Potempa murder

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The murder case in the summer of 1932, referred to as the murder of Potempa , was a brutal murder committed on August 10, 1932 in Potempa, Upper Silesia, by a group of SA people against a communist in his home in the presence of his mother and brother. This murder took place in the midst of civil war-like conflicts before and after the Reichstag elections in July 1932 and was one of hundreds of acts of violence. But it was the first murder committed after the Papen government introduced the death penalty the day before for politically motivated murders. With this measure, the Papen government tried to save the authority of the Weimar Republic. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and its chairman Adolf Hitler , on the other hand, tried to completely destroy this authority by publicly showing solidarity with the murderers when they were quickly caught and sentenced to death on August 22nd.

Murder Case and Aftermath

On the night of August 9-10 , 1932, five uniformed SA men broke into the apartment of worker and trade unionist Konrad Pietrzuch (Pietzuch, Piecuch, Pietczuch) in the Upper Silesian village of Potempa (today part of the rural community of Krupski Młyn in Poland ) and beat him to death in the presence of his mother.

The Reich government under Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen , which was keen to uphold law and order, had, after several murderous disputes following the lifting of the SA ban in June 1932, a few hours earlier on August 9, the emergency ordinance "Ordinance of the Reich President against Political Terror" ( RGBl. I, p. 403), which provided for the death penalty for politically motivated manslaughter .

Also in order to save the authority of the Reich government, five of the SA men involved were sentenced to death as murderers in an express trial by a special court in Bytom on August 22, 1932. This was about

  • Paul Lachmann (born December 20, 1893 in Erdmannsheim, Lublinitz district, Polish Upper Silesia), innkeeper from Potempa.
  • Reinhold Kottisch (born November 19, 1906 in Eichenau, Polish Upper Silesia; † July 1, 1943 in Olschany near Charkow, Ukraine, missing), electrician
  • Rufin Wolnitza (born May 10, 1907 in Mikulschütz, † December 13, 1941 in Tschudowo), mine worker
  • August Gräupner (born August 16, 1899 in Black Forest Colony, Polish), Häuer
  • Helmut Josef Müller (May 12, 1898 in Sterkrade), trademark controller

Thereupon the National Socialist propaganda overturned . Hitler then publicly called von Papen a “bloodhound” and on August 22nd sent the perpetrators a telegram printed in the Völkischer Beobachter of August 24, 1932 with the following content: My comrades! In the face of this monstrous blood judgment, I feel bound to you in unlimited loyalty. Your freedom from this moment on is a matter of our honor. The fight against a government under which this was possible, our duty! Rosenberg explained in the Völkischer Beobachter on August 26th about the act and the National Socialist understanding of law: That is why National Socialism also started ideologically. For him, soul is not just soul, not man is man; For him there is no 'right in itself', but his goal is the strong German person, his creed is the protection of this German, and all law and social life, politics and economy, must be adjusted to this purpose. . . the abolition of the blood sentence is the inevitable prerequisite for restoring a new order of social values ​​to protect the people. " On September 8, 1932 in Munich, Hitler took the view in a speech that under the National Socialist Reich five German men would never be convicted of a Pole .

Since the National Socialists exerted further pressure on the weak government under Papen because of the impending execution, President Hindenburg converted the sentence to life imprisonment on September 2, 1932, on the recommendation of Justice Minister Franz Gürtner . The pretended reason for this was that the emergency ordinance issued the day before the night of the murder had not yet been publicly announced and could therefore not have been known to the perpetrators. After the seizure of power by the National Socialists proclaimed Hitler government for the killers of Potempa and similar cases an amnesty only for the "champion of the national survey" and let all companies involved in the murder Konrad Pietrzuch offenders on March 23, 1933 free.

Previous disputes

literature

Secondary literature:

  • Paul Kluke : The Potempa Case . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, 5 (1957), p. 279 ff. ( Digitized version )
  • Richard Bessel : The Potempa Murder . In: Central European History, Atlanta, 10 (1977), Heft 3, p. 241 ff.
  • Heinrich Hannover , Elisabeth Hannover-Drück : Political Justice 1918–1933 . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1966. Several new editions.
  • Gotthard Jasper : The failed taming. Paths to Hitler's seizure of power 1930–1934 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986. ISBN 3-518-11270-8 (on the key meaning of the murder of Potempa see p. 111 ff.)
  • Klaus Rüffler: From the breach of the peace in Munich to the murder of Potempa: The NSDAP's "legality course" . Lang, Frankfurt / Berlin 1994. ISBN 3-631-47213-7 (dissertation, University of Mainz, 1993)
  • Dirk Blasius : Weimar's end. Civil War and Politics 1930–1933 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005. ISBN 3-525-36279-X .
  • Daniel Siemens : Sturmabteilung: The history of the SA. Siedler, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-8275-0051-9 .

Contemporary propaganda writings

  • Gerhard Pantel: Potempa - Bytom. A signal for all German Germans . Rather , Munich 1932 (pamphlet of the NSDAP)
  • Ernst Schneller : Potempa. The murder of the worker Pietczuch . Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, Berlin 1932 (KPD pamphlet; microfiche edition 1992, ISBN 3-628-00709-7 ).
  • Robert Venzlaff: The culprit: The night of the murder of Potempa . Tribunal-Verlag W. Pieck , Berlin 1932 (leaflet of the Red Aid of Germany )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ As "Pietrzuch" in Paul Kluke: The Potempa case . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, 5 (1957), p. 279. ( digitized version )
  2. ^ Ministerial meeting on August 9, 1932
  3. ↑ a b Paul Kluke: The Potempa case . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, 5 (1957), p. 279ff, here p. 285. ( digitized version )
  4. ^ Meeting of the Prussian State Ministry on September 2, 1932
  5. ↑ Scared to Death (contemporary coverage from TIME , March 27, 1933)
  6. ↑ Helga Kutz-Bauer: The upright reds of Königsberg (Spiegel Online)