Heinrich Jasper

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Heinrich Jasper
Heinrich Jasper, bust by Jakob Hofmann
Monument to Heinrich Jasper in Seesen
Painting in the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum
Memorial plaques on the Reichstag
Stumbling stone for Heinrich Jasper in front of the entrance to the Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Braunschweig

Heinrich Jasper (born August 21, 1875 in Dingelbe ; † February 19, 1945 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp ) was a social democratic politician and several times Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig .

Life

Jasper came from a wealthy family, his father was a tenant of an estate. First he attended a grammar school in Hildesheim , then from 1890, after the family had moved to Braunschweig, to attend the Wilhelm grammar school there until the Abitur ; he then studied law in Munich , Leipzig and Berlin . After receiving his doctorate in 1900, he returned to Braunschweig as a trainee lawyer in 1901 and then settled in the city as a lawyer . In 1902 he joined the SPD, an unusual decision at the time for an academic . From 1903 to 1928 Jasper was a representative of his party in the Braunschweig city council . From July 1915 to November 1918 he took part in the First World War and returned to Braunschweig at the end of the war in the rank of Vice Sergeant .

Politician

After the abdication of Ernst August , the last Braunschweigischen Guelph -Herzogs, on 8 November 1918 and during the turmoil of the November Revolution in Braunschweig Jasper took the political struggle against Josef "Sepp" Oerter and the Braunschweiger Soviet Republic, which he called " the dictatorship of an undemocratic Minority ” . From January 1919 to 1920 he was a member of the National Assembly . On February 10, 1919, he was unanimously elected President of the State Assembly. The focus of his political work remained Braunschweig. On February 19, 1919, Jasper became MSPD Chairman of the City 's People's Representatives Council . After the general strike of the Brunswick workers in April 1919 and the brief occupation of the city by Freikorps troops under General Maercker , Jasper was president of the state parliament for several years.

Prime Minister

Jasper remained a member of the Braunschweig Landtag from 1919 to 1933 . In the years 1919/1920, 1922 to 1924 and finally from 1927 to 1930, Jasper, who had developed into the undisputed leader of the SPD, was Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig, almost always at the same time as Minister of Finance of the country. From 1930 until the National Socialists came to power in Braunschweig, Jasper was the SPD parliamentary group leader in the state parliament.

Persecution by the Nazi regime

Shortly after the seizure of power on January 30, 1933, the new Brunswick Prime Minister, NSDAP member Dietrich Klagges , began to persecute his political opponents and thus also his predecessor in office. On March 9, 1933, the SS occupied the “ Volksfreund-Haus ”, which was the property of the SPD and where the newspaper of the same name was printed. One employee was shot dead and many others were severely ill-treated. Jasper immediately wrote a telegram to President Hindenburg in which he protested against these riots.

On March 17, 1933, the SPD executive committee of Braunschweig met in the Hotel “Monopol” to discuss the situation and how to proceed. On the way home, Jasper was arrested at the instigation of Klagges under a pretext and taken into " protective custody "; to do this, he was taken to the AOK building that the National Socialists had misused, where he was badly mistreated. Jasper was then taken to the "Volksfreund-Haus" occupied by the SS, where he was subjected to further abuse.

In a letter, Jasper reported that the Braunschweig SS leader Friedrich Alpers had visited him in captivity in order to grant him his release on condition that Jasper renounced his state parliament mandate and ran again. Jasper refused, however. On April 19, he was provisionally released. But on June 26, 1933, he was arrested again and taken to the Dachau concentration camp , from which he was not released until 1939, under previously unexplained circumstances, although numerous personalities immediately campaigned for his release. Jasper then returned to Braunschweig, but was now under constant surveillance and had to report to the Gestapo every day .

From 1939 to 1942 he carried out historical research in the Braunschweig City Archives , until the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944 provided a new pretext for arresting Jasper on August 22, 1944 in the "Grid" campaign .

In the meantime, 69-year-old Jasper, who had been physically and mentally battered by imprisonment, abuse and permanent persecution, was first taken to the notorious Hallendorf labor education camp , "Camp 21", near Salzgitter-Watenstedt and transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in September . After this was dissolved in the final phase of the war, Jasper was in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from February 1945 , where he is said to have died of typhus on February 19, 1945 . His body was buried in a mass grave.

Appreciation

"The state of Braunschweig has to thank this well-deserved, completely altruistic and personally incontestable minister, and the municipalities have to thank him very much."

- Paul Eyferth (Mayor of Wolfenbüttel) in 1955 about Jasper

In honor of Heinrich Jasper, the Braunschweig “Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse” in the eastern ring area was renamed “ Jasperallee ” on March 26, 1946 . On December 23, 1951, a stone bust of the politician created by the sculptor Jakob Hofmann was unveiled. It was initially on the east side of the Braunschweig district government building (Bohlweg), and has been on the west side (Ruhfäutchenplatz) since 1998. Another monument is located in Seesen am Harz.

The small forest settlement Eggeröder Brunnen near Elbingerode (Harz) was renamed Jasperode in 1946 . This name has not officially been used since 1990, but is still the name of one of the streets in this settlement.

On March 8, 1958, the "Heinrich Jasper House" was opened as the " House of the Open Door " of the Socialist Youth - The Falcons in the Braunschweig Schuntersiedlung on Tostmannplatz.

In the 1990s, the secondary school in Holzminden was named Dr.-Heinrich-Jasper-Schule . Since 1992 one of the 96 memorial plaques for members of the Reichstag murdered by the National Socialists has been commemorating Jasper near the Reichstag in Berlin .

On June 29, 2015, a stumbling block was laid in front of the Wilhelm-Gymnasium in memory of Heinrich Jasper .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Free State of Braunschweig - The State Governments 1918–1933 on gonschior.de, accessed on August 28, 2013.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Füllner: The end of the Spartakist rule in Braunschweig. 1969, p. 215.
  3. ↑ regionalbraunschweig.de Stumbling block for Dr. Heinrich Jasper
personal data
SURNAME Jasper, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Politician (SPD) and Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH The same thing near Hildesheim
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1945
Place of death Bergen-Belsen concentration camp