Quirin Jansen

Quirin Jansen (born January 20, 1888 in Mausbach near Stolberg ; † November 8, 1953 in Aachen ) was Lord Mayor of Aachen from 1933 to 1944 and an official of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).

Life and political activity until 1933

Jansen completed a commercial apprenticeship, attended business lectures for two years at the Aachen University, and initially made it to office manager and HR manager at the mechanical engineering company C. Mehler GmbH in Aachen. During this time he made his first contacts with the local National Socialists, especially with the brothers Rudolf and Eduard Schmeer . Jansen's proximity to National Socialism was also promoted by the fact that his employer Max Mehler was very supportive of this new party: Mehler consciously hired National Socialists, and in 1927 a large part of the company's workforce held leading positions in the then relatively insignificant NSDAP in Aachen. In 1928 Jansen joined the party ( membership number 73,667) and later received the golden party badge . With the rise of the party in the years from 1930 to 1933, he became its head of organization and finally deputy district leader in Aachen . In April 1933 he was appointed acting head of the Aachen employment office.

Lord Mayor of the City of Aachen

Hermann Göring , at that time Prime Minister of Prussia and thus responsible for the Rhine Province , appointed Jansen as acting Lord Mayor of Aachen on June 2, 1933 . Jansen replaced the center politician Wilhelm Rombach . In the following years Jansen took on other posts and functions, including within the National Socialist organizations; in 1940 he was accepted into the Schutzstaffel (SS) at his own request . In the course of the so-called seizure of power , he supported the reorganization of the city administration in the National Socialist sense and was available for other offices. In the following years he also worked on the disempowerment of traditional municipal committees and offices, such as B. the city council. To the publication Stadt in Ketten. History of the occupation and separatism from 1918 to 1929 in and around Aachen by the dialect poet and head of the Aachen press office, Will Hermanns , delivered the epilogue to Aachen National Socialists in battle in 1933 .

Jansen sometimes had to take into account the Catholicism, which is still strongly anchored in the Aachen population and the relatively self-confident church leadership in comparison: On the occasion of the Aachen sanctuary tour in 1937, he would have been allowed to perform a traditionally important ritual act in his function as mayor. Since this could hardly be reconciled with National Socialist ideology, he formulated an unusually polite refusal for the time. Neither the party nor the city government were able to prevent the Shrine Tour from becoming a mass protest against the Nazi regime.

Due to the desolate economic situation of the city of Aachen, Jansen sometimes resorted to administrative regulations in order not to have to give in to all monetary demands of the NSDAP, for example when it came to financing the costly party events.

In the chaotic situation of September 1944 - shortly before the American troops marched in - Jansen authorized the Aachen museum director Felix Kuetgens to represent the absent city administration and to set up an interim administration under the city commander Gerhard Graf von Schwerin , but this came up against the Aachen district manager Eduard Schmeer Resistance. According to Hans Siemons, Jansen campaigned several times for imprisoned opponents of the National Socialists. Jansen is attested that he was probably not one of the "fanatical National Socialists" and that he showed a sense of responsibility in the performance of his duties on various occasions. In addition, the powers of the mayors vis-à-vis the Weimar Republic were severely restricted and organs and officials of the NSDAP were able to exert massive influence on the exercise of office. But it is also a fact that he was only able to maintain himself as Lord Mayor of Aachen for the entire duration of the “Third Reich” because he basically exercised his office in accordance with the National Socialist ideology.

post war period

Quirin Jansen burial site

In 1947, Jansen was a co-defendant in the process before a British military court that dealt with the deliberately set fire of the Aachen synagogue on the night of November 9-10, 1938, the so-called Reichskristallnacht . However, the exact course of events and the history could no longer be precisely determined.
Jansen remained interned until 1948. In the denazification process , he was judged favorably, but was no longer allowed to hold public offices and the city of Aachen suspended his pension. Jansen continued to live in Aachen. Together with his wife Sofie, geb. Penke, his final resting place in the Aachen Ostfriedhof .

literature

• Elmar Gasten: Aachen in the time of the National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (also dissertation Cologne 1990, European university publications series 3, vol. 541).
• Leo Haupts: National Socialism in Aachen , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 98/99, 1992/93, pp. 609–634.
• Klaus Schwabe : Aachen at the end of the Second World War: From Nazi rule to the beginnings of the Allied occupation , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 101, 1997/98, pp. 321–392.
• Hans Siemons: Everyday War in Aachen. Distress, death and survival in the old imperial city between 1939 and 1944 , Aachen 1998, p. 154.

References and comments

1. ↑ See E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, Europäische Hochschulschriften, series 3, vol. 541), p. 66.
2. ↑ Cf. E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 31.
3. ↑ See L. Haupts: National Socialism in Aachen , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 98/99, 1992/93, p. 614.
4. ↑ http://www.aachener-geschichtsverein.de/Online-Beitraege/vor-75-jahren-das-jahr-der-macheregoung-in-aachen/
5. ↑ Cf. E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 68
6. ↑ E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of the National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European university publications series 3, vol. 541), z. BS 69ff.
7. ↑ "It can be stated that today's councilors have nothing in common with the former city councilors ... there are no majority decisions," said Jansen in 1935 in a city council meeting, quoted in in E. Gasten: Aachen during the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 81.
8. ↑ See Haupts: National Socialism in Aachen , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 98/99, 1992/93, p. 630.
9. ↑ E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of the National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 245.
10. ↑ See K. Schwabe: Aachen at the end of the Second World War: From Nazi rule to the beginnings of the Allied occupation , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 101, 1997/98, p. 326, note 12. The transitional administration was deposed again in the same month by the Gauleiter of Cologne-Aachen, Josef Grohé . Grohé also ordered that the officials - including Jansen -, the Nazi authorities, city administration, etc., who had already fled from Aachen, return. See K. Schwabe: Aachen at the end of the Second World War: From Nazi rule to the beginnings of the Allied occupation , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein Vol. 101, 1997/98, p. 325.
11. ↑ See H. Siemons: Everyday War in Aachen. Distress, death and survival in the old imperial city between 1939 and 1944 , Aachen 1998, p. 154.
12. ↑ A few cases are known in which Jansen apparently did not implement possible measures to discriminate against the Jewish population as quickly or as intensively as would have been possible in each case. According to the personal memories of the Aachen historians and chairmen of the Aachen History Association , Bernhard Poll (1965) and Herbert Lepper (1986), Schild / Janssen point out that Jansen did not prevent Jewish associations from entering Aachen public buildings until 1937 was very unusual in large cities at that time (cf. Ingeborg Schild / Elisabeth Janssen: Der Aachener Ostfriedhof , Aachen 1991, pp. 468–469). With regard to the winter relief organization of the National Socialist People's Welfare , Jansen declared in 1933 that it was also responsible for caring for needy Jewish citizens (E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 105).
13. ↑ E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of the National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (see dissertation Cologne 1990, European university publications series 3, vol. 541), p. 66ff.
14. ↑ Cf. E. Gasten: Aachen in the time of National Socialist rule: 1933–1944 , Frankfurt am Main 1993 (cf. Diss. Cologne 1990, European University Writings Series 3, Vol. 541), p. 148f.
15. ↑ Lt. H. Siemons: Everyday life in the war in Aachen. Distress, death and survival in the old imperial city between 1939 and 1944 , Aachen 1998, p. 154, it was classified as "unencumbered", but this category did not exist. Possibly. he means "relieved"; see. the article denazification