Pontoon process
The pontoon trial was a criminal case in which Reich Attorney Paul Jorns, as a representative of the prosecution, accused journalists Berthold Jacob and Fritz Küster of "public treason " and Alexander Niedner gave the verdict at the Reich Court.
In March 1928, the two accused were of nine months imprisonment sentenced because they had uncovered the system time volunteers with which the Cabinet Luther I exceeding the limitation of the Reichswehr in the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 men, including 4,000 officers by the Black Reichswehr sought to disguise.
These soldiers were used for short-term military exercises and did not appear in any statistics. In its judgment against Jacob and Küster, the Reichsgericht demanded that the idea be rejected , “that the disclosure and disclosure of unlawful conditions can never be detrimental to the Reich's welfare, only because the welfare of the state is defined in its legal system and its implementation realize "(RGSt 62, 65 (67)). In addition, the Reichsgericht demanded: “Every citizen has to remain loyal to his own state. To look after the welfare of his own state is the highest commandment for him ”.
From 1924 to 1927, more than 1,000 people were convicted of treason, insulting the Reichswehr and similar offenses.
Occasion: capsizing of a pontoon ferry on the Weser
During a maneuver on March 31, 1925, a pontoon structure overturned near the ferry from Porta Westfalica - Veltheim . The Weser flooded with high flow rates. 160 soldiers armed with knapsacks and rifles were to be crossed on a ferry made of open pontoons by Minden pioneers . On the fifth crossing, water entered the pontoons, the ferry sank, 80 soldiers and one civilian on board were killed.
Three articles by Berthold Jacob in The Other Germany
First article
On April 11, 1925, the article Das Zeitfreiwilligengrab in der Weser by Berthold Jacob appeared in Das Andere Deutschland .
“The temporary volunteer grave in the Weser, Mr. Geßler , answer ...!
When, on the evening when the papers brought the first, more precise news of the terrible catastrophe in Veltheim, the sounds of the song from the good comrade concluded the screening of the film 'Reveille' in the Kammerlichtspiele on Potsdamer Platz (Berlin) , these sounds wafted over them a deep and sad meaning. It is difficult to decide whether the thoughts of all visitors to that cinema theater lingered on the rigid and cold bodies of the 81 young soldiers - many of those present had previously applauded the hussars parade on the screen with that thoughtless vivacity that their stupid intentions and desires were clear enough came to light [...] but you also saw many women crying, mothers, who at that moment perhaps took their first look behind the glittering clinking facade. The tragic fate of the 81 young people who met their early death in the icy whirlpools of the Weser does not lose any of its tragedy and is no less worthy of silent participation if the rumor that whispers through all the streets were truth. If the probability, for which there are already a number of symptoms today, were a fact - namely the probability that in some of the sudden casualties we would have to deal with members of the 'Black Reichswehr' who were in the discussion of public opinion in has played such a dominant role over the past two years.
We know that the companies 14–16 of the Reichswehr Regiment 18 who moved out of Detmold and from the Sennelager for training marches after March 17 counted a considerable number of 'soldiers' hired at short notice. We also know that this so-called training battalion was under the command of Captain Gabcke and First Lieutenant Frenking ; we also believe we know that the course, which found such a sudden interruption at Veltheim, had already started in January of this year. The 'service time' of the young soldiers would have ended in a few days ... [...]
It may seem strange and perhaps incomprehensible to some when, in the same gloomy hour that sees the funerals for the poor victims of the unleashed elements, we come to an hour when the majority of the dead bodies have not even emerged from the wave grave again, the severity of our attacks against the highest chief of those dead who were judged by ministers of the Reichswehr.
And yet it is precisely at this hour that we feel the duty to roll call. Our motives cannot be doubted. We have to express that we must finally put an end to that system of breach of contract, the indirect victim of which appears to us to be the dead of Veltheim. The dark fate that met these 'soldiers' who served in the 18th Infantry Regiment is a warning message. And now, Mr. Geßler, you should no longer be withheld from what we have to say to you. It is not your business alone!
- We will all have to bear the burden of the decisions for which you are still responsible today. We have an unwritten - and therefore all the stronger - right to object, more: to protest. And if you have not yet wanted to concede this right to us and if you have had all our attempts to make use of this right to this day answered with treason proceedings through your all too willing colleagues in the judiciary, then this hour is over today ! We no longer ask for your permission. Lives are at stake and we will talk so that the German public can hear us! [...]
Your General von Seeckt made the Reichsheer a playground for all black-white-red ghosts. You know as well as we do that the spirit of revenge is cherished and cherished in the army, and that's not enough: You should know that Herr von Seeckt has made all the preparations within the Reichswehr to make it possible at a moment that appears to him to be appropriate to transform the German Reichswehr into the eight mobile armies of the first mobilization day of 1914.
You undoubtedly know better than we do the purposes for which the funds made available to you have been used, and above all you should know that day after day your subordinates violate the German Reich laws which forbid you to hire volunteers for short periods of time. We know that the general feels reasonably covered by his order of October 14, 1924 ... But - Cologne was not liberated, and no minor misfortune for our Reich: yesterday, 81 German children fell as the first victims of the idea of revenge. The mothers and sisters and loved ones of the dead weep. Maybe their misery does not know who to accuse - but curses and tears find their way to the guilty! Certainly your clever strategists are not even thinking of trying to beat France victoriously. Poland is enough for them! [...]
Your calculations may be correct - we believe they are wrong. But even Poland's downfall is to us, even the recovery of the three stolen provinces is not worth the blood of the hecatombs of our brothers. The gates of the German future that your military friends threw into the castle on August 1, 1914, cannot and must not be broken open again by force. This requires a lot of quiet and peaceful work. We have charged you with disrupting this work. It is now up to you to speak. If you keep silent, Herr Geßler, then the German world will know what to make of your future denials.
Today the treason trials are over. They will no longer clog our mouths. Because the voices of those dead would still be heard. "
Second article
The second article on the same topic appeared on May 31, 1925.
"And again: Mr. Geßler ...!
If we publish the following contribution from our co-worker at this moment, we are doing so with full awareness and for good reasons. In Germany, the Reich President is the supreme warlord of the troops. What was as uncritical with a man like Ebert as it will be with Marx is a moment of tremendous concern for a Hindenburg . The Reichswehr has just become black enough for us under democratic leaders. With Hindenburg as Reich President and head of this Reichswehr, the republic would be brought into a state of permanent moral and actual state of siege. Keep this in mind when choosing . Note d. Red.
Here on April 11th we made serious accusations against Mr. Geßler, and these accusations have been taken up and expanded by a number of German newspapers. The Reichswehr Minister did not find an answer to our question, not even the one that is cheaper in this country than blackberries: the initiation of the state treason proceedings. Nevertheless, Mr. Geßler took the opportunity to express himself. The Berlin reporter for L'Intransigeant had claimed that there were numerous temporary volunteers among the soldiers who had recently met their deaths at the crossing of the Weser. Mr. Geßler took this as an opportunity to let the national readers of the “DAZ” know through a “competent authority” that the claim of the “intransigeant” was fictitious. The 'responsible body' is probably Colonel Gempp , the sub-chief of the Army Statistics Department (T 3) in the Ministry. The 'DAZ' has given this report the heading 'A lie'. We shall see in a moment that this lie too has short legs. The 'Jungdeutsche', the organ of the Young German Order , published obituaries on April 6th, 9th and 10th for a total of 9 friars who lost their lives under the Reichswehr in the Weser. One of April 9 has the following wording:
Two more friars in the loss list 'The Brotherhood “Weferlingen, Prov. Sa. "of the Young German Order writes to us on the 4th Easter moon in 1925:
It turned out to be a fact yesterday that two brothers of our brotherhood were also killed in the Reichswehr accident on the Weser. These are shooters in the Inf.-Reg. No. 18 Karl Märtens and Heinrich Dill, both from Walbeck. A third brother, Heinrich Mischke from Walbeck, has been saved. We greatly lament the deaths of both brothers. They were one of the most ardent advocates of our goals in their place, and we lost a lot when they joined the army in early December 1924. As a sign of mourning, the brotherhood has ordered all the brothers to raise their flags to half-mast. Faithful German allways! signed: Wehrle, Grand Master. '
So we now want to make his work easier for Mr. Geßler. First of all, it is a question of clarifying the expression: time volunteers. We believe we know that the Reichswehr Ministry does not recognize this term, and it is even formally correct, because temporary volunteers were called those people who at the beginning of 1919 made themselves available to the Freikorps and other government troops on call at any time. The term “temporary volunteer” does not fully apply to the so-called 'black' soldiers - all the less because these 'soldiers' have recently committed themselves to 12 years, although they are given to understand that they will do so after 3 or 4 months after prior medical training Finding their remains can be discharged. But, as I said, we want to make it easier for Mr. Geßler to carry out his difficult task of investigating all these things. Therefore, allow us to ask the following questions:
- Is it correct that on January 15, resp. already in December with companies 14, 15 and 16 of the training battalion in the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment No. 18 in Detmold and / or. Approx. 200 members of the Young German Order and other patriotic associations (Landbundjugend) have been employed in the Sennelager?
- Is it correct that a number of the young people who died in the Veltheim accident belonged to those two hundred?
- Is it correct that the course in which these young people were trained was led by Captain Gabcke (with the A-Btl's staff), and that as a training officer and the like? a. Lieutenant Frenking (recently promoted out of order) was working?
- Is it correct that in the last course of the previous year, which ended in October, for the training of the teams etc. a. a lieutenant d. Res. Of the old army called Winkelhausen from Bielefeld, which before the war belonged to the reserve of the 8th (Lorraine) Infantry Regiment 158, and now the 4th Company of the Reichswehr-LR. 18 was assigned to the traditional company of the aforementioned I.-R. 158, so that Lieutenant Winkelhausen would have served in his old regiment?
- Is it correct that this lieutenant d. Res. Winkelhausen in the course of the course to Oberleutnant d. Res. Has been promoted?
- Is it correct that the training of the young teams was carried out in such a way that these people were first pimped for 4 or 6 weeks in the barracks yard, that they then came to sniping for 3 to 4 weeks in the Sennelager, and that at the end of the entire training was there a march or an exercise in a larger, mixed association?
- Furthermore, is it correct that the crews recruited on January 15th would have been dismissed on April 8th had the accident not interrupted the course of the training course so suddenly?
The Reichswehr Ministry will have to answer these questions. Herr von Seeckt is, however, fully covered by his order of October 14th. For us it is a matter of getting to know the responsible person, whom we can grasp. We know the 6th Division in Munster. It was once headed by a man who had more 'black soldiers' in his area of command than any of the other military commanders. Today Mr. von Loßberg resides as commander in chief in the Marken in Hardenbergstrasse in Berlin. His successor is Lieutenant General Freiherr von Ledebur , who as a colonel during the Kapp Putsch in Hamburg made the splendid statement that he was ready to break any oath he swore between 7 and 8 a.m. between 8 and 9 a.m. We do not know that Herr von Ledebur had expressly excluded the oath on the constitution, and we are therefore at least entitled to draw our specific and special conclusions from that statement. "
Third article
The third article on the same subject appeared on July 25, 1925.
"Keep going …
When we made the disaster of the Reichswehr near Veltheim an der Weser at the beginning of April of this year the starting point of the first uniform and actually planned campaign against Gessler and his Black Reichwehr, it seemed as if we were fighting for a hopeless cause. It seemed as if the cleaning of the atmosphere of the plague of the illegal, heavily armed groups was a work that was almost impossible for human hands. We did not stand alone in this struggle. We acted as exponents of a group of politically interested people who strived to eliminate those incidents that were immensely damaging to their fatherland, unconcerned about the consequences, read: treason proceedings, which initiated a judiciary that was misused by certain power and interest groups to silence them. We never asked about such inconveniences. Herr Geßler and his commanders cannot frighten us. And with this carelessness about possible consequences we have achieved certain initial successes.
- Shortly after the publication of our Reichswehr articles, the chief Reich lawyer ordered the suspension of all pending proceedings for treason. We later became aware that discussions had taken place in the Reichswehr Ministry (that was at the beginning of May) as to whether a new trial should not be opened against us. The Prussian Minister of the Interior was then approached with the request to initiate proceedings on his part. This was also rejected by this side. As our readers will remember, the commander in Wehrkreis 6, General von Ledebur, then sent us a press law correction to the article 'Das Zeitfreiwilligengrab in der Weser', which distorted the actual events and which we subsequently refuted.
Now, after 12 weeks, the public prosecutor has finally found the language that needs to be easiest for them: they have brought charges against us for treason. It can be very indifferent to us if the crown lawyers and, of course, Mr. Geßler with them, want to embarrass themselves. And we will also embarrass Mr. Geßler if the negotiation comes about at all. We doubt that. Incidentally, we will not hold back what we know in the future either. Mr. Geßler, to whom we once offered our support, in the event that he really really wanted to clear up all this mess, can no longer count on this offered support. He should have the fight that he announced to us, and we will unwaveringly fight this fight for his treason wherever it has to be waged. So above all in the 'Other Germany'. We know z. B. that the system of training in the Reichswehr has changed again. Today you no longer oblige people to twelve years, but give new employees the names and papers of real soldiers of the Reichswehr for three months, who are then given leave for the same period. So you always have clean laundry.
- This procedure was determined u. a. at I. R. 13 in Villingen. We will not be silent, Herr Gessler, and you may be comforted to hear that even for us tough anti-militarists at least one old command has retained its validity. The command: carry on! "
Commentary in the Weltbühne by Kurt Tucholsky
A text by Kurt Tucholsky , who observed the process, on the atmosphere during the trial
“The little interlude in an otherwise decent and impeccable negotiation deserves to be highlighted because it is typical of the spirit of the Imperial Court […] The former judge-martial knows nothing about the brother, except a little gossip. At first there is nothing to know: the man lives here in Paris, working on the old historical Naundorff case ; Incidentally, he lives as a private person, whose attitude is not at all up for discussion, Mr. Jörns is interested in him. The fact that a German lives with a hereditary enemy in France is enough for him to suspect him. His questions, which were not part of the business, were suspicions and should of course be understood as such. If the lawyer knew more and more details about the activity of this brother, he would have to intervene ex officio, and one can be sure that he would have done it. But he doesn't know anything. This ignorance is enough to insult a German who has nothing to do with the matter either as a defendant or as a witness. The accused alone is not enough prey for the judge-martial: everything that belongs to his family is suspect [...] There is no doubt that the Reich lawyer has insulted him: in his circles such "relationships" with the French General Staff are seen as espionage, as Treason, therefore viewed as a crime. The chairman tried to reassure Berthold Jacob by saying: "The lawyer just asked ..."
Extract from the article The pontoon process by Carl von Ossietzky
With this judgment, the Reichsgericht in Leipzig took positions that later led to the conviction of Carl von Ossietzky in the Weltbühne trial (as the person responsible for journalism). This writes in his article The Pontoon Process :
“Jacob and Küster have been accused of accusing the government of illegal activities and for this reason alone are punishable. When the Reich Attorney accused one of the defendants that the French had only become aware of an arms store near Hamburg through the newspapers, the latter replied: "They were steel helmet weapons!" To which Herr Jörns remarked with deliciously impartiality: "It doesn't matter whether it is steel helmet weapons or not ... ”Here the meaning of the charge is open: it was not the good reputation of the Reich that was to be protected, but the weapon, regardless of whether it was a Reichswehr or a steel helmet. A weapon is a weapon, so sacrosanct. "