Paul Grüninger

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Paul Grüninger probably in 1939

Paul Ernst Grüninger (born October 27, 1891 in St. Gallen ; † February 22, 1972 ibid) was a Swiss teacher, football player and from 1919 police captain in St. Gallen. In 1938 and 1939, as a senior border officer, he saved several hundred Jewish and other refugees from National Socialist persecution and extermination .

Life

Paul Ernst Grüninger was born as the second of four children of the Catholic upholsterer Oskar Grüninger and his Protestant wife Maria and raised a Protestant. His father later took over a tobacco shop in St. Gallen. From 1907 to 1911 Paul Grüninger trained as a teacher at the Rorschach teacher training college on the Mariaberg . From 1913 he played as a left winger at the football club Brühl, St. Gallen . In the 1914/15 season he won the Swiss championship with his team . The military service interrupted his first years of employment, after completing the recruits and officers' school he was appointed lieutenant in the catering troops. In September 1919, a customer in his parents' business recommended him to work as a police lieutenant in the Landjägerkorps of the canton of St. Gallen. He hesitated, however, and finally gave in to his parents' insistence. Grüninger was selected from 78 applicants. Soon afterwards he married Alice Federer, who came from a respected merchant family from Au . The couple had two daughters, including Ruth Roduner (* 1921), who is committed to the rehabilitation of her father to this day (2014). In 1925 he received the post of Landjäger Captain.

Escape helpers

Obstacles to entry into Switzerland

German passport with J-stamp and compulsory first name Israel

The introduction of the Jewish stamp in Germany with the ordinance on passports for Jews of October 5, 1938 was based on an agreement between Switzerland and Germany. It was introduced on a proposal by the German authorities who wanted to prevent the introduction of the visa requirement for all German citizens , as required by the Swiss Federal Council . From then on, Switzerland only wanted "Jews belonging to the Reich, whose passport is provided with the [...] mentioned feature [...] to allow entry into Switzerland if the responsible Swiss representation in the passport gave an assurance of authorization." to stay in Switzerland or to transit through Switzerland '. ”As a rule, she did not accept German Jews as political refugees and the Jews who were at risk after the so-called Reichskristallnacht of November 9-10, 1938, did not enter Switzerland previous special application and approval denied.

Rescuing Jewish refugees

At a meeting of cantonal police officials, among them the honorary president of the Swiss Refugee Aid and Heinrich Rothmund , the head of the Federal Aliens Police , Grüninger was the only one to defend the Jewish refugees: “Refugees can not be rejected for reasons of humanity . We have to let many in! "

In 1938 and 1939, the St. Gallen police commander, Hauptmann Grüninger, saved several hundred Jewish and other refugees from Nazi persecution and extermination by allowing them to enter Switzerland by pre-dating their entry visas and / or forging other documents.

Grüninger worked partly with Ernest Prodolliet (diplomat) and occasionally with Recha Sternbuch.

Ostracism

In 1939 he was suspended from duty and his pension entitlements were revoked . In 1940 he was sentenced to pay a small fine for violating official duties. His daughter Ruth had to drop out of business school in Lausanne, she returned to the family in St. Gallen and had to look for a job: “My father was viewed as a criminal. I got one rejection after the other until I found a job in a Jewish textile company. ”Ruth Grüninger was able to pay the rent for the St. Gallen apartment, in which she from then on with her twelve years younger sister Sonja, her mother and hers Father lived. Paul Grüninger lived in the remaining three decades of casual work and as a substitute teacher. He never found a permanent job again. His daughter noted his disappointment, but “nevertheless he insisted until his death that he would act again soon. I'm proud of that. ”Two months before his death, the German President Gustav Heinemann gave him a color television. In 1972 Grüninger died impoverished in St. Gallen. He was buried in Au SG in the local cemetery.

In his résumé, Grüninger wrote: “It was about saving people who were threatened with death. How could I have taken care of bureaucratic considerations and calculations under these circumstances? ”The fate of Grüninger became known to the public through an article by C. L. Sandor ( Tages-Anzeiger-Magazin 1984, file number Grüninger - unsolved? ).

rehabilitation

In 1993 Grüninger was politically rehabilitated by the St. Gallen government and in 1994 the Swiss Federal Council published a declaration of honor for him.

Like the St. Gallen Government Council, the Federal Council also recognizes that Paul Grüninger was guided by ethical values ​​that later became the basis of international and Swiss asylum law. The Federal Council is therefore ready to politically rehabilitate Paul Grüninger and to publicly confirm that Paul Grüninger deserves unreserved respect for his selfless behavior. (Official Bulletin of the Federal Assembly, 1994 II 1267).

In 1995, 23 years after his death, the District Court of St. Gallen overturned the verdict in the Paul Grüninger case and acquitted him. His legal rehabilitation followed his political rehabilitation. In this case, Grüninger's legal rehabilitation by the ICE did not, as in other cases, only mean the correction of a carelessly wrong decision by a court (e.g. due to new evidence). Rather, the Swiss refugee legislation of the time was declared incompatible with the principles of a constitutional state.

In 1998, the Grand Council of the Canton of St. Gallen approved material reparations and compensated the descendants of Grüninger for the captain's loss of wages and pensions due to his immediate dismissal. With the entire amount, the Paul Grüninger Foundation was founded in 1998 , which among other things supports active defenders of human rights.

Football career

In the 1914/15 season , Grüninger, then working as a teacher, became Swiss champions with Brühl St. Gallen as the left winger . At Brühl he was President from 1924 to 1927 and from 1937 to 1940. In 1940 he resigned due to his conviction. In 2006 the stadium was named Paul Grüninger Stadium in his honor . 

music lovers

Grüninger was an art lover, played the piano, was a passionate singer and remained a member of a choir well into old age.

Honors

Paul Grüninger School , Vienna, 2014
Grüningerplatz in St. Gallen

In 1971 Grüninger was added to the list of Righteous Among the Nations .

Grüninger and his wife's grave was designed in 2008 by the St. Gallen artist Norbert Möslang with a grave slab. Since October 29, 2005, a plaque has been reminding of the years (1955–1972) when the Grüninger couple rented a cheap three-room apartment in Au, at Kirchweg 4. The Paul Grüninger March , composed in 1938 by a Jewish refugee in the Diepoldsau camp, was played for the installation ceremony. In the cities of St. Gallen, Jerusalem , Kirjat Ono , Stuttgart and Rischon LeZion , streets and squares bear the name of Paul Grüninger. In 1997, the new school in Hanreitergasse, built according to the plans of the architects Gustav Peichl and Rudolf Weber, was named after him in Vienna . In 2012 the bridge over the Old Rhine between Hohenems and Diepoldsau was dedicated to him.

The Theater St. Gallen brought in 2013 the youth theater piece A frontier worker by Elisabeth Gabriel and Nina Stazol on stage.

Grüninger's office at the time, the St. Gallen canton police , honored him in a celebration in 2014, which his daughter Ruth Roduner also attended. At the main entrance of the police building there is now a memorial plaque that reminds of Grüninger and his moral courage.

At the beginning of February 2013, unknown perpetrators on the Paul Grüninger Bridge between Diepoldsau and Hohenems removed the commemorative plaque for the eponymous Swiss police commander with an electric angle grinder and threw it into the Rhine. While the Swiss police suspect vandalism, which was previously evident in the area around Altstätten, Bernd Bösch from the Vorarlberg Greens assumes that the motivation was right-wing extremist: “Grüninger is more controversial in Switzerland than here. On the other hand, the right-wing extremist scene in Vorarlberg is active and well organized. "

literature

Movies

Web links

Commons : Paul Grüninger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Who was Paul Grüninger? In: Paul Grüninger Foundation , short portrait.
  2. ^ A b Wulff Bickenbach: Captain Paul Grüninger - Stations in life up to the indictment and discharge. In: the same, Justice for Paul Grüninger , ISBN 978-3-412-20334-4 , pp. 149f., Online excerpt from Google books .
  3. ^ Matthias Rauch: Paul Grüninger: Ruth Roduners struggle for the reputation of her father. In: Vorarlberg Online , January 29, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b Document VEJ 2/127.
  5. ^ Dpa : Swiss refugee policy during the Nazi era: J-stamp is a German invention. In: Hagalil Archive, February 22, 2009.
  6. ^ Stefan Keller : Fortress Switzerland. In: Die Zeit , No. 34, August 17, 2008.
  7. ^ Jörg Krummenacher: Lifesaver on the Alpine Rhine. In: Harald Derschka and Jürgen Klöckler (eds.): Der Bodensee. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-7995-1724-9 , pp. 260-261.
  8. ↑ a b N. N .: Switzerland. Noble motifs. In: Der Spiegel , No. 26, June 27, 1994.
  9. ↑ a b Quoted by Silja Kornacher: Late honor for Paul Grüninger. In: Migros-Magazin , January 20, 2014, accessed on December 23, 2014.
  10. ↑ Walter H. Rueb: Whoever saw the suffering could not participate. In: Die Welt , December 2, 1995.
  11. ^ Paul Ernst Grüninger at knerger.de
  12. ↑ A 425/4 Paul Grüninger: collective dossier, from 1984 to 1998 , State Archives St. Gallen.
  13. ↑ ... in which a Lancelot C. Sandor (according to other sources C. Lancelot Sandor) causes calamities. In: poètes-maudits.de , accessed on December 23, 2014.
  14. ^ Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War (Bergier Commission). The final report in book form. Pendo Verlag , Zurich, 2002, ISBN 3-85842-601-6 .
  15. ^ Daniel Ryser: Paul Grüninger Stadium. In: WOZ Die Wochenzeitung , March 9, 2006.
  16. ^ The name giver of the Brühl stadium. ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / scbruehl.ch 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. Website of the SC Brühl St. Gallen .
  17. ↑ Linus Schöpfer: "The question arises why so few Swiss followed him." In: Der Bund , January 15, 2014, interview with Grüninger biographer Stefan Keller .
  18. ↑ The policeman who opened the barrier: Paul Grueninger. In: Yad Vashem .
  19. ↑ Marcel Elsener: Grüninger's footsteps in the Rhine Valley. In: Appenzeller Zeitung , August 12, 2011.
  20. ↑ Inauguration with speeches, music and aperitif on October 29, 2005: memorial plaque for Paul Grüninger in Au SG. In: Paul Grüninger Foundation.
  21. ^ Federal Council inaugurates an article on Paul-Grüninger-Strasse in Israel on tagblatt.ch from October 30, 2017.
  22. ↑ Marcel Elsener: A border bridge for Grüninger. In: St. Galler Tagblatt , February 16, 2012.
  23. ↑ jub: Bridge monument for Paul Grüninger. In: derStandard.at , May 6, 2012.
  24. ↑ Jörg Krummenacher: Refugee rescuers for the young generation. In: NZZ . February 16, 2013, p. 33.
  25. ^ Paul Grüninger - A border crosser. ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2013 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. In: Theater St. Gallen , accessed on November 12, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.theatersg.ch
  26. ↑ a b Jörg Krummenacher: Judenretter, police and understanding. In: NZZ , August 22, 2014.
  27. ^ APA / Markus Sturn: Hohenems: memorial plaque to escape helper Paul Grüninger thrown into the Rhine. In: Vorarlberg Online , February 25, 2013.
  28. ^ Bettina Spoerri: Civil courage is a rare plant. In: NZZ , January 30, 2014, p. 21, review of the Grüninger files .
personal data
SURNAME Grüninger, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grüninger, Paul Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss police captain and football player
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Gallen
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1972
Place of death St. Gallen