Kurfürstendamm riot of 1931

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The Kurfürstendamm riot of 1931 (also known as the Kurfürstendamm riots, "Ku'damm pogrom", "riot on Kurfürstendamm" or "Ku'damm riot") was a political riot in the late phase of the Weimar Republic , which was too massive anti-Semitic attacks by members of the National Socialist Sturmabteilung (SA) in the area of Berlin's Kurfürstendamm .

procedure

On the evening of September 12, 1931, the day of the Jewish New Year , there was a crowd of members of the National Socialist SA on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm and a few adjacent streets in the Charlottenburg district . The SA men had previously streamed into the area in small groups: on the Kurfürstendamm they marched up and down in a large number of smaller demonstrations, which, according to police reports, were between 3 and 30 men strong, chanting anti-Semitic slogans such as "Juda, verrecke!" and "Beat the Jews to death!" In the further course of the demonstrations, Jews were insulted when leaving the Fasanenstrasse synagogue and passers-by who, according to the SA people, looked Jewish, were assaulted.

The organizers of these elevators are the Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels and the Berlin SA leader Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff . The riots were partially coordinated on site by Helldorf and his chief of staff, Karl Ernst , who drove up and down Kurfürstendamm several times in a car and gave their people instructions. Among other things, Helldorff gave the order to storm Café Reimann, with some guests seriously injured.

While bloody confrontations between communists and SA were the order of the day, this attack on Jews was an exception. It was even sharply reprimanded by the German national press.

Just a few days after the riot, 33 identified offenders, most of whom belonged to the SA, were sentenced to imprisonment between 9 and 21 months in an accelerated process. In addition, some of the SA storm halls were closed by the police in October. The sanctions were therefore much tougher than the perpetrators usually had to expect in the far bloodier street battles.

Helldorff and Ernst after a first interrogation at the police station at the Zoo station was dismissed immediately after the events, and then were initially undetectable were, after a few days as ringleaders of the riots in detention taken. In a first trial, the two men, who were defended by Roland Freisler and Hans Frank , were sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of 100  marks . In the appeal process in early 1932, they got away with minor fines. Evidence suggests that there had been a secret agreement between Heinrich Brüning and Goebbels in the meantime : the start of the process was delayed and heard before other judges against the promise to leave a state visit by French ministers undisturbed.

Interpretations of the 1931 riot

While Zionist groups in particular viewed the pogrom-like excesses as a threatening climax of growing anti-Semitism, other Jews opposed this view, emphasized the uniqueness of the incident and referred to the rapid action taken by the state organs.

Dirk Walter points out that the riots on Kurfürstendamm in 1931 showed a “certain level of violence typical of anti-Semitic aggression in the Weimar Republic”: physical violence of the most brutal kind, but no use of weapons as against communist opponents. According to his interpretation, behind this reluctance there was “the assumption that many anti-Semitic perpetrators find that the use of weapons against Jews was socially unacceptable and would not be tolerated, tolerated or even welcomed.” Cornelia Hecht describes the riot as “one that had been planned well in advance Anti-Semitic action ", which for the first time fully revealed the potential for violence of National Socialist anti-Semitism to the public:" It was a prelude - the dress rehearsal, so to speak - of coming events, which nobody could foresee. "

Four years later there was the Kurfürstendamm riot of 1935 .

Lore

The investigation and trial files relating to the various proceedings that were held in Berlin courts due to the Kurfürstendamm riots in 1931 and 1932 are now in the Berlin State Archives . The press reports were systematically collected by the Ministry of the Interior and are now in the Federal Archives (R 1501/26181).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Mayer : NSDAP and anti-Semitism 1919–1933 (PDF; 361 kB)
  2. ↑ Dirk Walter: Anti-Semitic crime and violence: hostility to Jews in the Weimar Republic . Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5026-1 , p. 216.
  3. ↑ Ted Harrison: "Old Fighter" in the Resistance ... In: VfZ 45 (1997), p. 392 f.
  4. ↑ Cornelia Hecht: German Jews and Anti-Semitism ... p. 242.
  5. ↑ see points 5 (2005) No. 2 with the reference to Cornelia Hecht: German Jews and anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic . Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-8012-4137-8 .
  6. ↑ Dirk Walter: Anti-Semitic crime ... p. 221.
  7. ↑ Cornelia Hecht: German Jews and Anti-Semitism ... p. 268.