Rouzier case

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The Rouzier case (also Rouzier affair or Rouzier trial ) was a murder case in Germersheim, Palatinate on September 27, 1926 , in which the citizen Emil Müller (* December 10, 1905) was shot by the French sub-lieutenant Pierre Charles Alexandre Auguste Rouzier (* 1902) and which caused a sensation especially in the German Empire and France .

prehistory

Allied occupation of the Rhineland after the First World War

As a result of the First World War , French occupation troops were stationed in the fortress of Germersheim as part of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland (see Peace Treaty of Versailles ). From December 2, 1918 soldiers of the 18th French Jäger Battalion were on site after the last Bavarian troops had left the city on November 24. Since the beginning of the occupation there have been more conflicts between the local population and the French military, especially during the period of separatism in the Palatinate (1919 to 1924) and in the context of the Rhenish Republic (1923).

When the Treaty of Locarno came into force on September 10, 1926 with the admission of Germany to the League of Nations , the evacuation of the Cologne occupied zone (1st zone) agreed in the treaty had already taken place and the control commission had already been partially dissolved. The question of arms limitation should be settled by the League of Nations. Overall, this eased the situation. That was hardly noticeable in Germersheim.

procedure

On the night of September 26-27, 1926, German and French soldiers got into an argument after drinking alcohol in an inn. Rouzier was also there. Later that night there was another tussle on the street. Rouzier fired three shots early in the morning, and the National Socialist -minded Emil Müller was shot near the post office, two other citizens (Josef Mathes and Richard Holzmann) had already been shot.

Reactions

Rouzier's guilt was established early on for the German press, while the French media reported that Rouzier had been attacked and acted in self-defense .

On October 19, 1926, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories , Johannes Bell , made an oral report at a cabinet meeting under Reich Chancellor Wilhelm Marx . It was announced that the Germersheim incident was less favorable for the German side.

As a result of the Rouzier affair , the Germersheim local branch of the NSDAP was formed on October 26, 1926 .

process

On December 17, 1926, the trial against Rouzier (for murder and two-fold bodily harm ) and against Mathes, Holzmann and Heinrich Fechter (for insult , provocation and threat ) began before the French military court in Landau . Fritz Arbogast, Hans Kögler and Jakob Kegel were also charged with other incidents. One of the defense counsel for the German defendants was Friedrich Grimm , who expected Rouzier to be acquitted . During the trial, attempts were made to reconstruct the events of the case, but several contradicting statements could not be resolved. In his closing remarks, one of Rouzier's two lawyers asked for an acquittal for all in order to obtain a “verdict of pacification”.

On December 22nd, the fifth day of the hearing, the verdict was given, as is customary in courts-martial, without justification. Rouzier was acquitted and the German defendants received prison sentences of between three months and two years.

consequences

While the German media reacted to the verdict with amazement and indignation ( "The murderer will be acquitted, the witnesses will be convicted" ), the German ambassador in Paris Leopold von Hoesch was instructed to start talks with the French government in order to obtain a revision of the verdict . Negotiations with the Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry Philippe Berthelot and thus the Minister Aristide Briand led to the fact that the German convicts were pardoned on December 25, 1926 by President Gaston Doumergue . Reich Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann interpreted the pardons in such a way that France wanted detente towards Germany.

Lieutenant Rouzier was transferred to Verdun on September 30, 1926, along with his 311st artillery regiment. He is said to have been dishonorably discharged from the army years later . In the spring of 1927 Josef Mathes received compensation of 10,000 francs from the French War Ministry ; It is not known whether Emil Müller's family received any compensation.

After the withdrawal of the French troops on June 30, 1930 (evacuation of the 3rd zone), the NSDAP placed a tombstone on November 2 on the grave of the Germersheim cemetery where Müller was buried on September 30, 1926. The inscription on the stone of the no longer preserved grave read:

“ Here rests in God
Emil Müller
geb.
shot dead on 10. 12. 1905 on 27. 9. 1926
by franz. Murderer's hand
in the eighth year of occupation.
He died for the fatherland. "

The Bavarian state government issued a uniform ban on June 5th . The police advocated the ban and forbade the marching SA to wear their uniforms. The then Gauleiter of the Rhine Palatinate, Josef Bürckel , then let the SA men run with a bare upper body.

The memory of the murder case was during the Nazi era a . a. kept awake by commemorative cards. In January 1940 - a few months before the start of the Western campaign - the Rouzier case was used in the German media as a justification for the war policy of the National Socialist government and thus for the Second World War .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Röttjer, p. 7
  2. ↑ Grimm, p. 1
  3. ↑ a b c Röttjer, p. 24
  4. ↑ a b Röttjer, p. 37
  5. ↑ a b c Riesenberger, p. 184
  6. ^ Sellinger, p. 23
  7. ↑ Kißener, p. 17
  8. ↑ Hans-Joachim Heinz ( Ed. City of Germersheim): Revolver Republic on the Rhine - Separatists in Germersheim. In: 725 years of city rights (1276–2001) . Series of publications on the history of the city of Germersheim, Volume II, Germersheim 2001, ISSN  1618-9663 , pp. 177–191
  9. ^ Peter Krüger : The foreign policy of the republic of Weimar. 2nd edition, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-07250-2 . P. 295 ff.
  10. ↑ Kißener, p. 21
  11. ↑ a b Röttjer, p. 22
  12. ↑ Röttjer, p. 14
  13. ↑ Röttjer, pp. 25, 27
  14. ↑ Oral report by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories on the trip to the occupied territory and on the status of the investigation into the incidents in the Palatinate. Federal Archives , October 19, 1926, accessed on January 12, 2013 .
  15. ↑ Röttjer, p. 50
  16. ↑ Röttjer, p. 33 ff .: The second lawyer will be Dr. Führ, whose first name is not mentioned, mentioned.
  17. ↑ Röttjer, p. 33
  18. ^ Röttjer, p. 37: Rouzier's lawyers were called Mourier and Garçon.
  19. ↑ Sellinger, p. 30
  20. ↑ Grimm, p. 7
  21. ↑ Röttjer, pp. 37–38
  22. ↑ Grimm, pp. 81–82: Richard Holzmann 2 months (with deferral of punishment that is not relevant , since the sentence has already been served), Josef Mathes 2 years (in absence ), Heinrich Fechter 6 months, Fritz Arbogast 6 months, Hans Kögler 6 months ( both absent), Jakob Kegel 3 months.
  23. ^ Fränkischer Kurier , December 23, 1926
  24. ↑ Röttjer, pp. 38, 40
  25. ↑ Kißener, p. 25
  26. ↑ Röttjer, p. 41
  27. ↑ Michael Peters: The "Gau Franconia" of the "Franconian Leader" Julius Streicher: Franconia in National Socialism. In: History of Franconia from the end of antiquity to the present - Part II: From the time of Napoleon to the present ( Memento of the original of February 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nikol-verlag.de archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Nikol Verlag, Hamburg 2013, p. 216
  28. ↑ Hans Fenske : The Palatinate NSDAP 1921-1932. In: Mitteilungen des Historisches Verein der Pfalz , number 85, Speyer 1987, p. 355
  29. ↑ Röttjer, p. 42
  30. ↑ Simplicissimus Volume 31 / No. 29. (PDF; 6.4 MB) Simplicissimus , October 18, 1926, accessed on January 4, 2013 .