Liechtenstein in the time of National Socialism

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Memorial plaque on Alfred Rotter's house

Liechtenstein in the time of National Socialism describes the section of the history of Liechtenstein between the rise of the National Socialists in the German Reich in 1933 to the end of the Second World War .

prehistory

Jews lived in Liechtenstein only briefly in the 17th and 18th centuries and later again from the 1920s. At that time there was a latent Christian anti-Judaism due to the strong Catholic character of the country . There is little information about how to deal with Jews who settled in the neighboring regions and did business. At least since the Vaduz Customs Code of 1552, Jews in Liechtenstein, among other places, had to collect an additional lump duty . Back then they had to pay 30 pfennigs per person. This continued even after other regions had long since abandoned this practice, with the customs regulations of 1680 and the customs boards of 1734 and 1762. It is also known that the authorities had to intervene repeatedly because of Christian attacks against Jews living in the country .

In Vienna and Munich, the Liechtensteiners Josef Gabriel Rheinberger and Aloys von Liechtenstein, who lived there, took up race anti-Semitism as early as the 19th century. In the 1920s, the two state and party newspapers “ Liechtensteiner Volksblatt ” and “ Liechtensteiner Nachrichten ” expressed themselves openly anti-Semitic in connection with Jewish business matters , naturalization applications and the plan to set up a large slaughterhouse in Schaan .

Due to the effects of the global economic crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s, National Socialism found many supporters in the Principality of Liechtenstein. The ideology was able to gain a foothold in Liechtenstein, especially through propaganda from Austria and Germany. For them, the supporters picked out important aspects of Nazi ideology, such as hope for work and social equilibrium, settlement with political opponents, the end of the democratic party dispute and anti-Semitism .

The greatest danger, however, did not come from the National Socialists in Liechtenstein - the ethnic German movement only reached a maximum of five percent of the population - but from the shattered state of the political system, which almost came to a standstill due to the majority voting system, party disputes, blockades and strife.

After the Swiss had given the Liechtenstein government an ultimatum on March 13, 1936 and demanded its clear affirmation of independence and compliance with the applicable international treaties, two days later there was a heated debate in the Liechtenstein parliament, which subsequently led to a coalition government for the first time with proportional holdings as well as the proportional representation in the state parliament, with authorities, commissions and courts.

On March 18, 1936, heir to the throne Franz Josef II returned from his previous seat in Vienna to Vaduz and stayed there, which helped to stabilize the political system and the country in general. On March 30, the sick Prince Franz I transferred the sovereign rights to him and appointed him Prince Regent. After the death of Francis I, the prince ascended the throne.

Rotter abduction

Memorial plaque at the Berlin theaters
Stumbling block on Fritz Rotter's house

An incident in Liechtenstein in connection with National Socialism in 1933 is referred to as the “Rotter kidnapping” .

The brothers Alfred and Fritz Schaie , who were born in Germany and naturalized to Liechtenstein and who performed under the stage name “Rotter”, owned several theaters in Berlin at the time. In 1933 they went bankrupt due to anti-Semitic pressure .

The German judiciary then determined on the basis of allegations that the brothers had fraudulently caused the bankruptcy. Despite the fruitlessness of the proceedings, the German press attacked Liechtenstein and its naturalization rights and exerted pressure to obtain extradition to Germany.

On April 5, 1933, four Liechtenstein and five German National Socialists lured the brothers out of their hiding place, the Liechtenstein forest hotel “Gaflei”, and tried to kidnap them to Germany. The kidnapping attempt was also planned as the "prelude" to founding a Liechtenstein National Socialist movement. But the attempt failed, with Alfred and his wife Gertrud falling to their deaths below the Gaflei settlement . Fritz escaped and informed the Liechtenstein government that all of the assassins could be arrested a little later.

They were indicted on June 8 of the same year and sentenced to mild prison sentences of between four months and one year, also for ignoring a political motive in consideration of Germany. In addition, before the verdict was announced, over 700 signatures were collected in the country for a pardon for the attackers.

In October there was a «debate» between the Liechtenstein government and the German government, which resulted in an end to the German press hate speech in exchange for an early release of the attackers and a halt to financial naturalization. The latter was also legitimized by law in 1934.

The kidnapping came as a shock to the population and thus prevented the establishment of a Liechtenstein Nazi party. The downplaying of the incident with the word “Rotterdam affair” also attracted criticism.

"'Rotter' became a topos in Liechtenstein, the epitome of anti-Semitic and National Socialist violence."

1933 to 1945

On March 18, 1938, Hitler decided not to interfere politically in Liechtenstein because the country seemed too insignificant to him. Nonetheless, the fear of a connection was widespread on the financial markets in particular, which led to the Landesbank withdrawing 2.5 million francs within a few months, which had to be "absorbed" by a two million loan.

“In addition, numerous foundations and domiciliary companies were liquidated or moved abroad, and no fewer than 149 companies with a capital of 185 million francs had to be deleted by July 1938. Tax losses were the result. "

Those involved in the Rotter kidnapping appeared openly Nazi, as did the Liechtenstein Homeland Service (1933 to 1935) and the Volksdeutsche movement in Liechtenstein (VDBL for short), which existed between 1938 and 1945. These attacked the Jewish population in a hateful and inhuman manner, especially with their organs "Liechtensteiner Heimatdienst" under the secretary Carl von Vogelsang and "Der Umbruch" under the secretary Martin Hilti (until the end of 1942), and Alfons Goop and Franz Röckle (after 1942 ). In addition, parts of the Fatherland Union, founded in 1936, had sympathy for the National Socialists.

At that time, Jews were also attacked and verbally abused on the streets. From 1938 onwards, National Socialists carried out firecrackers against Jewish apartments.

The VDBL had the goal of connecting Liechtenstein to the Greater German Reich. At first they tried only on the economic level and later on all levels. In March 1939 they tried it with an unsuccessful follow-up coup and, from 1940, through propaganda and agitation. In their newspaper “ Der Umbruch ”, which appeared between 1940 and 1943, they called for Liechtenstein to be redesigned in all areas according to Hitler's German models. They tried to discredit Jews, members of the Progressive Citizens' Party in Liechtenstein and clergy and demanded the yellow star and a labor camp for Liechtenstein Jews. They denied the "Liechtenstein people" and the right to the existence of the small state of Liechtenstein. In the newspaper, Hitler was praised and the way of working in the German Reich was justified and praised, including support for the Hitler-German persecution of Jews up to their extermination. At that time, the VDBL had between 150 and 250 members. At the same time, ever larger sections of the population were negative and hostile to the party.

Assuming that Liechtenstein would soon be annexed to Germany, many Nazi-minded citizens flagged their houses and bicycles with swastika flags , greeted them publicly with " Heil Hitler " and in political rallies called for the termination of the customs treaty with Switzerland of 1924 and a customs connection with Germany.

A meeting between Prince Franz Josef II and Adolf Hitler was also important for independence during the Second World War . Perhaps the fact that Hitler saw Liechtenstein as the last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire and was also impressed by the princes' sense of art meant that Liechtenstein was not occupied .

Union coup in 1939

On the evening of March 24, 1939, the National Socialist Volksdeutsche movement in Liechtenstein under the leadership of the country leader Theodor Schädler tried to force the principality to join Germany. The plan was to provoke clashes by marching on Vaduz and to have German forces from Feldkirch move in after a call for help.

40 National Socialists marched from Nendeln in the direction of the capital of Liechtenstein, but were persuaded to turn back before Schaan by opponents who were ready to defend themselves under the leadership of Government Councilor Anton Frommelt. In addition, the opponents prevented assembled VDBL members from leaving the house.

36 of the more than 100 coup participants fled to Feldkirch after the failure. 76 people were later questioned and around 50 were charged. Fearing German power, the leaders of the putsch were released from custody in December 1939 and expelled from the country. The VDBL was discredited after the coup attempt and remained weak until 1940.

During the night of the Putsch, almost all Jews living there fled to Switzerland, but returned in the following days.

The attempted coup led to great outrage and a “patriotic pulling together”. In the days after the event, the Liechtenstein Loyalty Association launched a signature campaign to affirm Liechtenstein's independence, combined with a commitment to the Princely House and to economic and political orientation towards Switzerland. This was signed by 95.4% of all eligible voters.

In 1945 the trials of the leaders of the failed Anschluss coup resumed and four leaders were sentenced in January 1946 to five years imprisonment and three others to conditional imprisonment.

Anti-fascism

The Progressive Citizens' Party , the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt and the Church of the State opposed the baiting of Jews during the Nazi era .

After 1945

After the Second World War, the National Socialists living in Liechtenstein pleaded that they had been seduced by the propaganda. They stated that they were convinced of the Nazi idea and the Führer, but had not noticed anything about the crimes of the dictatorship. Most of them were reintegrated socially and politically into society. Some had to serve prison terms in between. The Nazi sympathizers at the time were no longer active in the interests of the National Socialist regime.

The Germans living in Liechtenstein, including Austrians from the Anschluss in 1938, were partly recorded between 1933 and 1945 in the “NSDAP local group Liechtenstein” from abroad, but before that in the German colony, which was controlled by the German consulate general in Zurich . The propaganda was directed through this consulate general. After the Second World War, some German party officials were expelled from Liechtenstein.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sees it as problematic that after the war only the putschists of 1938 and the country leader of the Volksdeutsche movement were convicted, while those responsible for the forced labor of the Liechtenstein Jews would not have been legally prosecuted. However, the "Independent Commission of Historians Liechtenstein" stated in its final report that

“There was no forced deprivation of property of Jewish property, 'Aryanization' or forced labor in Liechtenstein or by Liechtenstein companies. On the other hand, from 1938 onwards, the Princely House bought individual companies or holdings from Jewish ownership in neighboring Austria and German-occupied Czechoslovakia, for example to round off the Elbemühl paper mill owned by the Princely House. From July 1944 until the end of the war, Jewish concentration camp prisoners from Hungary, whom the SS hired from the Strasshof camp near Vienna, were also employed as forced labor on three princely farms in Austria . "

A Matura thesis on this topic also comes to the conclusion that

“Despite the sometimes close cooperation with the German war economy, none of the Liechtenstein companies was directly involved in cases of forced labor. However, there have been indirect cases. For example, the Maybach company from Friedrichshafen, which was the main client for Hilti OHG, used several thousand forced laborers. "

Culture of remembrance

The ideology of National Socialism divided the population of Liechtenstein deeply. The memory of this time is comparable to the witch hunt in Liechtenstein and was traumatic for the majority of the residents of Liechtenstein.

The period of National Socialist rule in the German Reich has only been comprehensively researched in Liechtenstein since the 1970s.

Since 2006, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust has been celebrated in Liechtenstein on January 27th .

Right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism today

Right-wing extremism in Liechtenstein in the time before the National Socialists was aimed at integration into “Germanness”, whereas the new right-wing extremism refers to and limits itself to Liechtenstein's sovereignty.

Since the 1990s there has been a small, informally organized right-wing scene in Liechtenstein made up of skinheads and neo-Nazis. In addition to its political character, it also shows peculiarities of youth culture.

It emerged from the skinhead movement and was strongly xenophobic from the start. The majority of the group are young men between 17 and 25 years of age. In 2007 , the Liechtenstein police comprised around 40 people in the partially violent core . The ideologies are largely disseminated through right-wing rock . Due to prohibitions, the media are largely obtained via the Internet. The scene has its role models abroad, such as the Hammerskins in Switzerland or the German Blood and Honor movement . The size of the sympathizers of this movement in Liechtenstein is difficult to estimate, but is increasingly recognized as a task of social and educational policy, but also youth work. The scene is overserved by the state security. In 2000, Liechtenstein acceded to the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination .

«With the end of the Third Reich, the madness of the persecution and murder of European Jews based on racial anti-Semitism became fully visible. Nevertheless, a latent anti-Semitism based on anti-Jewish stereotypes and racist prejudice has persisted in Liechtenstein to the present day. Colloquially, for example, an expensive trader was qualified as a 'Jew', a disorderly crowd of children as a 'Jodaschual' ('Jewish school'). (...) The swastika is sporadically smeared on in Liechtenstein at the beginning of the 21st century, as a provocation and symbol for Nazi violence and the murder of Jews. "

See also

Portal: National Socialism  - Overview of Wikipedia content on the subject of National Socialism

literature

  • Peter Geiger: Time of Crisis, Liechtenstein 1939 to 1945, Vol. 1–2, Vaduz / Zurich 2010.
  • R. Yamada-Beck: Skinheads - a social phenomenon ?, Dipl. Zurich, Ms. 1998 [LBFL]
  • Liechtenstein Youth Study 2006, Ed. Office for Social Services, 2007
  • Peter Geiger et al .: Questions about Liechtenstein in the Nazi era and in World War II. Refugees, assets, art, arms production. Final report of the Independent Commission of Historians Liechtenstein Second World War, Vaduz / Zurich 2005.
  • Ursina Jud: Liechtenstein and the refugees at the time of National Socialism. Study on behalf of the Independent Commission of Historians Liechtenstein Second World War, Vaduz / Zurich 2005.
  • Klaus Biedermann et al .: Scouting and Jewish Children at the Time of National Socialism in Liechtenstein, in: Yearbook of the Historical Association for the Principality of Liechtenstein, Vol. 99 (2000), pp. 217–230.
  • Peter Geiger: A time of crisis. Liechtenstein in the 1930s 1928-1939, Vol. 1–2, Vaduz / Zurich, 2000.
  • Peter Geiger: «Looking for traces that led to the madness of the Shoah ...» Urs Altermatt's fundamental work on Catholicism and anti-Semitism in Switzerland, in: Yearbook of the Historisches Verein für das Fürstentum Liechtenstein, Vol. 99 (2000), pp. 270-274 .
  • Urs Altermatt: Catholicism and Anti-Semitism. Mentalities, continuities, ambivalences. On the cultural history of Switzerland 1918-1945, Frauenfeld 1999.
  • Karl Heinz Burmeister : The Jewish community on the Eschnerberg 1637-1651, in: Yearbook of the Historical Association for the Principality of Liechtenstein, Vol. 89 (1991).
  • Karl Heinz Burmeister: Liechtenstein as a place of refuge for the Jews expelled from Sulz 1745/47, in: Yearbook of the Historical Association for the Principality of Liechtenstein, vol. 86 (1986)
  • KH Burmeister: Der Würfelzoll, in: Aschkenas 3 (1993), 49-64.
  • AP Goop: Liechtenstein yesterday and today, 1973, 286f., 290–301
  • A. Bellasi, U. Riederer: Alsleben, alias Sommerlad, 1997
  • Encyclopedia of National Socialism , Ed. Wolfgang Benz et al., 2001

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Peter Geiger, Karl Heinz Burmeister: Antisemitism. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  2. ^ Karl Heinz Burmeister: Cube inch. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Christoph Rella: Swastika over Vaduz Castle. Retrieved June 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Editor: Rotter kidnapping. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 10, 2019 .
  5. ^ A b c d Peter Geiger: National Socialism (NS). In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  6. ↑ «Looking for the best solution together» - Interview with Prince Hans-Adam by Joel Grandchamp in «300 Years of Liechtenstein» Vaduz 2019, Liechtenstein Marketing, p. 38ff.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Donat Büchel: Connection coup. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  8. ^ Wilfried Marxer: Heimattreue Vereinigung Liechtenstein. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Hans-Erich Volkmann: 1939 to 1945: Liechtenstein and Hitler's note . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed June 12, 2019]).
  10. ^ Independent Historians Commission Liechtenstein - Second World War. Retrieved June 13, 2019 .
  11. ^ Simon Dörig: War Production. In: Culture of Remembrance in Liechtenstein - Coming to terms with and recollecting the events during the Second World War in the Principality of Liechtenstein. March 9, 2018, accessed June 13, 2019 . Page 11.
  12. ↑ a b Konrad Kindle: right-wing extremism. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online (eHLFL). December 31, 2011, accessed June 12, 2019 .