Gau Thuringia

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Gaue of the German Reich 1944

The Gau Thuringia was an administrative unit of the NSDAP .

History and structure

In 1925, Hitler appointed the more nationally religious writer Artur Dinter as NSDAP Gauleiter of Thuringia. At the same time, Dinter was the editor of the Weimar newspaper “Der Nationalozialist”. For his loyalty to the party, Dinter received the low party number 5. Fritz Sauckel was managing director in the Gau Thuringia (member number 1,395) and overthrew Dinter in 1927 with the support of Adolf Hitler . During this time, the Gau developed into the so-called "Trutzgau" of the empire. The first Nazi party rally after the Hitler putsch , on which the Hitler Youth was founded, took place here in 1926 . With the election successes of the NSDAP in 1929 Sauckel moved into the Thuringian state parliament and became leader of the NSDAP parliamentary group under the Baum-Frick government , in which the party was involved in a German state government for the first time. In 1930 a "Chair for Racial Issues and Racial Studies" was set up at the University of Jena in order to put Nazi racial ideology on a scientific basis ( racial hygiene ). The inaugural lecture by Hans FK Günther “The causes of the racial change in the population of Germany since the migration period” was attended by Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring , among others . After the election victory in July 1932, the NSDAP provided the government with 42.5% of the vote, and the Thuringian state parliament elected Sauckel as Minister of State for the Interior on August 26, 1932. He initially also took over the chairmanship of the state government. This meant that the Gau and the country were in one hand.

Map of the state of Thuringia (1920), still without Erfurt and Schmalkalden

After the Reichstag election in March 1933, Sauckel became Reich Governor in Thuringia on May 5 . On May 8, 1933, an old fighter , Willy Marschler MdR, became Prime Minister of the State of Thuringia and held the office until April 1945. However, the Prussian administrative district of Erfurt and the district of Herrschaft Schmalkalden also belonged to the Parteigau, so that Sauckel still takes the chief president of the Prussian province of Saxony ( Curt von Ulrich ) and the province of Hessen-Nassau ( Philipp von Hessen (politician) ) into consideration for these areas. had to take. It was not until 1944 that he took over this function for Erfurt. His previous attempts to form a "super-Gau" Thuringia had been stopped at the level of the Reich. However, the district president of Erfurt Otto Weber (politician, 1894) was also the NS district leader of Weimar and Erfurt and thus subordinate to the Gauleiter.

The Gauleitung was in Weimar , Adolf-Hitler-Straße 7. Heinrich Siekmeier first took over the management of the publishing house “Der Nationalozialist”, then the management of the Gau, before he worked as Gau organization and Gaupersonalamtsleiter and deputy Gauleiter. The Gauführerschule was the state school for leadership and politics in Egendorf . HJ functionary Herbert Haselwander became head of training in 1936 . In 1933 Paul Papenbroock MdR took over the management of the Office for Educators and the NSLB in the Gau. Regional economic advisors were Heinrich Bichmann MdL from 1931, State Commissioner for Economy (Chambers of Industry and Commerce) in Thuringia, Otto Eberhardt until 1939, mine director in Karlsbad and Ministerialrat in the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs, as well as Walther Schieber , chemist and head of the industrial department of the Economic Chamber from 1939.

Gauforum Weimar : the parade ground of the Nazi leadership and an example of National Socialist architecture

Sauckel's main concern was the profiling of Thuringia as a “model district”, for which he operated the expansion of Weimar into a representative district capital, especially since Hitler valued the place very much. This becomes clear in 1938 in the new building of the " Hotel Elephant " preferred by Hitler on the market square. The centerpiece was the “ Gauforum Weimar ” (Weimarplatz) with buildings for the Reichsstatthalterei and Gauleitung, party structures, the German Labor Front and the Wehrmacht, as well as a “Hall of the People's Community” designed for 20,000 spectators in order to become a backdrop for the staging of the National Socialist community in mass events. The construction project was almost completed as the only regional Nazi power center in Germany. Classic sites such as the Goethe National Museum and a Nietzsche memorial hall (not completed) in addition to the Nietzsche archive surrounded this. The State University of Jena, since 1934 " Friedrich Schiller University ", became the medium of Nazi cultural policy , particularly through racial studies . In 1939 in Jena Karl Astel , 1933 founder of the State Office for Racial Affairs, became the first “race researcher” to be rector of a German university. Thousands of psychiatric patients fell victim to euthanasia. The program was launched in Thuringia v. a. carried out in the sanatoriums Blankenhain , Hildburghausen , Pfafferode and Stadtroda , whereby about 630 patients were killed. In addition there was the “ child euthanasia ” in Stadtroda.

Sauckel was also active in economic policy. The expropriation and " Aryanization " of the Suhl arms and vehicle factory of the Jewish Simson family in 1935 laid the foundation for the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation . As a model Nazi operation, it gave the new owner economic power. On May 27, 1936 Sauckel established the foundation in Weimar and was appointed head of the foundation for this armaments company by Adolf Hitler. On September 1, 1939, he became Reich Defense Commissioner for Military District IX in Kassel, and on March 21, 1942, General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment. He was responsible for the deportation and organization of around five million foreign workers to Germany who had to do forced labor for German industry and agriculture . Their number increased, particularly through the construction of underground factories, for example at Nordhausen - Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp . Presumably, a Führer headquarters in Jonastal was prepared as the last “fortress”. There were concentration camps in Nohra , Bad Sulza (from 1933), and the Buchenwald concentration camp at Ettersberg - Hottelstedt from 1937 . On April 4, 1945 inmates of the Gestapo prison in the Marstall Weimar and the prisoners of the regional court prison were murdered . In this end-of-war crime, over 140 people were shot dead in a wood near Weimar.

Gauleiter were

Deputy Gauleiter were

literature

  • Fritz Sauckel: Fight and victory in Thuringia. 1934.
  • Fritz Sauckel: Combat speeches. Documents from the time of the turnaround and the construction. Selected and edited by Fritz Fink . Fink, Weimar 1934.
  • The Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation. A factual and accountability report on socialism, convictions and deeds in a National Socialist model enterprise in the Thuringia district of the NSDAP. Weimar, January 30, 1938. Published by the head of the foundation Fritz Sauckel. Weber, Leipzig / Berlin 1938.
  • Marlis Gräfe, Bernhard Post and Andreas Schneider: The Secret State Police in the NS Gau Thuringia 1933–1945. Sources on the history of Thuringia . II. Half volume, published by: State Center for Political Education Thuringia , unchanged new edition 2005, ISBN 3-931426-83-1 . (pdf)
  • Markus Fleischhauer: The NS-Gau Thuringia 1939 - 1945: a structure and function history , Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2010 ISBN 978-3-412-20447-1 .
  • Steffen Raßloff : The "Mustergau". Thuringia at the time of National Socialism. Bucher, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-7658-2052-6 .
  • Steffen Raßloff: The "Mustergau" Thuringia under National Socialism. (Thuringia. Sheets on regional studies 106), Erfurt 2015 ( online )

Web links

See also

Thuringia under National Socialism

Single receipts

  1. ^ Address book NSDAP 1940