Eisleber Bloody Sunday

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Eisleben, Breiter Weg 30 (2010). Before 1933 the "class struggle building", from 1933 to 1945 the "Paul Berck House".

February 12, 1933 is known as Eisleber Blutsonntag . On this day, a “propaganda march” of 600 members of the SA and SS took place through Eisleben , during which the “class battle building” used by the KPD and the gym of a workers' sports club were stormed. The SA and SS men shot at those present and hit them mainly with feldspades . Three members of the KPD were murdered and 24 others were seriously injured. Otto Helm, Walter Schneider and Hans Seidel were murdered. On the other side, SS man Paul Berck, heroized as a " martyr, " died.

course

During the Weimar Republic, Eisleben was a stronghold of the KPD, which in the Reichstag elections from 1924 onwards always achieved above-average votes in the city. On January 29, 1933, the day before Hitler was appointed Chancellor , the city was the scene of a KPD rally under the motto “Fight with us in the united front against fascism”. SPD members and members of the Reich Banner are said to have been among the 1500 rally participants . After a “National Socialist advertising march” on January 23rd, in which 300 members of the 13th SA standard took part, a “propaganda march” was planned for February 12th for 600 SA and SS members from the Eisleben area some were brought into the city by motor vehicle. The assembly point was the Landbundhaus in Eisleben, where the demonstration march formed around 2 p.m. Among the participants were the NSDAP Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan and the district leader Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben , who later became Himmler's chief adjutant and was involved in mass executions in Poland and the USSR during the Second World War , as well as the Reichstag member of the NSDAP and later Reich Sports Commissioner Hans von Tschammer and east .

Eisleber Blutsonntag on February 12, 1933: Map showing the deployment of the SA and SS to attack the KPD office. (After Kurt Lindner)
Eisleber Blutsonntag: Scheme of the property between Breiten Weg and Zeißingstrasse. The National Socialists attacked from both sides at the same time.

There are various details about the exact route of the demonstration: Kurt Lindner, who on the day of the “Propaganda March” led a KPD conference on the upcoming Reichstag election in the workers' gymnasium, speaks of two demonstration trains that had moved through Eisleben. The gym on Zeißingstrasse was attacked from the one train coming from the south. The "class struggle building" - named after a regional KPD newspaper - in the Breite Weg was attacked by a second train coming from the north. Both buildings are connected by a common courtyard. At the time of the attack, some KPD functionaries, a guard consisting of 15 to 20 worker athletes and around 30 young people aged 13 to 14 were in the buildings. An event had been planned for the youth in the afternoon as part of the youth consecration . According to the findings of the Halle Regional Court in a judgment of August 3, 1949, a demonstration march had formed at the Landbundhaus, consisting of two SS blocks at the top and at the end, as well as an SA block in the middle of the train. Most of the participants were armed with pistols, spades or ax picks. During the march through Eisleben, SA and SS members tore the badges of anti-fascist organizations off passers-by. In the Kreisfelder Gasse, participants in the “propaganda march” broke into the apartment of a well-known anti-fascist and demolished the facility. Coming from Annengasse, the march turned into Breite Weg, passed the “class battle building” and then via Kasseler Strasse reached Zeißingstrasse and the gym there. The attack on the building complex was said to have taken place from two sides at the same time, when the head of the demonstration procession was at the gymnasium and the end in front of the “class battle building”.

According to a report by the public prosecutor's office in February 1933, SS man Berck was shot in the hallway of the “class struggle building”. According to the 1949 verdict, members of the SA and SS broke into the building together with the police. The entire furniture was demolished by the National Socialists. The communists had defended themselves; Due to the simultaneous attack from two sides, there was no possibility of escape. All communists had been beaten up; the injuries were mostly head injuries caused by blows with a spade. Among the injured was the KPD District Secretary Bernard Koenen , who lost an eye. After the 1949 verdict, five communists fled to the roof of the eight-meter high gym. A subsequent SS man forced the Communists to jump from the roof of the gym at gunpoint. One of the young people present in the gym, who was questioned as a witness in 1949, was wounded in the head by two gunshots, making him nearly blind in one eye. Another witness had three fingers cut off by the blow of a spade.

According to a report in the Eisleber Tageblatt on February 13, the clashes at the "class struggle building" lasted for an hour. Then the “propaganda march” moved to the market square, where district leader Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben remembered the SS man Berck who was shot. At the same time, Alvensleben raised serious allegations against the head of the Eisleber police, Ueberschär, who had refused to search the "class building" for weapons before the clashes. Ueberschär was temporarily suspended from duty by order of the Minister of the Interior.

Aftermath

time of the nationalsocialism

Front page of the KPD newspaper "Der Klassenkampf" from February 15, 1933

Immediately after Bloody Sunday, the Eisleben criminal police and the Halle police headquarters began investigations. According to a report by the Chief Public Prosecutor Luther on February 13, the National Socialists' “propaganda march” was originally not supposed to lead past the two buildings attacked. Suddenly a “strong group of National Socialists” entered the “class struggle building” from the SS block at the end of the march. During the subsequent shooting in the house and the courtyard behind it, shots were fired by both the National Socialists and Communists and the police. At the same time, the head of the propaganda march was in front of the gym. There a shot was fired from the roof of the hall at the march. As a result, SA members broke into the hall and injured all about 25 people there with spades. Luther described the investigation as "extremely difficult, because the National Socialists involved are unknown and the communists are injured in hospital."

In a second report from February 20, Luther came to partially different representations: The National Socialist “Propaganda March” was on the previously approved route while marching past the class struggle building. One or two shots were fired at the National Socialists from inside the building before the house was stormed by them. On March 22nd, Luther described the investigation as largely completed. Eleven out of twelve arrested communists should have been released because they could not have been proven to have attacked National Socialists. Two more are being sought. Luther did not consider a planned attack by the KPD on the propaganda march to be proven and described the firing of shots at the National Socialists as "the work of individual perpetrators".

On April 5, the Ministry of Justice described the results of the investigation as "entirely unsatisfactory", requested that the released persons be arrested again and suggested that "protective custody" be imposed. The willingness of the National Socialists to testify could be promoted by referring to the "Ordinance of the Reich President on the granting of impunity" of March 21, according to which for "criminal offenses in the fight for the national uprising of the German people, in their preparation or in the fight for the German plaice were committed ”, impunity would exist.

In a further report from April 8, Chief Public Prosecutor Luther pointed out that leading National Socialists, including those of the district leader von Alvensleben and Gauleiter Jordan, were still missing statements, and at the same time protested against reports in the National Socialist press that he was conducting investigations against the NSDAP. He had been involved in the processing of political crimes since 1921 and had belonged to the "left-wing political department of the Reich Prosecutor's Office to combat communists, traitors and separatists":

“All this time, I have therefore been in the forefront of the battle against the Marxists and have been exposed to numerous and violent public attacks. As long as such attacks came from the Marxist side, they did not affect me any further, all the more must I be injured by attacks from the national side, through which I am said to have a lack of national understanding [...]. "

On April 27, the Public Prosecutor General's Office expressed concern to the Ministry of Justice that indictments against the communists for riot (Section 115 RStGB ) and breach of the peace (Section 125 RStGB) would be successful. According to other reports from the Attorney General, no firearms were found in the arrested communists. There is no evidence that - as initially reported - the "propaganda march" was shot from the roof of the gym. A National Socialist received a gunshot wound on his big toe, but did not notice the injury immediately.

On June 29, 1933, the Halle jury sentenced Eduardrechner to eight and a half years in prison for manslaughter and the misuse of weapons . Computer was present in the “class battle building”; he was charged with the death of SS member Berck. According to the judgment, Calculator wanted to "harm the National Socialists out of his political fanaticism"; It was not about protecting the class struggle building. Thus he did not act in self-defense . Calculator is said to have been imprisoned in the Mauthausen and Dachau concentration camps until 1945 after serving his prison sentence . There were no further convictions during the National Socialist era.

The shot SS man Paul Berck advanced to become the “martyr” of the National Socialists. Berck, born on February 14, 1912 and a baker by profession, was a member of the 26th SS Standard in Eisleben. According to contemporary information, Paul Berck's funeral took place in the presence of 15,000 National Socialists under the strictest security measures in Eisleben. Several streets were named after Berck during the National Socialist era, including today's Paul-Suhr-Strasse in Halle; the local NSDAP group in Eisleben and the 26th SS standard also bore his name. The “class battle building” was renamed “Paul-Berck-Haus” and the Breite Weg was renamed Paul-Berck-Straße, and a memorial stone in Eisleben commemorated him. Annual memorial marches should be held in Eisleben at the beginning of February. 4,000 SS men marched through the city on "Paul Berck Day" on February 11, 1934; Himmler, who was invited as Reichsführer of the SS, was represented by August Heissmeyer . In a speech, the mayor of Eisleben and later commandant of the Majdanek concentration camp , Hermann Florstedt , described Berck as a “devoted example” that the National Socialists should lead “in the further struggle for the completion of the Third Reich ”.

GDR time

Memorial plaque for the three slain anti-fascists at the house at Breiter Weg 30 in Eisleben.
Commemorative plaque "February 12th gymnasium" on building at Zeißingstrasse 19 in Eisleben.

After the liberation from National Socialism , charges of breach of the peace and crimes against humanity were brought against 31 participants in the National Socialist “propaganda march” and against two police officers . On August 3, 1949, the Halle Regional Court sentenced a defendant to life imprisonment ; 30 others received prison or penal sentences of between one and twelve years. Two defendants were acquitted. According to the judgment, the “propaganda march” was a “planned attack on the anti-fascist workers of Eisleben”. This results from the armament of most of the participants; one of the convicted police officers also testified that, according to his impression, the attack had been prepared. Leaving the approved demonstration route also speaks for a planned attack. The court saw no evidence to support claims that communist shots were fired at the "propaganda march". The person injured by a shot in the toe later stated to another SA member that he had accidentally shot himself. The verdict regrets that "the ringleaders [...] could not be tried because they are hiding or think they are safe in West Germany."

According to witnesses who had known him for years, Kurt Stenzeleit, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, hit communists with a spade and threatened Bernard Koenen while he was still in Eisleber Hospital and assaulted another injured person. Stenzeleit himself denied having participated in the propaganda march. A former SS member was acquitted against the background of contradicting testimonies about his presence in Eisleben. The policeman Eduard Fuchs was sentenced to six years in prison. Fuchs and SS members broke into the “class battle building” with an unlocked pistol and shot there. According to other police officers, NSDAP district leader von Alvensleben thanked Fuchs at the police station with the words “You did your job well”. The court took into account that Fuchs mitigated the punishment that he had in part protected the attacked. A second policeman was sentenced to twelve years in prison for firing shots at people on the gym roof and not intervening when communists were injured with spade blows right next to him. Some of the defendants appealed against the judgment, which the Halle Higher Regional Court rejected on November 3, 1950 as "obviously unfounded". Department XI / 11 of the Ministry of State Security is said to have carried out research on Bloody Sunday in the 1970s and 1982/1983.

The three workers' athletes killed on Eisleber Blutsonntag - Walter Schneider, Hans Seidel and Otto Helm - were buried on July 8, 1945 in a grave of honor in the old cemetery. In 1951 the shafts of the VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck near Helbra were named after the dead on Bloody Sunday: The Hohenthal shaft was named Hans-Seidel-Schacht; the Ernstschächte was renamed Walter-Schneider-Schächte. A large fruit growing company was called VEG-Walter-Schneider and a sports facility was called Otto-Helm-Kampfbahn. During the GDR era, Eisleber Bahnhofsstraße was named after Bernard Koenen, who emigrated to the Soviet Union on Bloody Sunday , while Breite Weg was called “ Straße der Victims of Fascism ” (OdF).

present

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, February 12th has been celebrated annually with commemorative events by the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN-BdA) in the old cemetery in Eisleben. Speakers included Hans Coppi (2002), Angelika Klein (2007), and Heinrich Fink (2008).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reichstag election results for the Eisleben district in elections in the Weimar Republic.
  2. ^ Kurt Lindner: Lutherstadt Eisleben. (Volume III, Part 1: Center of the Mansfeld Copper Mining. ) Council of Lutherstadt Eisleben, Eisleben 1986, p. 83.
  3. ↑ a b c Report of the Chief Public Prosecutor Luther to General Public Prosecutor Becker of February 13, 1933 , cited in excerpts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 100f.
  4. ↑ Arnd Krüger : “Today Germany belongs to us and tomorrow ...”? The struggle for the sense of conformity in sport in the first half of 1933, in: W. BUSS & A. KRÜGER (eds.): Sport history: maintaining tradition and changing values. Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Prof. Dr. W. Henze. (= Series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History, Vol. 2). Duderstadt: Mecke 1985, 175 - 196.
  5. ↑ a b Lindner, Lutherstadt , p. 84.
  6. ↑ a b Rüter, DDR Justice , p. 97ff.
  7. ↑ a b Report from the Chief Public Prosecutor Luther to the Minister of Justice of February 20, 1933 , cited in extracts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , pp. 101f.
  8. ↑ a b Stefanie Endlich: Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. (Volume 2: Federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Thuringia. ) Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-89331-391-5 , p. 528f.
  9. ↑ Street battle in Eisleben. Eisleber Tageblatt, February 13, 1933 (37/130). In facsimile from Peter Lindner: Hermann Florstedt. SS leader and concentration camp commandant, an image of life on his family's horizon. Verlag André Gursky, Halle / Saale 1997, ISBN 3-929389-19-3 , p. 21.
  10. ^ Report of the Chief Public Prosecutor Luther to the Minister of Justice of March 22, 1933 , quoted in extracts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 102f.
  11. ^ Letter from the Ministry of Justice to the Public Prosecutor General Naumburg dated April 5, 1933 , cited in excerpts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , pp. 103f.
  12. ↑ Ordinance of the Reich President on the granting of impunity of March 21, 1933.
  13. ^ Report of the Chief Public Prosecutor Luther to General Public Prosecutor Becker of April 8, 1933 , quoted in extracts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 102.
  14. ^ Reports of the Attorney General to the Minister of Justice of April 11 and May 4, 1933 , cited in extracts in the 1949 judgment, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , pp. 104f.
  15. ^ Judgment of the jury court Halle dated June 29, 1933 (4 K. 16/33) , cited in part in the judgment of 1949, see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 105.
  16. ^ Lindner, Lutherstadt , p. 86.
  17. ^ Alfred-Ingemar Berndt (Ed.): The archive. Reference book for politics, economy and culture. Supplementary Volume I (January to May 1933), p. 80.
  18. ^ Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan to the dead comrade Paul Berck. In: Albert Rudolph (ed.): Between Harz and Lausitz. A home book from Gau Halle-Merseburg. F. Hirt, Breslau 1935, pp. 212-224.
  19. ↑ Florstedt's speech in Lindner, Florstedt , p. 21.
  20. ^ For quote see Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 97; Cited reasons ibid, p. 99.
  21. ↑ Rüter, GDR Justice , p. 105.
  22. ↑ Rüter, GDR Justice , p. 112.
  23. ^ Rüter, DDR Justice , pp. 116f.
  24. ↑ Rüter, GDR Justice , p. 125.
  25. ^ Rüter, DDR-Justiz , p. 113ff. See also Lindner, Lutherstadt , p. 85.
  26. ^ Rüter, DDR Justice , p. 115f.
  27. ^ Rüter, GDR Justice , p. 93.
  28. ↑ Peter Lindner: Did Hermann Florstedt survive the Second World War? Fragments of official investigations into the SS leader and camp commanders from Majdanek . In: Journal for local research. Issue 10. Gursky-Verlag, Halle / Saale 2001. ISSN  1610-4870 , pp. 73-91, here pp. 80f.
  29. ↑ The Eislebener or Eisleber Blutsonntag at www.harz-saale.de.
  30. ↑ Hohenthal-Schacht, later Hans-Seidel-Schacht ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Mansfeld copper traces. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kupferspuren.artwork-agentur.de
  31. ↑ Ernst-Schächte, later Walter-Schneider-Schächte  ( 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. at Mansfeld copper traces.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / kupferspuren.artwork-agentur.de  
  32. ↑ Address by Hans Coppi at www.pds-mansfelder-land.de
  33. ↑ Speech by Angelika Klein ( Memento from September 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  34. ↑ 75th anniversary "Eisleber Blutsonntag" ( Memento from February 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) at www.eisleben.eu.

literature

  • Judgment of the Halle Regional Court of August 3, 1949 (13a StKs 22/49) in: Christiaan F. Rüter ( edit .): GDR justice and Nazi crimes. Collection of East German convictions for Nazi homicide crimes. Volume 8, Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-24618-0 .

Web links

Commons : Eisleber Blutsonntag  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files