Hans Maikowski (SA member)

State funeral for Hans Maikowski on February 5, 1933 in Berlin

Hans Eberhard Maikowski (born February 23, 1908 in Berlin ; † January 31, 1933 there ) was a member of the SA . The Nazi propaganda stylized him because of his violent death on the day of the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, similar to Horst Wessel as the " martyr of the movement ".

Life

Early life and career in the SA until 1933

Hans Maikowski moved to Stuttgart in 1923, where he had first contacts with the NSDAP . He attended the Waldorf School there , which he “u. a. because of his anti-Semitic attitude " relegated . From 1924 back in Berlin, he joined the Olympic Defense Association, disguised as a sports club, and the Frontbann Nord. From 1924 to 1925 he was a soldier in the Reichswehr . From 1926 to 1928 he completed an apprenticeship as a gardener. Maikowski was the first standard bearer of the Berlin SA in 1926 and in 1929 founded the “Arbeiterjugend Charlottenburg”.

From February 20, 1931 until his death, he was leader of SA Storm 33 in Berlin-Charlottenburg . "Mördersturm [s] 33" was responsible for numerous murders of political opponents in the early 30s. Maikowski himself fled abroad for a short time after pleading guilty through a lawyer to having shot and killed the worker Walter Lange on December 9, 1931 during a street battle in what is now Otto-Suhr-Allee . On his return he was arrested in October 1932, but released on December 23, 1932 as part of the Christmas amnesty. Then he worked for the Völkischer Beobachter .

assassination

On January 30, 1933, Maikowski took part in the torchlight procession to celebrate Adolf Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor. On the march back, Sturm 33 led by Maikowski made a provocative detour through Wallstrasse in Charlottenburg, which is mainly inhabited by KPD supporters . There was an exchange of fire with residents in which the policeman Josef Zauritz was shot and Maikowski was so badly injured that he died in the Westend hospital.

The circumstances of the act remained unresolved. National Socialist propaganda attributed the acts to the communists. They insisted that they had not fired a shot and named a witness who accused an SA man. A large show trial of 56 defendants, almost all members of the KPD, ended with a total of 39 years 'imprisonment and 95 years' imprisonment, without any direct evidence of direct involvement, and an acquittal. Statements by SA comrades Maikowski to the Secret State Police Office from June 1933, which described SA man Alfred Buske (born October 26, 1912 - January 18, 1934) as the perpetrator, remained secret and were destroyed in 1943. Further evidence supports Buske's perpetration. In later editions of their memorial book Sturm 33, Hans Maikowski, his comrades erased any reference to Buske and replaced him on a photo by means of retouching by SA man Paul Foyer, one of the main defendants in the trial of Otto Grüneberg's murder .

More recent research into the process has shown that the shooting of Maikowski by Buske was probably ultimately the result of an order from the Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels : In an expert report that became public in 2019, Wolfram Pyta and Rainer Orth refer to a testimony they found by the former SA - Relatives of Karl Deh, who was an eyewitness to the shooting of Maikowski, to the Berlin police in 1967. In this, Deh reported on a meeting of senior SA leaders in the Berlin-Charlottenburg district on December 27, 1932, at which he himself, Deh, participated. During this meeting, some participants had expressed their fear that the "Political Organization" (PO), the party apparatus of the NSDAP, might try the SA in the event of a National Socialist takeover of power in the state - which would then, from the PO's point of view, try to do its job would have done and would no longer be needed - to boot out so that the fruits of victory would not have to be shared with the SA, but would have to be had for themselves. In particular, the Berlin Gauleiter Goebbels, who was considered treacherous and scheming in SA circles, was trusted with such intentions. For this reason, the idea was expressed in the SA leaders' meeting on December 27th that “Goebbels would have to disappear first [before one came to power]” in order to prevent such a development. Hans Maikowski, who was one of the participants in the meeting, then, according to Deh, confidently declared that "if it were necessary", he (Maikowski) would personally take on the task of shooting Goebbels. Deh explained that he was convinced that Maikowski's private threat of December 27, 1932, had been deferred by another participant in the meeting - Deh suspected Standartenführer Berthold Hell - Goebbels and that Goebbels had then arranged for Maikowski to be liquidated by Buske Man who could potentially be dangerous to him to get rid of the world. In his own cynicism, Goebbels then instrumentalized the elimination of his personal enemy Maikowski for his propaganda by having Maikowski transfigured into a "martyr" for the Third Reich after his murder by the press and radio in order to create another myth, which was suitable to contribute to the ideological consolidation of the new regime. As evidence for his suspicion that Buske carried out the murder of Maikowski on a higher order, Deh pointed out to the investigators in 1966 that Buske always had money after Maikowsi's death until his own death in 1934, although he never had had worked and that Deh had also been promoted from SA troop leader to SA storm chief (ie by three ranks) in a very short time during 1933. According to Deh's opinion, Buske had "out of necessity" shot the police officer Zauritz spontaneously, on the one hand to carry out the attack on Maikowski, with which he was assigned, and to get rid of an unpleasant official witness by shooting Zauritz at the same time .

National Socialist propaganda exposed Maikowski as a martyr . On February 5, 1933, the Reich Propaganda Leader Joseph Goebbels staged a major event in the form of a state funeral for both victims in Berlin. It consisted of a funeral service by DC pastor Joachim Hossenfelder in the Berlin Cathedral and a solemn funeral procession to the Invalidenfriedhof , where Maikowski was buried after funeral speeches by Hermann Göring and Goebbels and Fritz-Otto Busch . The event, which is said to have been attended by 600,000 people, was broadcast by all radio stations across the country. and excerpts from the Nazi propaganda film Germany Awakened (1933). The SA Standard 1 later bore the name "Hans Maikowski". In many German cities and communities, streets got his name. At the place of his death, Wallstraße 52, now “Maikowskistraße”, a memorial plaque commemorated him, as did a memorial fountain in the nearby Richard-Wagner-Straße from 1937. None of Maikowski's numerous public honors survived the Hitler era. According to a testimony of February 18, 1943, Maikowski is said to have been "shot" by "SA man Buske" [...].

Web links

• History of the SA in Berlin / Brandenburg (PDF; 1.7 MB), by Bernhard Sauer: Goebbels' "Rabauken". On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg. In: Berlin in the past and present . Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives 2006.
• Maikowski, Hans Eberhard , in: Marcus Weidner: The street naming practice in Westphalia and Lippe under National Socialism. Database of street names 1933–1945. Münster 2013 ff. LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History

Individual evidence

1. ^ Death certificate in the Berlin State Archives, A Rep. 358-01 No. 7086
2. ↑ To Die for Germany , Jay W. Baird, Indiana University Press (September 1992)
3. ↑ ^{a b} Maikowski, Hans Eberhard , in: Marcus Weidner: The street naming practice in Westphalia and Lippe during the Nazi era. Database of street names 1933-1945 , Münster 2013 ff. On the Internet portal "Westphalian History", status: December 12, 2013
4. ↑ Sven Reichardt : The Charlottenburger SA- "Mördersturm 33" (1928-1932) , in: Knoch, Habbo (ed.): Täterinnen und Täter , Hamburg 2002.
5. ↑ Social Democratic Press Service of February 4, 1933 (PDF; 2.7 MB) at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
6. ↑ Stephan Brandt: The Charlottenburger Altstadt , Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2011. ISBN 978-3-86680-861-4 . P. 45.
7. ↑ Bernhard Sauer: "Goebbels Rabauken" (PDF; 1.7 MB). In: Landesarchiv Berlin: Berlin in the past and present . 2006, pp. 107-164; here p. 139.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Stephan Brandt: The Charlottenburg old town , Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2011. ISBN 978-3-86680-861-4 . P. 100.
9. ↑ Wolfram Pyta / Rainer Orth: Expert opinion on the political stance and behavior of Wilhelm Prince of Prussia (1882–1951), last Crown Prince of the German Empire and of Prussia, in the years 1923 to 1945, p. 77 .
10. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. P. 35 
11. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels (ed. By Elke Fröhlich) Part 1 / Vol. 2 / III, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-23788-1 , p. 124f (February 6, 1933)
12. ↑ Memorial ceremonies for SA-Sturmfuehrer Hans Eberhard Maikowski ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 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. in the holdings of the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University Libraries 
13. ↑ Federal Archives, holdings NS 23/339 ( Memento of the original from March 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ Historic street names in Bayreuth
15. ^ Marie-Luise Kreuter: The red Kietz. In: Helmut Engel , Stefi Jersch-Wenzel , Wilhelm Treue (eds.): Charlottenburg. Part 1. The historical city. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-87584-167-0 , pp. 158–177; on Maikowski pp. 165-174, 177
16. ↑ Facsimile in Bernhard Sauer, p. 34.