Karl Laforce

Karl Laforce (born October 28, 1904 , † November 9, 1923 in Munich ) was a German putschist. He became known as one of the 16 killed participants in the failed Hitler putsch , to which Adolf Hitler dedicated the first part of his book Mein Kampf .

Live and act

The putschists killed on November 9, 1923 were honored between 1933 and 1945 as " martyrs of the movement " and at the same time instrumentalized by Nazi propaganda ; Laforce 3rd row, 1st from the left.

After attending secondary school , Laforce completed an apprenticeship as an insurance salesman. He was then employed by the Thuringia insurance company from May 10, 1921 until his death . At the same time he studied engineering in Munich. Politically, Laforce had already found a connection with the völkisch-nationalist movement as a youth: around 1920 he became a member of the youth organization Adler and Falken , where he led a local group, a so-called Horst . In 1921 he joined the NSDAP and the SA . In 1923 he was accepted into the so-called Shock Troop Adolf Hitler , a predecessor organization of the later SS . As a student, he had been a member of the Bajuvaria Munich armed forces since 1923 .

In November 1923 Laforce took part in the failed Hitler putsch in Munich. At noon on November 9, 1923, he was killed during the putschists' demonstration march through downtown Munich to the Feldherrnhalle when he was fatally wounded by a shot in the head during the clash between the putschists and the state police on Odeonsplatz , which resulted in an exchange of fire .

Hitler dedicated the first volume of his book Mein Kampf to Laforce and 15 other killed coup participants in 1925 , where they were named in the foreword. After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 was at the Feldherrnhalle a plaque with the names of such persons placed in Munich, by a guard of honor of the SS was honored. Every passer-by who passed this board was obliged to honor it with the Hitler salute. In 1935, two "Temples of Honor" were erected on Königsplatz as a common grave for this group of people. In the same year Laforce and the rest of the dead were exhumed , transferred there and reburied in bronze sarcophagi . Until 1945 they were included in the National Socialist cult of the " martyrs of the movement ".

Between 1933 and 1945, various streets in the German Reich were named after Laforce, Karl-Laforce-Strasse in Breslau , Gelsenkirchen , Kassel-Oberzwehren , Leverkusen , Leslau (in Wartheland ) and Wuppertal . There was also a department of the Reich Labor Service and the SS-Sturm 2 / III / 1 in Munich, which bore his name.

literature

• Jay W. Baird: To Die for Germany. Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon , 1992.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 3: I – L. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0865-0 , p. 218.

Web links

• Laforce, Karl . In: Marcus Weidner: The street naming practice in Westphalia and Lippe during National Socialism. Database of street names 1933–1945 . Münster 2013ff. (As of July 14, 2014).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Renaming of the street in Gelsenkirchen after 1945
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 27, 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.