Jenny Grimminger

Jenny Grimminger (born November 26, 1895 in Michelbach an der Lücke ; † December 2, 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a victim of the Nazi dictatorship. As the wife of Eugen Grimminger , she was arrested after the actions of the White Rose were discovered and died in the concentration camp .

Life

Jenny Grimminger was born as Jenny Stern. She was the first child of Jakob and Sidonie Stern, geb. Mezger, and spent the first years of her life and the first school year in her place of birth, Michelbach an der Lücke. In 1903 Jakob Stern left the town with his family and moved to Crailsheim , where he had a good income as a goods dealer. After the First World War, Jenny Stern got a job at the Crailsheim District Office, where Eugen Grimminger also worked. On August 29, 1922, the two married in Stuttgart , which is where they lived from then on. Eugen Grimminger now worked as an auditor at the Association of Agricultural Cooperatives at Johannesstrasse 86, in 1925 he was appointed dairy inspector for all dairies in the association and in 1930 chief auditor and head of the entire auditing department.

In 1926 the Grimminger couple moved into a large apartment at 39 Esslinger Strasse in Untertürkheim . In 1935 Grimminger had to give up his post after the Crailsheim NSDAP district leadership had written to the NS-Landesbauernschaft demanding the removal of the " Jewish misfit ". He moved with his wife to Altenbergstrasse 42 and in 1937 founded a trust and advisory office at Tübinger Strasse 1. In the course of his self-employment, he helped politically persecuted people, for example by providing them with forged papers.

On December 1, 1941 Jenny Grimm Ingers widowed sister Senta Meyer with her four children was from Killesberg from deported . The family was shot near Riga on March 26, 1942 . Jenny Grimminger did not find out about the murder of her relatives, but was extremely worried after the deportation of the family and was frightened by her husband's subversive actions. Robert Scholl , whom Grimminger had contacted about the deportation of the family, reported in a letter to his wife that Jenny Grimminger was "completely out of her mind" with fear.

In 1942 Robert Scholl was denounced for "subversive statements" and taken into custody. Eugen Grimminger wanted to look after Scholl's office, which was located in his Ulm home, until the end of his prison term and soon got to know Scholl's children and other members of the White Rose. Despite Jenny Griminer's contradiction - Eugen Grimminger later testified: "I did it because I couldn't help it!" - and although as head of the family he was now also looking after Jenny Griminer's relatives who had moved to Stuttgart, he decided to financially close the group support, and gave her several large sums of money, partly personally, partly through his colleague Tilly Hahn, geb. Waechtler. Whether this money came from Griminer's own property at all or always is a matter of dispute. It is possible that he only acted as an intermediary and handed over money to the White Rose. B. came from the Crailsheim cinema owner Berta Wagner. On February 18, 1943, a duplicating machine was also to be handed over. On that day, however, Hans Scholl was arrested by the Gestapo after he had distributed leaflets in Munich University . During the interrogation of other arrested persons from Scholl's circle, the name Grimminger was also mentioned. On March 2, 1943, Eugen Grimminger was arrested and transported to Munich, where he was sentenced to ten years in prison on April 19 of the same year for high treason . Already nine days before this conviction, Jenny Grimminger, who was no longer protected by her "mixed marriage" , was arrested on Altenberger Strasse in Stuttgart. She was first taken to the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp and later to Auschwitz. According to the camp management, she died there on December 2, 1943 of emaciation from an intestinal catarrh . It is not known whether this claim about the cause of death is true or whether Jenny Grimminger perished in the gas chamber .

In 1944, Eugen Grimminger found out about his wife's death while in prison in Ludwigsburg and made a suicide attempt, which he survived. After his liberation in 1945 he became president of the regional association of agricultural cooperatives in Stuttgart, and in 1947 he married Tilly Hahn. In 1979 he had a memorial stone placed for his first wife in the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart . In addition to the names of Jenny Griminer and her sister Senta Meyer and the names of the four murdered children Senta Meyer, it also bears the names of her mother Sidonie Stern and that of her sisters Mina and Julie, who were able to emigrate in time and died of natural causes. Sidonie Stern and her daughters Mina and Julie are buried in the Prague cemetery.

A stumbling block was laid in front of Altenbergstrasse 42 in memory of Jenny Grimminger . Rolf Hochhuth remembered her in his robber speech in 1982 and emphasized that she could have survived the Third Reich if Eugen Grimminger had not felt obliged to offer support to the White Rose.

literature

• Franz Schönleber, Jenny Grimminger: A forgotten dead person in the resistance of the White Rose , in: Harald Stingele (ed.), Stuttgarter Stolpersteine. Traces of Forgotten Neighbors , Markstein Verlag, 3rd edition 2010, ISBN 978-3-7918-8033-4 , pp. 86–89.

Web links

• Franz Schönleber, Jenny Grimminger: A forgotten dead person in the White Rose resistance

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ingersheimer Blätter ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. (PDF; 252 kB) 
2. ↑ See Ruth Sachs, White Rose History . Vol. I., Lehi 2003, ISBN 0-9710541-9-3 , p. 636. Eugen Grimminger, his sister Luise Haas and their daughter Eugenie Merker did some shopping and dealing with the authorities. When Senta Meyer and her children were ordered to the assembly point on the Killesberg, Eugen Grimminger accompanied them there in the tram and defended himself against the conductors' allegations that he should be ashamed of traveling with Jews.
3. ↑ Cf. Sönke Zankel, With leaflets against Hitler: The resistance group around Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell , Böhlau 2007, ISBN 978-3412200381 , pp. 351 ff. Here, Griminer's self-portrayal after the end of the Nazi dictatorship is critically examined.
4. ↑ Theophil Wurm had already listed Jenny Grimminger in January 1943 as living in mixed marriage in a list for the deaneries of his diocese. Cf. Antonia Leugers (ed.), Berlin, Rosenstrasse 2-4: Protest in the Nazi dictatorship , Plöger Medien GmbH 2005, ISBN 978-3898571876 , p. 55, note 32.