Petri affair

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The Petri affair describes the exclusion of a member who disseminated National Socialist ideas from a student union in 1956.

Petri's essay in the newsletter of the Bonn student body

In November 1955, the Bonn student Klaus Petri (1933-2011), who was a member of the Marburg fraternity Germania , published an article in the Bonn student newspaper Nachrichtenblatt der Bonner Studentenschaft in which he disseminated National Socialist ideas. In this pamphlet he defended the establishment of the Nazi concentration camps on the grounds: “I accept the national-socialist measures because they arose from the ardent wish of the leadership at the time to regain unity, law and freedom for the German people. The personal and individual freedom of a few had to be subordinated to this great goal, and they were deprived of the opportunity to advertise their goals hostile to National Socialism in meetings or journals. "The article, so Petri, is necessary to avoid the" occupation phrases "To shake up the lulled" folk-national elements "of the students. The fact that the work was still unsuccessful was due to those resistance members who drove to war and stabbed Adolf Hitler in the back while he was trying to enforce the right to life of his people "with clenched fists".

Exclusion from the fraternity

Exclusion of Petri by Aktivitas

While neither the rector of Bonn University nor the Bonn AStA reacted to the article, his federal brothers in Marburg were outraged by Petri's glorification of National Socialist ideas. In a convention they decided unanimously to give Petri cum infamia because of this and other misconduct (Petri had voted against the admission of a student because he should not have a so-called Aryan grandfather and this could cause difficulties for the Federation if the so-called Jewish question were to be revived) to exclude (with disgrace and shame) from Germania. The spokesman Dietrich Oldenburg , commissioned by Aktivitas to inform the old men , justified Petri's exclusion in a three-page circular to the old man: “Anyone who considers the concentration camps with all their hideous crimes in the complex to be justified shows a humanly reprehensible attitude. [...] Such assertions go against any sense of propriety. [...] such violations [...] will no longer be able to cover up with the cloak of free expression of opinion. "

Dissolution of Aktivitas by the old men

Aktivitas believed that the matter would be settled by informing the old rulers. Soon the 35 active had to realize that this was a mistake. Letters of protest arrived in Marburg in batches, demanding that Petri's expulsion be withdrawn, especially since he was the son of a federal brother who had fallen in the war, Hans Wilbert Petri . Freedom of expression was also valid for Petri, he had addressed views that many shared. A large part of the old rulers saw in the leading activists troublemakers and a danger to the federal peace. They issued the slogan, 'Better a small, carefully selected one than the current one, which expresses neo-democratic mass ideas'.

The old rulers demanded to convene an extraordinary federal convention to reopen the Petri case and to discipline Aktivitas and to cleanse it of bad elements, so that the federal government does not become the "avant-garde of neo-democracy". In addition to the 35 active members, around 350 old men were entitled to vote at this convention, but not all of them appeared.

Initially, the active federal government was suspended. Three of the activists who were accused of behaving in a fraternal manner and engaging in secret bundling were subsequently excluded separately ( Walter Wallmann , who later became Prime Minister of Hesse, Dietrich Oldenburg , later President of the State Labor Office of Hesse and writer and Hansgünther Kettling). After that, they started a new establishment and only accepted 18 active participants again, so that numerous "undesirable elements" lost their membership. In addition, the exclusion cum infamia Petris has been converted into a simple exclusion.

Petri's further résumé

After his expulsion from the Marburg fraternity Germania, Petri joined the fraternity Marchia Bonn , of which he belonged until the end of his life. Petri later became a lawyer and notary in Lippstadt, joined the CDU and became a member of the city council. In 1999, after almost 40 years of membership, he left the CDU and first joined the Republicans , then the NPD , for which he ran for the Bundestag in 2005. He was a member of the academy circle, a reading group for people on the far right. Petri was on the board for 47 years until 2011, 40 years as chairman of the board of the Teutonia Lippstadt sports club and was then unanimously elected honorary chairman.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Der Spiegel, No. 34 of August 21, 1957, Das Wort der Alten Herren , pp. 29–31. Online version
  2. ↑ Hans Saßenhausen: Directory of all living, deceased and former members of the Marburg fraternity Germania, private print, 1999
  3. ↑ Klaus Petri: An answer to Mr. Revermann. In: Nachrichtenblatt der Bonner Studentenschaft 7, 1955, No. 9, p. 1. See Hoffmann, The possibility of a lie , p. 39. In the previous edition, Klaus Revermann had the article Ten Years Later. Are we living for democracy? An unpopular view of the West German post-war development published.
  4. ^ Rudolf Augstein: Dear mirror reader, Der Spiegel, 47/1958, November 19, 1958
  5. ↑ Quotations from Petri's article, An Answer to Herr Revermann 'in the newsletter of the Bonn student body , printed in: Der Spiegel, No. 34 of August 21, 1957, Das Wort der Alten Herren , pages 29-31.
  6. ^ The old men remained winners, in Neue Gesellschaft 4, 1957, page 384
  7. ↑ Der Patriot - Lippstädter Zeitung of October 13, 2013, obituary for Petri [1]
  8. ^ A reading circle for the right margin , taz, July 12, 2005
  9. ↑ Change of leadership at the traditional association Teutonia 08 , April 1, 2011