Resistance group around Jochen Bock

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The resistance group around Jochen Bock consisted of five Erfurt commercial students who planned and carried out various actions against the Nazi dictatorship in August and September 1943 , such as writing anti-Nazi slogans on shelters and producing and distributing leaflets. They were denounced by classmates, arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to imprisonment for “ broadcasting crimes and preparing a treasonous enterprise”.

history

background

The five young people directly involved, aged between 15 and 16, came from very different family backgrounds and attended the commercial school in Talstrasse in Erfurt together. Jochen Bock is considered to be the initiator of the group. The loss of his older brother in the Battle of Stalingrad reinforced his critical attitude towards the regime and began to listen to foreign radio stations, especially Radio Moscow . The broadcasts of the National Committee Free Germany (NKFD) gave him the idea to found a cell of the NKFD and to write and distribute leaflets against Hitler and the National Socialist regime.

He was able to win his classmates Karl Metzner , Gerd Bergmann, Helmut Emmerich and Joachim Nerke as supporters. In the weeks from August to September 1943, the group met repeatedly in cafes and on excursions to the Steigerwald in Erfurt to discuss possibilities of resistance. In shelters in the Steigerwald they left appeals against the war and the slogan "Down with Hitler!" They also put together a leaflet, which they copied on Karl Metzner's typewriter and distributed in Erfurt mailboxes or thrown from the moving tram. Further actions such as minor acts of sabotage were also planned, but did not materialize, as reports from fellow students probably made the Gestapo aware of the group. On September 14th and 15th, the youths were arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. Despite the blows they took, they seem to have stuck with their version of "only five" afterwards. On September 17, 1943, they were taken to the prison on Andreasstrasse at the corner of Friedrich-Wilhelmsplatz (today: Domplatz).

Detention

As political prisoners, the boys were largely isolated from one another in pre-trial detention and housed with criminal offenders. Jochen Bock remained completely in solitary confinement, as he was considered the “ ringleader ” of the group and should not have any contact with him.

process

On April 17, 1944, the official indictment took place at the Higher Regional Court of Kassel . The trial took place on June 2, 1944 in the regional court building in Erfurt. A psychological report had a mitigating effect on the sentence, so that the boys were sentenced according to the youth criminal law. The benevolent assessments of the class teacher Albrecht Schulz probably also had a positive effect. The young people escaped the death penalty for “ high treason ”. Karl Metzner, Gerd Bergmann and Helmut Emmerich were sentenced to prison terms of between six and eight months because they were only classified as “fellow travelers”. Joachim Nerke was sentenced to one year and six months, which he served in Bautzen youth prison until February 1945. The initiator of the group, Jochen Bock, was sentenced to at least two years imprisonment in the Hoheneck youth prison near Chemnitz for "listening to foreign stations and distributing the news he heard", which he served until the end of the war. He died of tuberculosis in 1947 , probably as a result of imprisonment.

Contents of the leaflet

The text of the leaflet (originally created in several versions) has only survived in the form of a copy in the court files. It is based on programs of the "National Committee Free Germany" and reads as follows:

“German men and women! Today the 'National-Komitee-Free-Germany' appears for the first time in addition to its radio broadcasts. The upright and straight thinking German men and women of our people are hereby called to fight against the war criminals! The 'National-Komitee-Free-Germany' demands what we all need most, namely:

  1. Peace!
  2. Freedom!
  3. Loaf!
  4. End of the Hitler blood terror!
  5. Immediate end of the total war [...]! "

Work and meaning

In 2014, the support group for the memorial site Topf & Sons eV launched the Jochen Bock Prize to honor the courage of Jochen Bock and his colleagues and to commemorate their fate. It honors people in a place of complicity, the former premises of JA Topf & Sons. In the future, it will also be awarded to people "who have taken up the» civic duty to say no «(Fritz Bauer) against anti-Semitism , anti-gypsyism and any form of group-related misanthropy in an encouraging way."

In 2015, the Ettersberg Foundation / Andreasstrasse Memorial and Educational Center (which is located at the site of the pre-trial detention of the young people) developed a three-year research project together with the Topf & Sons Memorial Site, the University of Erfurt and the Thuringian State Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. and educational project on the Erfurt youth resistance during National Socialism. The focus here was on the group around Jochen Bock. A scientific publication, a film documentation and a website were created. The title is given by the slogan that members of the resistance group wrote on walls in 1943: “LOW WITH HITLER!”.

Furthermore, a conference on youth resistance in NS is planned for autumn 2018, at which the resistance group around Jochen Bock will also be honored. Educational materials on the topic and a graphic novel by the Berlin artist Hamed Eshrat , with a scenario by Jochen Voit , which appeared in 2018, are also in preparation .

literature

  • Christiane Kuller, Annegret Schüle, Jochen Voit (eds.): Down with Hitler! The resistance of the Erfurt commercial students around Jochen Bock , Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3943588-91-0 .
  • Gerhard Laue: My youth in Erfurt under Hitler 1933-1945 , Rockstuhl-Verlag, Bad Langensalza 2016, ISBN 978-3-95966-137-9 .
  • Sascha Lange: Meuten, Swings & Edelweißpiraten: Youth Culture and Opposition in National Socialism , Mainz 2015, ISBN 978-3-95575-039-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eckart Schörle: Youth in National Socialist Erfurt, published in: Christiane Kuller, Annegret Schüle, Jochen Voit (ed.): Down with Hitler! The resistance of the Erfurt commercial students around Jochen Bock, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3943588-91-0 , p. 27.
  2. ↑ a b c Nicolas Hecker: The Erfurt commercial school students and their political resistance, published inChristiane Kuller, Annegret Schüle, Jochen Voit (eds.): Down with Hitler! The resistance of the Erfurt commercial students around Jochen Bock, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3943588-91-0 , pp. 37–47.
  3. ↑ Stefan Hellmuth: Everyday prison life and detention regime in the Erfurt court prison, published in: Christiane Kuller, Annegret Schüle, Jochen Voit (ed.): Down with Hitler! The resistance of the Erfurt commercial students around Jochen Bock, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3943588-91-0 , pp. 147–150.
  4. ↑ Franziska Kohlschreiber: "He always showed an absolutely positive attitude towards the Führer and the state" - Biographical notes on Joachim Nerke (1928-?), Published in: Christiane Kuller, Annegret Schüle, Jochen Voit (eds.): Down with Hitler! The resistance of the Erfurt commercial students around Jochen Bock, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3943588-91-0 , pp. 123-145.
  5. ^ Laue, Gerhard: My youth in Erfurt under Hitler 1933–1945, Rockstuhl-Verlag, Bad Langensalza 2016, ISBN 978-3-95966-137-9 , p. 129.
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( 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. , accessed June 26, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.topfundsoehne.de
  7. ↑ http://nieder-mit-hitler.de/ , accessed on June 26, 2017.
  8. ↑ http://nieder-mit-hitler.de/index.php/graphic-novel/ , accessed on June 26, 2017.