Mass arrest in Nuremberg

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The arrest of 141 people by the Bavarian police on March 5, 1981 in the Nuremberg cultural center KOMM is described as a mass arrest in Nuremberg .

The event came under fire mainly because of the implementation and the subsequent court hearing and was described as an "unprecedented breach of law ".

procedure

On the evening of March 5th, a film about the Dutch squatters' movement took place at the KOMM youth center in Nuremberg . 200 to 300 guests were present. The police declared the event as a "general assembly of squatters" and took position with a hundred.

After a discussion, around 150 people gathered in front of the KOMM for a spontaneous demonstration . During the half-hour train through the old town, six shop windows were broken and some car antennas were bent. The property damage amounted to around 30,000 Deutschmarks .

The police watched the action but did not intervene. Only after all the demonstrators had returned to the KOMM shortly before midnight, the building was surrounded and cordoned off by the police. After four hours of siege, the participants came out in small groups, in the expectation that only fingerprinted to be treated. However, contrary to the promises of the police, all 141 people were arrested, including 21 minors, 78 of whom were ultimately charged.

The next morning a citizens' initiative began to organize lawyers. In the following days there were nationwide protests with "tens of thousands of people" against the actions of the authorities. The last person was released two weeks after the arrest.

The first trial against 10 defendants began on November 3, 1981 with a massive police presence and revealed a plot between the public prosecutor, judges and police. The proceedings were suspended three weeks later, and a short time later all public prosecutors and judges were "withdrawn, some of them transferred and taken away."

A year later, the proceedings were ended when the decision to initiate the proceedings was withdrawn, thus making legal processing impossible.

Evaluation and impact

The entire procedure of the police and judiciary was criticized by renowned lawyers, "[in] many courts and prosecution authorities outside of Bavaria a wave of protest against the arbitrariness of the five Nuremberg judges arose."

The judge of the Federal Constitutional Court Martin Hirsch criticized the arrest of 141 people with reference to the cause (six windows thrown in the city center) as disproportionate . The copied and identical arrest warrant on which the arrests were based was criticized by Erhard Denninger .

As the only lawyer among 200 signatories, Erika Simm , judge at the Regensburg District Court , signed an appeal against criminalization and for the release of the prisoners. She was disciplined for this.

The action was criticized nationwide by local politicians for the fact that its generalization disrupted the “differentiation process among the squatters”.

Egon Lutz ( SPD ), then a member of the Bundestag in Nuremberg , whose underage daughter at the time was also affected by the arrests, assumed in retrospect that the action should set an example. The local police had been instrumentalized by the then Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss ( CSU ).

Jonas Lanig, then a teacher at the Peter Vischer School in Nuremberg, had campaigned together with students for the release of an imprisoned classmate in the context of a related demonstration. Looking back, he found that the protest against the mass arrests had also been supported by the bourgeoisie and had also affected those who usually do not take part in demonstrations.

In its 12/1981 issue, Der Spiegel published the title page "The mass arrest does Bavaria break the law?" and published seven articles in it. In the 16/1983 issue, Der Spiegel reported that an example should be made of the Nuremberg mass arrest, as previously unknown police documents prove the assumption. The then chief of the Central Franconian police headquarters, Helmut Kraus, played a leading role in it. Der Spiegel comes to the conclusion that the Nuremberg Police President Helmut Kraus was determined to carry out a dissuasive mass arrest at the height of the clashes with squatters. According to the article, files were changed or removed and these, as well as existing sound recordings or copies thereof, were not added to the investigation files, and were thus withheld from the lawyers of the persons accused at the time. In the 18/1996 issue, Der Spiegel reported in the article "Dicker Balken" that the KOMM should be financially dried up after the CSU municipal victory. "That is a bastard", judges the future CSU OB Ludwig Scholz .

Movies

In 1983 the journalist Helge Cramer published an 85-minute documentary film about the KOMM scandal with the title 'End of Freedom' with the description "Documentation of a free state organized breach of law", which was shown in various cinemas.

In 2011 the Medienwerkstatt Franken eV published . the film The KOMM mass arrest . In the film, contemporary witnesses report how they assess the events of that time from today's perspective and how they deal with the experiences.

literature

  • Hermann Glaser (Ed.): The Nuremberg mass arrest. Documents and analyzes. (Editor: Ingke Brodersen). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-14854-4 (314 pages).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Are we here in South America? In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1981, p. 17-22 ( online ).
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Pickhardt: Mommy, I am under arrest . In: Friday , February 20, 2011; Retrieved February 23, 2011.
  3. ↑ The Eighties Movement - Chronology of Events
  4. ↑ a b Hans Schueler: Muzzle for a critic . In: Die Zeit , No. 32/1982.
  5. ↑ a b Contemporary witnesses remember the mass arrests. "That was no glory sheet for the judiciary" . In: Nürnberger Zeitung , March 4, 2011.
  6. ↑ DER SPIEGEL, 12/1981 of March 16, 1981, title page, The mass arrest - Is Bavaria breaking the law? . Accessed July 31, 2020.
  7. ↑ DER SPIEGEL, 16/1983 of April 18, 1983, POLICE: Copies from the box . Accessed July 31, 2020.
  8. ↑ DER SPIEGEL, 18/1996 of April 29, 1996 CSU wants to dry up the KOMM sludge hole financially . Accessed July 31, 2020.
  9. ↑ DER SPIEGEL KOMM scandal as documentation . Accessed July 31, 2020.
  10. ^ Helge Cramer movie End of Freedom . Accessed July 31, 2020.
  11. ↑ General catalog: Medienwerkstatt Franken. Retrieved May 27, 2019 .