List of stumbling blocks in Switzerland
The list of stumbling blocks in Switzerland contains all the stumbling blocks that were laid by Gunter Demnig in Switzerland as part of the art project of the same name . On September 8, 2013, the first two stumbling blocks were laid in Kreuzlingen , and on September 13, 2015 another stumbling block was laid in Tägermoos , a district of Konstanz on Swiss territory.
background
The initiative "Stumbling blocks for Constance - Against forgetting and intolerance" initiated the relocation of these three stumbling blocks on Swiss territory in the neighboring municipality of Kreuzlingen in Constance and in the Tägermoos district of Constance. The transfers in Kreuzlingen took place on the 75th anniversary of the arrest of the two escape helpers.
Stumbling blocks in Kreuzlingen
| image | inscription | Location | Life |
|---|---|---|---|
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ERNST BÄRTSCHI JG LIVED HERE . IN 1903 ARRESTED IN 1938 'PREPARATION FOR TREASURE' LUDWIGSBURG PRISON LIBERATED / SURVIVED |
Schäflerstrasse 11
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Ernst Bärtschi was born on February 15, 1903 in Tuttlingen in what is now Baden-Württemberg . He was a Swiss citizen , like his father, a shoemaker from Dulliken in the canton of Solothurn , who worked on the construction of the Black Forest Railway in Germanyand married a woman from Tuttlingen.
Ernst Bärtschi and his German friends Karl Durst and Andreas Fleig smuggled political pamphlets and brochures from 1933 onwards. Later he helped countless emigrants to flee to Switzerland. In 1938 he and his colleagues fell into a trap of the Gestapo and were sentenced to 13 years in prison. Shortly before the end of the war he was liberated by the Americans. Bärtschi died on December 7, 1983 in Scherzingen in the canton of Thurgau . |
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ANDREAS FLEIG JG LIVED HERE . 1884 DELAYED 1912 GERMAN CITIZENS ARRESTED IN 1938 'PREPARATION FOR HIGH TREASION' LUDWIGSBURG PRISON LIBERATED / SURVIVED |
Schäflerstrasse 7
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Andreas Fleig was born on January 26, 1884 in Sulz an der Lahr in Baden . His parents were the carpenter Nikolaus Fleig and his wife Elisabeth. He had several siblings and also learned to be a carpenter. He moved to Konstanz, joined the German Woodworkers' Association in 1904 and was a member of the SPD from 1910 to 1914. In 1912 he moved to the Thurgau community of Kreuzlingen near the border and worked for the Jonasch & Cie company , which manufactured seating furniture. He married Wilhelmine Friedricke geb. Bleich and the couple had a son, Karl Andreas, geb. on November 10, 1916 in Konstanz. During the First World War, he served in the German army from 1915 to 1918, but did not return to the troops from home leave in 1918, but stayed in Switzerland. In 1928 he bought a small house at Schäflerstrasse 7 in Kreuzlingen for around 15,000 francs. A local council described him as “a Swabian of real shot and grain. Efficient at work and helpful in life. "
Fleig was an avowed opponent of National Socialism and kept in touch with trade unionists and social democrats. As early as 1933 he was wanted by the Gestapo . Together with his work colleagues and friends Josef Anselm and Karl Durst from Konstanz and his neighbor, the aluminum worker Hermann Ernst Bärtschi , he smuggled political brochures and magazines such as Der Funke , the afa-Nachrichten or the Neue Vorwärts from Switzerland to Germany. He also worked with his friends as a courier for emigrant mail from Switzerland to Germany and also obtained border passes with which he guided persecuted functionaries of the German labor movement across the border. For example, he saved Hans Unterleitner , a member of the SPD Reichstag , who was interned in the Dachau concentration camp from 1933 to 1935, and his family. When he, together with Bärtschi and Durst , wanted to bring the persecuted union official Hans Lutz across the border on May 8, 1938 , all three escape helpers were arrested. Lutz had revealed all the names of the so-called radio troops under torture . Josef Anselm, Paulina Gutjahr and Bruno W. Schlegel, the other members of the resistance group, were also arrested. Fleig was sentenced on October 12, 1938 by the People's Court in Berlin, chaired by Karl Engert, to 15 years in prison and 10 years in loss of honor. On November 7, 1938, he was transferred to the Ludwigsburg prison, where he remained imprisoned until April 5, 1945. As the Americans approached, he was transferred to the Landsberg / Lech prison, where he was released on May 28, 1945. During the detention, Fleig suffered permanent health problems, heart failure, neuralgic rheumatic complaints and a painful ear problem.In 1945 Fleig first went to Konstanz, then to his hometown and finally to Dübendorf near Zurich, where his son worked. He later moved to Esslingen am Neckar near Stuttgart and in the mid-1950s again to his hometown. His application for compensation was answered by the Baden Ministry of Finance on July 28, 1951 as follows: “The application will be rejected. This also means that recognition as a victim of National Socialism is no longer applicable ”. He could only enforce his claims with the help of a lawyer. Andreas Fleig died on February 9, 1971 in Sulz / Lahr. |
Stumbling stone in Tägerwilen
| image | inscription | Location | Life |
|---|---|---|---|
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OTTO VOGLER JG LIVED HERE . 1876 ARRESTED IN THE RESISTANCE 1938 LUDWIGSBURG NEWENGAMME MURDERED 14.12.1941 DACHAU |
Konstanzerstrasse 123, Tägermoos
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Otto Vogler was born on October 18, 1876 in the municipality of Leustetten , Amt Überlingen. He was a German citizen. His parents ran a small farm. He himself was drafted into military service in 1896, but released early after five months because of a broken leg. He then worked in the south of France, London and Paris as a house and receptionist. When the First World War broke out, Vogler was working in Switzerland. He volunteered for the German military in 1915, was injured several times in combat and fell ill with malaria in Macedonia in the winter of 1916/17. He was withdrawn from the front and used as an interpreter. He received the Wound Badge and later the Cross of Honor for Frontline Fighters donated by Hindenburg in 1934 .
In October 1920, in Baden-Baden, he married Adele numbers, a Swiss citizen, born on March 13, 1890 in Matten near Interlaken . The couple had four children, born over the next six years. In 1922 the family moved from Vogler's birthplace to Durlach near Karlsruhe. There he bought the Schwarzer Adler inn and sold it for a profit two years later. During the period of inflation, however, he lost all of his fortune and then tried unsuccessfully as a grocer. From 1924 to 1930 he worked as a train porter for the Inselhotel in Konstanz. In 1931 the family moved to the wife's hometown. In January 1932 Vogler returned to Konstanz and in the course of the year founded a small business for dairy products and eggs. From May 1932 he lived with his family in Tägerwilen in Thurgau , right on the border with Konstanz. At the beginning of October 1938 Vogler made derogatory remarks about Goebbels, Göring and Hitler under the influence of alcohol in a Swiss inn. German guests immediately denounced him to the Gestapo . A few days later he was arrested in his cheese shop. After seven months of pre-trial detention, he was tried in Konstanz. The Senate was made up of a number of prominent National Socialists, including Kurt Albrecht as chairman, Ludwig Fischer , Daniel Hauer and Ernst Jenne. It was the only procedure that was conducted by the People's Court in Constance. Vogler was sentenced to two years in prison, the pre-trial detention was taken into account. Because of the reduced sanity due to the consumption of alcohol, the court waived the deprivation of civil rights, but emphasized in the verdict that Vogler had "caused a serious threat to the reputation of the German people through his malicious statements". After serving his sentence, he was arrested again on November 21, 1940 and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp without trial . There he was given the prisoner number 21609. At the end of January 1941 he was transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp , where he was presumed to have had to do heavy physical labor in the brickworks, the armaments industry and in the construction of military facilities. In April 1941 he was relocated to Dachau, where he died on December 14, 1941. The official cause of death was given as "failure of the heart and circulation in intestinal catarrh". His body was burned in the concentration camp's crematorium, and the ashes were scattered. Therefore there is no tomb. In 1942 Vogler's widow moved with her two younger children to live with her sister in Matten near Interlaken in Bern . She later received a widow's pension and compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany. All four children had no offspring: Otto Konrad (born 1921) was killed in Russia in 1943. Adolf Arnold (1922) died in 1949 as a Soviet prisoner of war. The younger children were called Adelheid Ida (1924–1983) and Friedrich Max (1926–1950). Adele Zwahlen died on February 22nd, 1981 in Interlaken . |
Laying data
The transfer in Switzerland took place on the following days:
- Kreuzlingen: September 8, 2013
- Tägerwilen: September 13, 2015
Notes and individual references
- ^ Jörg Krummenacher: Stumbling blocks against forgetting . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 5, 2013, p. 11 ( online [accessed December 8, 2013]).
- ^ SRF : Kreuzlinger Fluchthelfer honored , September 10, 2013, accessed on August 20, 2016.
- ↑ Urs Oskar Keller: Late honor for Thurgau escape helpers ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Schaffhauser Nachrichten , September 9, 2013, accessed on August 19, 2016.
- ↑ Uwe Brügmann: Biographical Information Andreas Fleig , Project Stolpersteine für Konstanz - Against Forgetting and Intolerance, accessed on August 20, 2016.
- ↑ Uwe Brügmann: Biographical Information Otto Vogler , Project Stolpersteine für Konstanz - Against Forgetting and Intolerance, accessed on August 15, 2016.
Map with all coordinates: