East Frisia at the time of National Socialism
The time of National Socialism in East Friesland covers the history of the region from January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945 (see also Time of National Socialism ).
East Frisia under National Socialism
prehistory
As a predominantly rural region, East Frisia experienced a relatively favorable economic phase after the First World War . With their surpluses, the farmers served a market that grew rapidly. While more industrialized regions and cities were hit by the Great Depression only later , the region caught hold of it early. From 1924 there was a sharp drop in the price of agricultural products by up to 40 percent. This led to a fatal chain reaction in the city of Aurich, which is heavily dependent on agriculture . The value of the farms halved, the rural population became impoverished. This often led to foreclosures under value, which with a certain delay led the banks into a crisis and ultimately swept trade and commerce with it. Measures by the district government to stimulate the economy again, such as investments in dyke construction and land reclamation projects, peatland cultivation and the construction of several pumping stations, were mostly ineffective in terms of direct economic success. The country's expansion overall benefited, however.
Long-term success was primarily due to two measures: Since 1925, the Northwest German Power Plants, which in 1921 had taken over the peat extraction in Wiesmoor from the state domain administration, built the 30 acres (around 75,000 square meters) then the largest greenhouse plants in Europe that used the waste heat from the peat power plant. From 1923, on the initiative of Mayor Dr. Erich vom Bruch planned the Nesse peninsula at the harbor, which had been used for agriculture until then. Several industrial companies settled here, including a factory owned by Deutsche Libby GmbH. The most modern and largest cattle market in the German Empire was also established there in 1927.
The city of Emden was also cut off from its main market, the Ruhr area, due to the occupation of the Ruhr by France . The import and export of ore and coal decreased significantly. This brought domestic industry, namely shipbuilding, to a standstill. The following years were marked by high unemployment, strikes and recession. During this time, the previously insignificant anti-Semitism spread in East Frisia, which was directed against the Jewish cattle trade, which some met with prejudice and distrust during the agricultural crisis at that time. Above all, the Protestant pastor Ludwig Münchmeyer from Borkum incited the audience with anti-Semitic tirades of hate and the agitators, who came from the working class and the trades, found a good response, especially in the larger towns, due to their professional and social proximity to the proletariat. This also led to the formation of Zionist groups in East Frisia who saw their future in Palestine . The overwhelming majority of Jews remained in East Frisia, however, and from 1933 were exposed to persecution by the National Socialists without protection.
In 1932 a district reform was carried out in East Frisia. The Weener district was dissolved and integrated into the Leer district. The district of Emden was also dissolved after the independent city of Emden had already incorporated some areas of the district four years earlier. Most of the Emden district, including the area of today's municipalities of Krummhörn , Hinte and Werdenum , came to the north district , a smaller part ( Oldersum , Tergast ) to the Leer district, which almost reached its present size.
In the Reichstag elections of 1932, 44.2% of the electorate in the Aurich administrative district voted for the NSDAP . The election of 1933 finally sealed the end of democracy in East Frisia as well.
Seizure of power
In the elections of March 5, 1933, the NSDAP was able to achieve a result of 47.5% in East Friesland and almost 70% in Oldersum . In the Wittmund district, the party achieved its top result with 71 percent of the votes cast.
The National Socialists declared May 1 as a national labor day and planned large rallies in East Frisia in 1933. Immediately afterwards the National Socialists struck: Social Democrats , Communists and trade unionists were arrested in East Frisia.
At the same time as this wave of arrests, searches and seizures of trade unions and opposition parties took place on May 2nd. In East Frisia, the National Socialists confiscated funds and inventory from local social democratic associations and the Reichsbanner from May 12 to 17, 1933.
But other organizations that were close to the opposition parties and were therefore classified as "anti-state organizations" were also victims of this wave of repression. The result of the action was the de facto elimination of the opposition, whose political work was no longer possible because they had been deprived of their material and personnel base.
Under the pressure of repression, many Social Democrats and Communists turned from their former parties, and in 1934 could Gestapo Wilhelmshaven report that even former "supporters and functionaries (the SPD and KPD) changed in the meantime and members of the SA and the NSBO become (be). "
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists and their laws ( " Enabling Act ", " Aryan paragraph " etc.) took place in the region to attacks on the local Jewish population to book burning and censorship , banning the unions and arrests of political opponents.
As had already begun in 1932, democratic politicians were forced out of office with slander campaigns: in Leer, Mayor Dr. Erich vom Bruch committed suicide in May 1933 after massive allegations and threats; in October Emden's mayor, Dr. Wilhelm Mützelburg besieged and after physical abuse by the National Socialists "thrown out of the town hall" in the truest sense of the word. As a successor to Mützelburg on October 30, 1933, the Altona Police President Paul Hinkler, known as a reliable National Socialist, was appointed State Commissioner in Emden. In mid-November he appointed Hermann Maas, who was only 35 years old, as the new mayor. Due to the newly created power relations after the "seizure of power", associations and clubs were structured according to the leader principle in East Friesland , Jewish members were forced out and the free market economy restricted.
The media were brought into line , which met little resistance. The most important organ of the NSDAP was the Ostfriesische Tageszeitung (OTZ) founded in 1932 , which became the leading regional medium. However, due to the enforced uniformity, the number of readers fell sharply, and it was not until the Second World War that the population's need for information and thus the sales figures rose again.
With the provisional law for the alignment of the states with the Reich, the Reich government was able to pass laws.
There were changes in public administration: East Friesland was part of the Weser-Ems Gau of the NSDAP.
Until World War II
Two years later the economic situation appeared to be improving. The economic stimulus program that had already begun in the Weimar Republic was considerably expanded by the National Socialists in East Frisia. On January 1, 1933, Ostfriesland had 21,888 unemployed people, at the end of 1935 there were 248 and by 1938 the number had fallen to 31, which was also due to the introduction of general conscription, which after Aurich also made Emden and Leer garrison towns .
The East Frisian landscape
The dissolution of the East Frisian landscape had been called for as early as 1928 . From 1935, the dissolution of the landscape in the person of the Upper President in Hanover was intensified. The Gauleitung in Oldenburg , on the other hand, stuck to the preservation of the East Frisian landscape, but thought of converting it into an institution for (National Socialist) cultural purposes. The East Frisian landscape did not oppose this, as it wanted to remain under all circumstances. There is no longer any trace of the right to resist and Frisian freedom as formulated and mobilized at the end of the 16th century. The Nazification of the landscape began and culminated in a completely new constitution in 1942 , which the estates themselves passed. In this constitution, the leader principle was adapted and appointment procedures as well as honorary office constituted. Now, however, broad sections of the population also had the opportunity to collaborate, because suggestions for the appointment of members of the landscape assembly could not only be made by the East Frisian offices of the NSDAP and the communities, cities and districts, but also by the East Frisian Heimatvereinen and all East Frisians, with which The foundation was laid for the institutionalization and professionalization of landscape cultural work through the creation of facilities and the involvement of specialists. The integration of the East Frisian landscape into National Socialist rule was more pronounced than elsewhere.
Repression against the Jewish population
After the seizure of power in early 1933, Jews in particular suffered from repression by state organs. Socialists and communists were taken into “protective custody” and some were imprisoned in concentration camps. Two months after the seizure of power and four days earlier than in other parts of the German Reich , the boycott of Jewish businesses began in East Frisia . On March 28, 1933, the SA posted itself in front of the shops. During the night, 26 shop windows were thrown in Emden , which the National Socialists later wanted to blame the Communists on.
In the night from 9 to 10 November 1938, SA troops involved in the commanded by the national leadership of the Nazi Kristallnacht , euphemistically as Kristallnacht refers. That night the synagogues of Aurich , Emden, Esens , Leer , Norden and Weener were burned down. The synagogue in Bunde had already been sold to the merchant Barfs before 1938 and redesigned (the synagogue is still standing today, but cannot be recognized as such due to several renovations). The Jemgum synagogue had already fallen into disrepair around 1930. The synagogue of the Jewish community of Neustadtgödens had already been abandoned in 1936 and sold to a private person in June 1938, so that the building was spared. The synagogue on Norderney was sold in 1938, the one in Wittmund was sold for demolition in June 1938. Only the synagogue of Dornum is preserved today , which was sold to a carpenter on November 7th, 1938. Male Jews between the ages of 16 and 60 were rounded up and sometimes humiliated for hours. They were then deported via Oldenburg to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , from which they could only return weeks later. The Jewish communities were no longer corporations under public law, but were now called "Jewish religious associations e. V. “entered in the register of associations. The number of Jews decreased from 2,336 in 1933 to 697 in September 1939. After the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration initially initiated the emigration of German Jews, it became completely dependent on the authorities since it was compulsorily united with the Reich Association of Jews in Germany on July 4, 1939 and lost more and more over the next three years own options for action and acted like an extended arm of the Reich Security Main Office .
In February 1940, the Gestapo finally ordered all Jews to leave East Frisia by April 1 of that year. The East Frisian Jews had to look for other apartments within the Reich (with the exception of Hamburg and the areas on the left bank of the Rhine). East Friesland was declared " Jew-free " and was de facto. Few Jews were able to eke out their lives in the Jewish retirement home in Emden until they too were deported in October 1941 . 23 Jews from the Emden retirement home were transferred to the Jewish retirement home in Varel, Schüttingstrasse, and from there deported to Theresienstadt in July 1942. Only a small part of the Jewish population was able to save themselves by emigrating in good time , the majority perished in the concentration camps. However, exact figures are not yet available.
Repression against the non-Jewish population using the example of Moordorf
Even in the Weimar Republic, Moordorf was one of the strongholds of the Communists, which received over 50% of the votes in the Reich and Landtag elections. The KPD local association of Moordorf was the second largest in East Friesland after Emden. In the Reichstag elections on November 6, 1932, the KPD received 48% of the local vote. The majority of Moordorf's residents were Marxist-Communist before the NSDAP came to power. In 1934, 24 communists were arrested and in 1937 another 10 were sent to the concentration camp. After 1933 the Communists were severely persecuted by the National Socialists. They were seen as work-shy, anti-social, inferior and previously convicted rabble and had to endure appropriate reprisals. Moordorf was "worked on by specialists" "at the suggestion of the Reichsbauernführer". Horst Rechenbach was dealt with this task and quickly came to the conclusion that “some of the colonists… did not even attempt to establish a steady agricultural existence.” It “can be stated that this is the example a completely misguided rural settlement. ... They were ... anti-social elements of their own people. "() He compiled some statistics on alcoholism , crime , nonsense and indebtedness and explained: "It is superfluous to emphasize that the particularly inferior families are characterized by the largest number of children." Using the eugenic sterilization law introduced immediately after Hitler came to power , many Moordorfer Forcibly sterilized taking into account the statistics and questionnaires of Rechenbach.
Second World War
Preparations for war also began very early in East Frisia. With the introduction of general conscription , Emden and Leer also became garrison towns after Aurich.
During the World War, Emden, as the economic and industrial center of East Frisia, was repeatedly the target of air raids, which initially only caused minor damage. On September 27, 1943, 165 people were killed in a bomb attack in Esens. The “poor and workers house” was completely destroyed, 102 school and rural year children died in the basement of the building. Esens - even without military significance - was hit by stray bombers, who actually had Emden as their target, as a so-called "Target of Opportunity". Aurich was bombed three times during the war. 17 people were killed and 24 injured. On September 6, 1944, Emden was bombed again. When allied bomber units attacked, around 80 percent of the city center and thus almost all of the historic buildings were destroyed, including the town hall. On the other hand, the bombs only caused comparatively little damage to the shipyards and port terminals.
Towards the end of the war, the Engerhafe concentration camp was built in 1944 . Those imprisoned here under inhuman conditions had to dig anti-tank trenches around the city of Aurich, which was declared a fortress. Shortly before the completion of the “all-round defense of Aurich”, the camp was closed on December 22, 1944. 188 prisoners died within the two months of its existence.
At the end of April 1945, allied ground troops reached East Frisia. In the southern Rheiderland , some smaller villages and farms were razed to the ground by flamethrowers . In Weener , house fights and artillery fire damaged or destroyed some houses. On April 30, Leer was captured by British Canadian troops. They reached Oldersum and Großefehn by May 2nd. On May 3rd and 4th, 1945 a delegation from Aurich negotiated successfully with the advancing Canadians to surrender the city without a fight. This took place on May 5, 1945, after a treaty signed on May 4 near Lüneburg for the unconditional surrender of the three German armies operating in northwest Germany came into force at eight o'clock on the same day. After the surrender of the Wehrmacht in the Netherlands and north-west Germany, East Frisia became an internment area for the German soldiers who were captured west of the Weser .
post war period
After the end of the Second World War, East Frisia became part of the British zone of occupation . Canadian soldiers were also stationed in East Frisia. In the Netherlands there were considerations to annex some areas of Germany , whereby the Dollart, the Ems estuary and Borkum were considered in order to cut off Emden from sea trade. However, these plans failed due to the resistance of the Western Allies.
In 1946 the British from the states of Hanover , Braunschweig , Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe formed the state of Hanover , from which the state of Lower Saxony later emerged. East Frisia was added as the administrative district of Aurich within the province of Hanover.
The country was populated by many refugees and displaced persons from the eastern areas of the German Reich . In 1945 around 295,600 people lived in East Friesland, a year later there were 364,500, and in 1948 it was 390,334. In 1950, the provisional maximum was reached with 391,570 inhabitants, of whom 16.3 percent were displaced. After that, the population gradually decreased again. In 1959 Ostfriesland had 358,218 inhabitants, of which 38,678 were displaced, which corresponded to a share of 10.8 percent.
consequences
After the collapse of the National Socialist dictatorship, many refugees from the areas east of Oder and Neisse were also settled in East Frisia . The population climbed from 295,600 (1945) to 387,000. In 1950, the proportion of displaced persons was 16.3% of the population, which for the traditionally structurally weak region represented a difficult integration effort. In addition, the Netherlands wanted to occupy the area west of the Ems. More far- reaching plans even provided for diverting the Ems and thus digging up the waters of the Emden harbor , which would have put an end to the East Frisian economy. However, due to the looming Cold War, these plans never came to fruition.
See also
- History of the Jews in East Frisia
- East Frisian landscape
- Moordorf (East Frisia)
- Engerhafe concentration camp
literature
- Andreas Wojak: Moordorf . ISBN 3-926958-83-9
- Henning Priet: T he city of Leer and the Third Reich . AVM-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 3-86924-292-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Working group of the local chronicles of the East Frisian landscape, Rudolf Nassua: The world economic crisis and its consequences in Aurich (PDF; 48 kB)
- ^ Aurich district: Activity report 1948 to 1952 . Verlag AHF Dunkmann, Aurich 1952, p. 29.
- ↑ Dr. Erich vom Bruch . (PDF; 97 kB) Biographical lexicon for East Frisia
- ^ Herbert Reyer: East Frisia in the Third Reich - The Beginnings of the National Socialist Tyranny in the Aurich District 1933–1938 . Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebsges. Aurich 1992, ISBN 3-932206-14-2 , p. 14.
- ^ Dietmar von Reeken : Ostfriesland between Weimar and Bonn - a case study on the problem of historical continuity using the example of the cities of Aurich and Emden . Lax, Hildesheim 1991, ISBN 3-7848-3057-9 . P. 121. The book appeared in the publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen, Sources and Studies on the History of Lower Saxony after 1945; Vol. 7.
- ^ Heinrich Schmidt: East Frisia in the protection of the dike: Political history of East Frisia . Selbstverlag, Leer 1975, p. 483. See also entry in the German National Library ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Volkmar Weiss, Katja Münchow: Local family books with location Leipzig in the German library and German central office for genealogy . 2nd Edition. Neustadt / Aisch: Degener 1998, pp. 97-104, online ( Memento from February 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ See also the documentation by Gerd Rokahr : The bombing raid on Esens on September 27, 1943 , published as a booklet for the exhibition of the same name in the "Müllerhaus", the Esens municipal gallery, from September 27 to November 2, 2003.
- ↑ Silke Wenk : Places of remembrance made of concrete: Bunkers in cities and landscapes . Links, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86153-254-9 , p. 183
- ^ Eva Requardt-Schohaus: The repressed autumn of Engerhafe . In: Ostfriesland-Magazin (issue 11/1994), online ( memento from October 14, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Rudolf Nassua: The end of the war in East Friesland . In: Working group of the local chronicles of the East Frisian landscape End of the war in East Frisia (PDF; 57 kB)
- ^ Günther Möhlmann: Ostfriesland, wide country on the North Sea coast . Burkard-Verlag, Essen 1969, p. 55.
