Cologne district

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The Cologne Circle is a civil resistance group in western Germany from the context of political Catholicism .

structure

The Cologne district was a network of Catholics in the Rhineland and Westphalia . Its members were initially opposed to National Socialism , mainly for religious reasons. From this, in a lengthy process, the decision to enter into political resistance developed. The originally purely Catholic discussion groups came from the environment of the Catholic associations, the Christian trade unions and the Center Party in Cologne . Gradually, connections developed to other oppositional circles in cities such as Düsseldorf , Bonn , Bochum and Duisburg . With the Catholic labor movement and its Cologne association headquarters in the Kettelerhaus, the district had an organizational framework, as the KAB local associations formed a network of confidants. The leadership of the West German Association of Catholic Workers' Associations (President Dr. Otto Müller , Association Secretary Bernhard Letterhaus and Chief Editor Nikolaus Groß ) were murdered during the Third Reich. Chairman Joseph Joos escaped the same fate only because he had been imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp since 1940 . The leading personalities of the group included Jakob Kaiser , Wilhelm Elfes , the former editor-in-chief of the Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung and Krefeld's chief of police, Andreas Hermes , the former Reich Agriculture Minister of the center, as well as Johannes Albers , Johannes Gronowski , Christine Teusch , Heinrich Körner and the Dominicans Laurentius Siemer and Eberhard Welty .

Contacts with the national resistance

The group did not remain isolated, but also made contact with people or networks outside the Catholic milieu . The Düsseldorf group included, for example, the former antitrust secretary of the Christian trade unions and later Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia , Karl Arnold , as well as the former German-national, Protestant Düsseldorf mayor Robert Lehr .

This cooperation also existed supraregional, including with the Kreisau district . The contact persons included Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and the former mayor of Leipzig Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , who was a member of the DNVP before 1933 . There were also connections to General von Hammerstein, an opposition military from Colonel General Ludwig Beck , the long-standing head of the military resistance. In 1941 there was a direct encounter between Beck and President Otto Müller. Müller reported about them when he mentioned the visit of a “ very high-ranking man from the military ” in 1943 , who had inquired about the organizational status and the Nazi immunity of the KAB members. “ Something could happen that in many places we need people we can rely on, who can take charge of the community and choose the right people for the administration and for law and order. In such a case I can fall back on you and your organization . "

Above all, the Cologne branch of the district around the Kettelerhaus also had contacts to social democrats: the former social democratic mayor of Solingen , Joseph Brisch , established connections with the former Prussian interior minister Carl Severing and the free trade unionist Wilhelm Leuschner .

Relationships with the core of the military as well as the civil resistance existed. Since the Berlin resistance group had hardly any connections in western Germany, the Cologne circle, to which Nikolaus Groß belonged, became something of its western mainstay.

Act

The activities of the Cologne group included the attempt to counteract Nazi propaganda . Her Düsseldorf branch wrote leaflets under the pseudonym "Michael Germanicus", which exposed Goebbel's propaganda, especially during the moral trials against Catholic clergy.

There was intensive discussion within the circle with other Catholic personalities such as the Dominican provincial Laurentius Siemer about a possible future design of Germany on the basis of Catholic social teaching . There were also connections to Alfred Delp , who first informed Nikolaus Groß and Otto Müller directly about the Kreisau Circle.

In the autumn of 1943 Goerdeler came to the Kettelerhaus to advise on staffing key positions after the fall of Hitler. Then Groß traveled to Saarbrücken to win the former government commissioner in Saarland, Bartholomäus Koßmann (center), as political commissioner. These were given the important task of first acting as political advisers to the commanders-general, then as chief presidents.

The relations of the Cologne Circle helped to break through the old social, denominational and ideological barriers between Rhenish-Westphalian Catholicism and the Prussian-Protestant, liberal-conservative bourgeoisie on the one hand and the social democratic workers on the other.

Planning by the Cologne district

Like the Kreisau and Berliners, the Cologne Circle has thought about the future state structure of Germany. For today's reception, however, he is at a fundamental disadvantage compared to the other two, because his elaborations, which were summarized by Nikolaus Groß and Elfes under the titles "Is Germany lost?" And "The great tasks", no longer exist . This leaves only texts from individual members such as Wilhelm Elfes and Eberhard Welty, but these are not necessarily identical with the views of the entire Cologne district. Nevertheless, the basic lines of the Cologne ideas can be reconstructed. What is striking about them, especially in comparison with Kreisau and Berlin, is that the Cologne Circle took a democracy of whatever kind for granted. Elfes commented on Goerdeler's plans in a letter to Otto Müller in March 1943: “(...) the election of a parliamentary representative body must be initiated as soon as possible and carried out according to democratic principles so that a real people's government can be formed. "

Parties and their dominant role in forming a government were a matter of course for the Cologne residents. It was agreed not to want to revive the Catholic Center Party in its old form in the future. Two party models competed with one another: a labor party based on the example of the English Labor Party with the aim of bridging the gap between Christian and socialist workers, on the one hand, and a Christian, interdenominational people 's party , like the one in the CDU in 1945 Became reality, on the other hand.

The focus of the Cologne deliberations, however, was on social and economic policy issues, as it also corresponded to the orientation of the Catholic social doctrine, which traditionally hardly dealt with questions of the state constitution. Elfes demanded that human labor should take precedence over capital interests. For this it is necessary to found a unified union and to secure the workers decisive influence on the economy. He proposed a far-reaching socialization program that included the division of large estates into viable farms, state control of the large banks, the splitting up of the "large capitalist corporations" made up of diverse businesses or their conversion into cooperatives, and a maximum share ownership limit. Elfes relied on the market economy because he was optimistic about an economic upturn after the end of the war . The workers should materially participate in it through property formation.

Welty, on the other hand, strived for a static supply economy, since he considered it necessary to manage the shortage for a long time. It also corresponded more closely to the traditional Catholic mistrust of the liberal-capitalist economy and was more compatible with the old preference for professional solutions. Professions and cooperatives should be responsible for the managed economy.

persecution

As a personnel reservoir in the West, the Cologne Circle played an important role in the resistance against Hitler with its ideas and people. He had extensive relationships with the best-known resistance groups in Kreisau and Berlin. It is therefore not surprising that its leading figures - Letterhaus, Groß and Müller - were drawn into the maelstrom of Nazi revenge justice after the unsuccessful assassination attempt by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg . Groß and Letterhaus were sentenced to death by the People's Court and executed, Otto Müller died in custody. More far-reaching anti-church intentions of the Nazi rulers became apparent in the Groß trial. Although he was convicted of involvement in Goerdeler's conspiracy, he was on trial with Kreisauer. His relationship with Kreisau, which had existed through Delp, was not discussed at all in the process. The background was that the National Socialists were planning a church trial with Delp and Otto Müller, in which his mediating role between the circles could have played an important role. The project failed of course because of Müller's untimely death.

In terms of content, the importance of the Cologne Circle lies in its democratic pragmatism, which came to fruition among the surviving members after the collapse. Many of them took part in the establishment of the unified union and the Christian Democratic Union. This includes u. a. the names Jakob Kaiser, Andreas Hermes, Johannes Albers and Karl Arnold.

Research situation

This group received little attention for a long time because their plans for the time after the National Socialist rule have not been preserved. In addition, the main focus of research so far has been the resistance of conservative circles or of social democrats and communists . The Catholics were hardly perceived as an independent resistance group.

literature

  • Vera Bücker: The Cologne Circle and its conception for a Germany after Hitler. In: Historical-political messages / archive for Christian-democratic politics, vol. 2, Cologne 1995, pp. 49–82.
  • Vera Bücker: Nikolaus Groß. Political journalist and Catholic in the resistance of the Cologne Circle. LIT-Verlag, Münster u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5774-3 .
  • Stefan Noethen: Plans for the Fourth Reich. The resistance group in Cologne's Kettelerhaus 1941–1944. In: History in Cologne. Issue 39, July 1996, ISSN  0720-3659 , pp. 51-73.

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