Cross-border commuter demonstrations in Warndt 1937

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The cross-border commuter demonstrations in Warndt in 1937 were several protests by miners in Warndt .

background

The "Grenzgänger" were German miners from the Saar area who commuted to Lorraine every day to earn their living there. The area was considered a source of unrest in the German Reich , as the proletarian milieu was strongly communist and socialist in character even before the annexation of the Saar area and many activists from the KPD and SPD as well as the trade unions fled to Lorraine after the annexation. Border posts were set up there, especially in Forbach . The daily shuttle traffic gave the groups in exile from both parties the opportunity to smuggle publications into the German Reich, but also to do political advertising.

In 1937, the Reich Office for Foreign Exchange Management issued an ordinance which forced workers in Saarland to exchange their wages in the German Reich at the officially set exchange rates instead of the previous practice in France. As a result, the workers lost 30% of their wages.

prehistory

The shop stewards in the emigrated resistance initially advised to exhaust the legal possibilities. On January 24, 1937, the first DAF meeting took place in Großrosseln , which did not bring any improvement, but rather aggravated the conflict due to the presence of 2,000 angry and energetic miners. In addition, the French trade union Confédération générale du travail (CGT) began to get involved with German workers.

The demonstrations

The KPD called for the money to be changed in mid-February, for the next wage payment, and then to cross the border together. This project was put into practice on the 14th of the month. The midday shift of the Sarre-Moselle mine , about 6,000 men, walked across the border under the slogan “Either all 6,000 to the concentration camp or none!”. Night and morning shifts (approx. 2000 men) followed. The protests continued until the 16th. Gauleiter Josef Bürckel then suspended the regulation. In doing so, however, he exceeded his powers and another ordinance was dismissed, which restricted Bürckel's suspension insofar as the miners now had to change two thirds of their wages in the Reich.

The protests continued until the end of the month. Now the Gestapo began to take action against the miners, supported by the local NSDAP groups . First, 21 workers were arrested. After that, extensive interrogations began in connection with penalty orders. Around 1,000 workers were threatened with a fine of 130 Reichsmarks and six weeks in prison. Bürckel increased the pressure and had eight of the “ ringleaders ” sentenced to up to ten and a half months in prison. The propaganda began to warn against “communist agitators” in the Warndt.

aftermath

Protests began again after the verdicts. The workers sent delegations to the authorities and press offices. A women's delegation tried to get to Hitler himself, but was turned away. This massive contingent eventually led to the lifting of the 1000 workers' penal orders. The eight "ringleaders" were also released early from custody. However, the foreign exchange regulation remained in place and the situation worsened after the French franc was devalued in July 1937. This time retirees and the DAF also joined the protests. The political leadership then came to meet the workers and increased the compensatory allowance, but they also began to control individual workers more closely and punished seducers severely. Thus Andreas Closen , former communist and in the DAF hired for treason arrested and died four months later under mysterious circumstances.

Both the banned and underground unions played a major role, but ultimately the conflict was mainly carried out by the DAF, so that politicians did not succeed in isolating and criminalizing the resistance. Nevertheless, the massive Gestapo terror resulted in the protests being quickly depoliticized and numerous workers emphasizing the economic motives.

literature

  • Gerhard Paul : Refusal and Protest in the “Volksgemeinschaft”. The Frankenholz school strike and the cross-border commuter demonstration in Warndt in 1937 . In: Stadtverband Saarbrücken (ed.): Ten instead of a thousand years. The time of National Socialism on the Saar 1935–1945 . 2nd corrected edition. Merziger printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken / Merzig 1988, ISBN 3-923754-06-X , p. 146-158 .