Ludwig Münchmeyer

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Ludwig Münchmeyer

Ludwig Johannes Herbert Martin Münchmeyer (born June 2, 1885 in Hoyel , † July 24, 1947 in Böblingen ) was a Protestant pastor on the East Frisian North Sea island of Borkum , who distinguished himself through particularly aggressive anti-Semitic inflammatory speeches. He caused a national sensation in 1926 in the so-called Münchmeyer Trial, in the course of which he was forced to give up his office as pastor. Then he became a Reich speaker of the NSDAP . With its first major electoral success in the general election in 1930 Münchmeyer took 33 (as delegates of the constituency Hesse-Darmstadt ) in the Reichstag one.

Family, education, first pastorships

Ludwig Münchmeyer came from an old, originally Lower Saxon pastor family, whose direct lineage began with Heinrich Münchmeyer (around 1654–1728), license officer (tax officer) and citizen of Einbeck . He was born as the son of Carl Hans Wilhelm Ludwig Münchmeyer and Henriette Friederike Adelgunde Münchmeyer, b. Brakebusch, born. His grandfather was the theologian August Friedrich Otto Münchmeyer . In Rinteln he attended the humanistic grammar school .

He studied Protestant theology in Erlangen , Leipzig and Göttingen and passed his second theological examination in March 1911. He was ordained on June 17 of that year . From 1911 until the outbreak of war in 1914, first pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran seaman's chaplaincy in Cardiff (Great Britain), then first pastor abroad of the two German parishes in Cardiff and Swansea ( South Wales ). In March 1915 he became a field division minister. After the war he was employed as a hospital pastor in Hanover .

He was married to Agnes Marie Margerete Maseberg, daughter of the wholesale merchant Wilhelm Maseberg and his wife Marie Winkelmann, and had four children with her.

Münchmeyer on Borkum

Borkum - view from the old lighthouse in west direction

In 1920 Münchmeyer became pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran parish on Borkum. So-called bath anti-Semitism  - the exclusion of Jewish guests - had a particularly strong tradition there long before 1933. There were anti-Semitic incidents even before the First World War . In the Borkum song , which the Kurkapelle publicly intoned with the approval of the municipal council, it was said:

Borkum, the North Sea's most beautiful ornament,
stay clear of Jews,
leave Rosenthal and Levinsohn
alone in Norderney.

Borkum used anti-Semitic racial incitement to compete against the seaside resort of Norderney in order to attract ethnic and national guests. Münchmeyer heated up the right-wing radical and anti-Semitic mood in Borkum with numerous lectures. These had titles such as “Be daring, tomorrow will meet”, “God - Freedom - Honor - Fatherland” or “Borkum, the North Sea's most beautiful ornament, stay clean of Jews”.

He was supported in this by the "Association for the Protection of German Interests on Borkum", founded in 1920 for anti-Semitic spa guests. This guarded the "freedom of Jews on the island". In the following years, Münchmeyer vigorously advocated “German names” on menus and “German expressions” on the inscriptions of houses and occasionally checked the personal details of Borkum spa guests, whose “ Aryan ” descent he doubted.

In 1922, the Hanoverian Oberpräsident and former Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske ( SPD ) verbally instructed the District President Jann Berghaus (SPD) in Aurich to put an end to the "inflammatory hustle and bustle" on Borkum. He expressed his "lively astonishment that the scandal in Borkum had not been vigorously countered". In the case of recurrence, he threatened to reduce the police curfew to 10 p.m. As a result, the Borkumlied was no longer played in 1922/23.

In 1924 the district administrator of the district of Emden, Walter Bubert (SPD), renewed the ban. On the other hand, the “Borkumpastor” Münchmeyer and the völkisch bathing director Hempelmann organized protest rallies at which they insulted Bubert, Berghaus and Noske and called on them to ignore the ban on gambling. The protest meetings ended with demonstrative singing of the Borkum song. On the instructions of the bathing director, the spa band soon began to play the song again. District Administrator Bubert, on the other hand, acted with specially reinforced local police from Borkum, had some musicians taken into police custody during a concert and confiscated their instruments. He also dismissed the swimming pool director with immediate effect. This complained against it before the local court in Emden and won the right: The judgment described the ban on gambling as "complete infraction of the law" and thus as null and void. In the case of repetition, the court threatened the Prussian state with a fine of 100,000 gold marks. The next instance, the Prussian Higher Administrative Court in Berlin, confirmed the judgment. Münchmeyer celebrated this decision on the Borkum song as a personal success.

In 1924 he was elected to the community committee as a candidate for the German National People's Party and became a member of the bathing board. In 1925 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 80.984). Now he began to attack Catholics as well as Jews, which alienated many Rhineland bathers. The Rheinische Presse reported on the "Katholikenhze auf Borkum" and the Borkumer Badezeitung wrote about it in 1924: "Old bathers, disgusted by this hustle and bustle, said goodbye with the words: Goodbye". As a result, the opposition to Münchmeyer gradually grew on Borkum, which saw its economic interests threatened. The bathing management carefully stepped away from him. The leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover , which had never publicly criticized his anti-Semitism, now began to distance itself from Münchmeyer, but offered him a superintendentage .

After further incidents, the German swimming pool association decided not to recommend trips to Borkum any more. In autumn 1925, the regional church office of the Hanover regional church finally opened disciplinary proceedings against Münchmeyer.

The Münchmeyer Trial

Around the same time, Albrecht Völklein from Borkum published a satirical pamphlet against Münchmeyer under the pseudonym Doctor Sprachlos with the title "The false priest or the cannibal chief of the North Sea islanders". He was supported by Julius Charig from the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) and the Jewish businessman Lazarus Pels. In the text, Münchmeyer was attacked without being named as a “false priest” who, with like-minded people, terrorized the island with “pagan and cannibalistic intent”. He was also accused of extortion, false testimony, false pretenses, presumption of office and sexual misconduct. Völklein held against the Evangelical Regional Church in Scripture to “recognize the false priest as theirs” and to be possibly interspersed with “false priests” himself.

In doing so, the CV wanted to force an action for libel in order to negotiate Münchmeyer's anti-Semitic agitation in court. In fact, the Evangelical Church initiated a lawsuit and forced Münchmeyer to appear as a joint plaintiff . The proceedings against Völklein, Charig and Pels for insulting took place in May 1926 before the large jury in Emden. The Central Association sent the respected lawyer Bruno Weil to the defense . His defense strategy turned the libel suit before a provincial court into a political process recognized throughout the Reich as the Münchmeyer process, in the course of which Weil tried with great effort to prove the accuracy of the allegations made against Münchmeyer.

When the verdict was pronounced on May 18, the defense court ruled on almost every point. The pamphlet was classified as a “formal insult” and the defendants were sentenced to 1,500 Reichsmarks, but Münchmeyer's behavior was literally “not worthy of a clergyman” in the judgment, which is why it was legitimate for him to be “an incorrect priest, a false one Can be called a priest ”and furthermore“ has to be called a false priest ”.

In detail, it was stated in the judgment that Münchmeyer

  • "Repeatedly approached women" and wanted to make them submissive "partly by exerting inadmissible pressure, partly by pretending to be a wealthy businessman". Such a clergyman does not deserve the name of a clergyman, but has to put up with when he is called a false priest.
  • I repeatedly pretended to be a doctor and medical expert, as well as a lawyer - without ever having studied medicine or law. The allegations, which were "repeatedly made by Münchmeyer, were scientifically false and a lie, and unworthy of a clergyman".
  • made indecent touches on the ridiculous excuse of trying to control a scar on a young girl's body.
  • have the habit of "setting up rumors like old gossip women in order to discredit impeccable people".

That ruined Münchmeyer. The defense's statements on the issue of sexual assaults against girls in his community by Münchmeyer led Münchmeyer to quit his ministry in order to evade the ongoing disciplinary proceedings against him by the regional church office. However, a few months after the trial, this forbade him to use the title Pastor a. D. to lead. Regardless of this, Münchmeyer still appears in Cuno Horkenbach's 1931 handbook “The German Empire from 1918 to Today” as “Pastor a. D. “on. The end of his activity in the Evangelical Lutheran Church is laconically reproduced there, without mentioning the process, as follows: "In 1926 he resigned from the pastor's office, devoted himself exclusively to politics."

On February 26, 1929, the Evangelical Lutheran regional church office in Hanover issued a notice that Münchmeyer had finally lost the title of pastor, the ability to be employed in the church service, the pension entitlements and the ability to perform religious official acts.

Further life

Münchmeyer left Borkum in 1928 to work as an agitator and speaker for the NSDAP. This was an official party function for party functionaries who were judged to be particularly competent rhetorically or propagandistically. B. should occur during election campaigns at mass events. The Nazi propaganda deliberately used Nazi-minded Protestant pastors or theology students as publicity speakers who tirelessly pointed out the anchoring of Christianity in the NSDAP. Münchmeyer was one of the most active Nazi speakers in north-west Germany. He also held events at Borkum. With the first major electoral success of the NSDAP in the Reichstag elections on September 14, 1930, he entered the Reichstag as a member of constituency 33 (Hessen-Darmstadt).

In December 1930 Münchmeyer was involved in the tumult at the third screening of the film In the West: Nothing New . Shortly after the performance began in Berlin's Mozart Hall, a few hundred National Socialists began with nationalist and anti-Semitic heckling, later they threw stink bombs and exposed white mice. The Filmkurier wrote on December 6, 1930:

“Several National Socialist members of the Reichstag were present, said Dr. Goebbels and Pastor Münchmeyer, who cheered up their supporters with shouts and directed the scandal. Eventually the performance had to be interrupted. There were brawls with visitors who turned against terrorism. The police who had been called in the meantime had to forcibly evacuate the hall. The demonstrators then had the audacity to demand their entrance fee back for breaking off the performance, they smashed a window in the cash register and threatened the cashier. The demonstrations continued on Nollendorfplatz. The management of the Mozart Hall felt compelled to cancel the 9 o'clock performance. "

After multiple violent disruptions by SA thugs, the film was discontinued and soon afterwards banned because of “endangering the German reputation”. The NSDAP recorded this as their victory.

In August 1933 Münchmeyer performed again on Norderney. He urged the residents to immediately make their island a " Jew-free " one. In front of an audience of 1,200 he said: “The Jews are always the disturbing element in the whole world at all times.” In 1934 he published his work Kampf um Deutsches Awakening . In 1936 Germany stay awake - 10 years speaker of the party , which he published again in 1938 under the title Germany stay awake - 12 years speaker of the party . Münchmeyer continued to see his main task as Reich speaker for the NSDAP. The résumé in his party files states:

“Even after the seizure of power, Pg. Münchmeyer, as one of the few fighters of the old guard and the old imperial orators, continued to speak almost every evening in some mass rally of a party formation in the imperial territory, especially in the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area. All rallies with Pg. Münchmeyer are still resounding successes today, both in terms of the number of visitors and in terms of the approval and enthusiasm of the population. "

Münchmeyer also had to face internal party critics several times. For example, on February 7, 1934, the NSDAP's Supreme Party Court initiated an investigation against Münchmeyer at the request of the NSDAP district leader of Hameln, Erich Teich . Teich complained that Münchmeyer had criticized the local branch of the NSDAP at a public rally. In the associated file there are also several newspaper articles in which the reasons for the verdict issued against Münchmeyer in 1926 are cited. The court soon dropped the case.

In 1935 his residence was in Düsseldorf, Humboldtstr. 51. Until May 1945, Münchmeyer was a member of the Reichstag, most recently as a member of constituency 31 (Württemberg), but no longer appeared in public, so that there are no files on his further activities.

From 1945 to 1947 Münchmeyer was in the internment camp. He remained a National Socialist until his death on July 24, 1947 in Böblingen.

Fonts

  • To the German youth, What can Germany's youth do now to help prepare a better future? Borkum after 1920.
  • Weiherede. held during the erection of a memorial for the fallen of the Evangelical Lutheran Christ Congregation on Borkum. A thank you and a dead sacrifice, Borkum after 1920.
  • Commemorative speech for Germany's unforgettable country mother. Borkum 1921.
  • A sermon at sea. held on the shores of the German North Sea on Psalm 93: 1-4. A song of praise to God from nature, Borkum around 1921.
  • Bismarck's legacy to the German people. The only way to know and cure our disease. Borkum 1923.
  • The victory in the matter of the Borkum song. Borkum 1924.
  • Tell me who you are going with and I will tell you who you are! Borkum around 1924.
  • War. Borkum around 1924.
  • Borkum the German island. Borkum around 1925.
  • The storm year 1925/26 or: Our faith is victory after all. Borkum 1926.
  • The reason I left office. Borkum 1926.
  • Documentary evidence for the organized treason and stab in the back of the Marxists of all shades, the destroyer of German honor and defense. Munich 1930.
  • My answer to the CV, at the same time an answer to the questions: When does the Jew call "alarm"? and What does the Jew mean by “truths”? Munich 1930.
  • Fight for German awakening. Dortmund 1934.
  • Germany stay awake! - 10 years speaker of the party. Dortmund 1936.
  • Germany stay awake! - 12 years speaker of the party. Dortmund 1938.

literature

Books
Articles in magazines
  • Borkum, article on the Münchmeyer trial - published in Borkumer Beobachter. Borkum 1926.
  • Alfred Hirschberg: Disciplinary proceedings against Münchmeyer? In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. May 14, 1926.
  • Alfred Hirschberg: Münchmeyer trial on Borkum. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. May 21, 1926.
  • Bruno Weil: Borkum. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. May 28, 1926.
  • AW: Echoes of the 'Münchmeyer Trial. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. September 1, 1926.
  • Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ludwig Münchmeyer. (PDF; 55 kB) In: Biographical Lexicon for Ostfriesland.
  2. ↑ a b Michael Wildt: “He has to go out! He has to go! Anti-Semitism in German North and Baltic Sea Baths 1920–1935 ”in: Mittelweg 36- Journal of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research . Issue 4, 2001, Volume 10.
  3. ↑ Frank Bajohr: Our hotel is free of Jews. Baths anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2003, p. 74.
  4. ↑ Frank Bajohr 2003, p. 78.
  5. ↑ Copy of the court order in: Secret Prussian State Archives Berlin-Dahlem, I. HA, Rep. 84a 22035, Bl. 74-76.
  6. ↑ Cf. Nicolas Heutger: The abundance of wisdom and knowledge. Festschrift for the 70th birthday. Acquired from Achim Alexander Sahin, Oldenburg: Library and Information System of the Univ., 2001, p. 105, accessible at [1] .
  7. ↑ Frank Bajohr 2003, p. 82.
  8. ↑ Biographical Lexicon for Ostfriesland / Julius Charig (PDF; 49 kB).
  9. ↑ Frank Bajohr 2003, p. 83.
  10. ↑ Frank Bajohr 2003, p. 84.
  11. ↑ a b Clement of Caramon, leader of the Third Reich !, 3rd edition. Berlin 1932.
  12. ↑ Cuno Horkenbach: The German Empire from 1918 to today. Department: Leaders. Berlin 1931.
  13. ^ Film-Kurier, No. 288, December 6, 1930.
  14. ↑ Cuno Horkenbach: The German Empire from 1918 to today. Berlin 1931, p. 341.
  15. ↑ Bundesarchiv DS / main archive of the NSDAP 8270000099 G 147 2158.
  16. ↑ Federal Archives OPG files (= Higher Party Court (NSDAP)) 3406003425 G 109 376.
  17. ↑ In the Bern Zionist Trial , the defendants named Münchmeyer as their expert; However, the summons sent by the Bern court to Oldenburg was returned by the German Post, so that Ulrich Fleischhauer from Erfurt finally appeared as an expert in Bern in 1935.
  18. ^ Biographical lexicon for East Frisia: Ludwig Münchmeyer (PDF; 55 kB).
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on December 27, 2006 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Münchmeyer, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Münchmeyer, Ludwig Johannes Herbert Martin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, politician (NSDAP), MdR, Reich speaker of the NSDAP
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoyel
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1947
Place of death Boeblingen