount of attention in the weeks after June 30, 1934: on July 13, 1934, the Association of the Swiss Student Union sent an open letter to the Reichsführer of the German student body against the murder Becks was protested. This letter was also printed as an open letter in various Swiss newspapers. The London Times , the New York Herald Tribune , the New York Times and the Washington Post also reported on Beck's death. Most of these articles not only reported the unexplained murder of the student official, but also paid tribute to his work and international commitment, and recognized his ability for personal friendship and faith. British friends dedicated a funeral mass to Beck in the Holy Spirit Chapel of Westminster Cathedral.

After the Second World War, the Beck murder case was reopened. The Munich public prosecutor's office heard several people closely related to the incident, but ultimately had to stop the proceedings without the perpetrators being identified. Witnesses reported that Beck was particularly hated by the SS because of his emphatically Catholic attitude.

Afterlife

In 1949, the Yale Glee Club donated an oil painting by Beck made by Olga Blitz to the Munich Student Union.

In 1994 the Landsberg city council decided to name the secondary school in Weststadt after Fritz Beck ( Fritz Beck Middle School ) with the approval of the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs . By getting out of the merger of school districts resulting merger of Fritz Beck middle school and middle school Linner in 2013, the name of the school of law accounted for, as the name of a school in Bavaria, always defined by the school district. Instead, a metal relief with Beck's face was attached to the facade of the building. In 2014, as a further replacement measure for the no longer existing naming of a local school after Beck, a bust of Beck created by the sculptor Egon Stöckle was installed in the Landsberg adult education center.

In Munich, the Fritz Beck student dormitory of the Bavarian Teachers' Association (until 1961 the seat of the academic exchange center) reminds of Beck's work. On June 30, 2014, a bust of Beck was unveiled in the entrance area of ​​the Munich Student Union office (Leopoldstrasse 15).

Fonts

• "From the pre-war and post-war social student work in Munich", in: Journal of student self-help 1930, p. 66ff.

literature

• Veronika Diem: Fritz Beck (1889-1934) and the history of the founding of the Munich Student Union , in: Elisabeth Kraus [Hrsg.]: The University of Munich in the Third Reich. Essays , Part I, Munich 2006, pp. 43–71
• Josef Hirschbeck: Fritz Beck 1889–1934 , in: Festschrift 70 Years of the Landsberg Student Union (LSt), 1910–1980 , Landsberg 1980, pp. 27–36
• Max Rieder: Fritz Beck - his life, his ideas and his work , published by the city of Landsberg with the support of the Landsberg student body, Landsberg 1995 (brochure)
• Franz Xaver Rößle: Fritz Beck 1889–1934. The founder of the student union from Landsberg , in: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter , vol. 110, 2011/2012, pp. 157-184

Web links

• Fritz Beck 1889 - 1934 His life's work , by Franz Xaver Rößle, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Landsberg registry office: birth certificate no. 1889/70.
2. ↑ Munich prosecutor, public prosecutors 21981, curriculum vitae of Fritz Beck, written in March 1931st
3. ^ The University of Munich in the Third Reich, p. 46.
4. ^ Elisabeth Kraus: The University of Munich in the Third Reich , p. 67.
5. ↑ "Fritz Beck, familar figure to American Students at Munich 'Clean Up' Victim.", In: Herald Tribune of July 4, 1934 "Killing of Beck, Academic Foreign Bureau Head, Attributed to 'Terrible Accident'", in: New York Times, July 4, 1934.
6. ^ The Catholic Times.