Action grid

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The action grid (also called action thunderstorm and action Himmler ) was a comprehensive arrest action by the Gestapo after the failed assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 on Adolf Hitler . The action was carried out on August 22nd and 23rd, 1944. It was directed against former functionaries and elected officials of some parties in the Weimar Republic . Were arrested Social Democrats , trade unionists , liberals , communists , members of the Center and the Bavarian People's Party .

Planning

The mass arrest of Aktion Gewitter was not a spontaneous reaction by the regime to the events of July 20, 1944, but was basically planned beforehand. As early as 1935/36, former leading politicians of the Weimar Republic were listed on a so-called A-list, which was classified into three categories: A-1 to A-3. Immediately at the beginning of the Second World War , the Gestapo arrested between 2,000 and 4,000 people who were registered on the A-1 list as enemies of the state, and delivered them mainly to the Buchenwald concentration camp as “political prisoners” . Most of them were released by the summer of 1940. For this action, there is also the name of action Albrecht I . In April 1942, Adolf Hitler announced that “if a mutiny breaks out anywhere in the Reich”, the answer will be “immediate measures”. Immediately after the start of riots or similar events, all "leading men of opposing currents, including those of political Catholicism , will be arrested and executed from their homes." imprisoned or at liberty.

On August 14, 1944, Heinrich Himmler was commissioned to arrest former KPD and SPD functionaries. This mass arrest was to be carried out regardless of whether they were currently active in the opposition and was unrelated to the search for the July 20 conspirators. On August 17, 1944, all Gestapo (head) offices in the German Reich received a secret telex from Section IV of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In it, Gestapo chief Müller announced that the " Reichsführer SS " Himmler had ordered a large wave of arrests. All former Reich, Landtag and city councilors of the KPD and SPD as well as all former trade union and party functionaries of the SPD are to be arrested, "irrespective of whether something can be proven at the moment or not." Only over 70-year-olds, sick people and those, who would have “made a difference” to the system in the meantime should be spared. The arrests were to take place across the country in the early morning hours of August 22nd. The order was given to transfer the arrested persons immediately to the next level I concentration camp (“For all prisoners who are less stressed and able to improve, also for special cases and solitary confinement”) or to a nearby prison. At the same time "protective custody" had to be applied for at the RSHA. In addition, the Gestapo offices had to report the number of those arrested to the RSHA, broken down by party and stating their previous functions, by August 25th. Himmler's order ran under the code name “Aktion Gewitter”. The RSHA had neglected to include the former district council members, which only happened after some Gestapo offices had asked. On August 21, the arrest warrant was extended to former MPs of the Center Party, but two days later partially restricted again.

course

The arrests began in the morning hours and were carried out either by the Gestapo alone or in cooperation with local police forces. It is estimated that around 5,000 arrests totaled. Most of those arrested were sent to a concentration camp. During the entire period of the action, 650 victims were brought to Neuengamme concentration camp, 742 victims to Buchenwald concentration camp and 860 victims to Dachau concentration camp . Others were taken to the main prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin and others to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Because formal criteria and outdated lists were used, numerous sick and old people were arrested whose political activities had been more than a decade ago. Some of those arrested had also been arrested immediately after the start of National Socialist rule . Others, however, were arrested for the first time.

For this reason, these mass arrests met with discontent among the population, so that Ernst Kaltenbrunner ordered a review on August 30th, which resulted in the action subsiding. Overall, the Nazi regime's approach remained unpredictable and contradictory. Many of those arrested were quickly released, also because of violent protests from their families and friends. Those in prison included politicians like Karl Arnold and Johanna Tesch . The former members of the Reichstag, Otto Gerig , Karl Mache , Heinrich Jasper , Joseph Roth, and the Hamburg reform pedagogue Kurt Adams either did not survive the concentration camp imprisonment or died as a result. Due to the inhuman treatment in the camps, many of those still in prison died by winter 1944/45. Others were transferred to other concentration camps as Allied troops approached, and a number of those who were unable to cope with these death marches were shot. Some were also killed when the ship Cap Arcona, which was occupied by prisoners, was sunk . The action "grid" was therefore a potentially life-threatening reprisal.

Victim

Among the arrested members of earlier democratic parties were prominent names such as Konrad Adenauer , Paul Löbe and Kurt Schumacher .

historiography

Hanna Gerig , the widow of one of the victims of the action, wrote in 1973:

"The GEWITTER action is a purely arbitrary act , which, abruptly, but meticulously, is the chase that started on federal territory by the Gestapo at the time. Only a few historians understood that this action was by no means automatically identified with ACTION 20 JULY ..."

Sebastian Haffner complained about research desideratum in 1978 and wrote

“The action, unpublished at the time, was strangely ignored in the histories; it is usually associated with the persecution of the July 20th conspirators, with which it had nothing to do. Rather, it was the first sign that Hitler wanted to prevent any possible repetition of what he believed to be an early termination of the war of 1918: that he was determined to fight on to the bitter end even without a visible chance - in his words: "until five minutes past twelve" - and not to let anyone disturb you. "

The historian Stefanie Schüler-Springorum found in 2005 that the grid action had so far only been researched selectively for northern Germany.

In 2009, too, the grid was not yet fully explored.

literature

  • Christl Wickert : Resistance and Persecution of German Social Democrats in the 20th Century. In: Board of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (ed.): Committed to freedom. Memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century. With a foreword by Gerhard Schröder . Schüren, Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-89472-173-1 , pp. 363-402.
  • Bauche, Brüdigam, Eiber, Wiedey: Resistance in Hamburg 1939–1945. In: Labor and Destruction. The Neuengamme concentration camp 1938–1945. Catalog for the permanent exhibition in the Document House. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-87975-532-9 , p. 48.
  • Joachim Fest : Coup. The long way to July 20th. btb-verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-442-72106-7 .
  • Buchenwald Memorial (Ed.): “Grid” (“Thunderstorm”) campaign. In: Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Accompanying volume for the permanent historical exhibition. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, pp. 168–169.
  • Dachau memorial (ed.): German opponents of the “Aktion Gewitter”. In: Dachau Concentration Camp 1933 to 1945. Text and image documents for the exhibition, with CD. Comité Internationale de Dachau, 2005, ISBN 3-87490-750-3 , p. 162.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Johannes Tuchel : Inferno and Liberation: Die Rache des Regimes . In: The time. December 9, 2004, No. 51, online January 8, 2009
  2. ↑ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: mass admissions to concentration camps. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 1: The Organization of Terror. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52961-5 , p. 162.
  3. ↑ Andrea Löw (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. (Collection of sources) Volume 3: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, September 1939-September 1941. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-58524-7 , p. 638 mentioned in footnote.
  4. ↑ a b Johannes Tuchel: The revenge of the regime. In: Zeit Online. January 8, 2009, accessed May 13, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: mass admissions to concentration camps. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 1: The Organization of Terror. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52961-5 , p. 162.
  6. ↑ Federal Archives Koblenz (BA) R 58/775. To categorize the concentration camps: Nuremberg Document 1063-PS. In: The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg, Vol. 27, Nuremberg 1949. P. 695 ff.
  7. ↑ http://www.buchenwald.de/462/
  8. ↑ http://www.hdbg.de/dachau/pdfs/09/09_07/09_07_01.PDF
  9. ^ Robert Loeffel: Family Punishment in Nazi Germany: Sippenhaft, Terror and Myth . Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-02183-0 .
  10. ↑ Steinbach, Tuchel (ed.): Resistance against National Socialism. Bonn 1994, ISBN 3-89331-195-5 , pp. 392-383.
  11. ↑ ACPD (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung), Gerig estate, 01-088-001 / 3
  12. ↑ Sebastian Haffner: Notes on Hitler . P. 188.
  13. ↑ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: mass admissions to concentration camps. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 1: The Organization of Terror. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52961-5 , p. 163.
  14. ↑ Manuel Becker, Christoph Studt (ed.): The handling of the Third Reich with the enemies of the regime . XXII. Königswinterer Conference (February 2009). (= Series of publications of the Research Association July 20, 1944 eV Volume 13). LIT Verlag, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10525-7 .