Rieseberg murders
The Rieseberg murders were a crime committed by the National Socialists shortly after they "seized power " in 1933, when members of the SS murdered eleven men on July 4, 1933 near the small town of Rieseberg near Königslutter am Elm , about 30 km east of Braunschweig .
The crime became known internationally in the same year through the publication Terror in Braunschweig by Hans Reinowski , which was published in German, English and French .
prehistory
After the seizure of the Nazi regime on 30 January 1933, took place in the city and the Free State of Brunswick as well as in large parts of the territory of the Reich soon to brutal attacks against political dissidents ( trade unionists , Catholic youth organizations, KPD , SPD through etc.) Supporters of the NSDAP and affiliated or closely related organizations (e.g. SA , SS , Stahlhelm ).
On June 29, 1933, SA and SS men dressed in civilian clothes took action against political opponents among the local workers in Braunschweig. They looked for people who had recently distributed illegal leaflets . During this action in the Eichtal working-class district of Braunschweig , two SS troops met at the intersection of Eichtalstraße, Gartenkamp, Spinnerstraße, who took each other for the wanted and shot each other. The SS member Gerhard Landmann was fatally wounded. This was also confirmed in 1950 by SA member Gattermann in the corresponding process (see below). Gattermann arrived at the scene shortly after Landmann's death and, after checking the location and the circumstances of the crime himself, assumed that friend fire had been the cause of Landmann's death. After he had said this, however, he was reprimanded by the Braunschweig police chief and SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln , who had also arrived at the scene shortly after the incident.
The guilty"
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Nevertheless, shortly after the crime, several people or groups of people tried to reconstruct the actual course of the crime in a realistic manner. B. a main sergeant of the called Braunschweig police, furthermore Gattermann, who had been commissioned by Jeckeln with the investigation. After questioning several SS men, Gattermann came to the conclusion that the shooter could only have come from the ranks of the SS. An SS leader, who was also the private secretary of the Brunswick Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Dietrich Klagges and carried out his own investigations, came to the same conclusion, as did another SS man who passed his report on to Jeckeln, who in turn passed it on to Klagges.
Despite this clear state of affairs, Jeckeln and Klagges decided against their better judgment to blame communists for the act, to cannibalize the act for the goals of the National Socialists and to cover up the actual circumstances of death. An official investigation was not initiated; all efforts to do so have been actively suppressed. The local press and word of mouth immediately began to blame the communists for the crime.
The farmer wave
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The then Potsdam Police President, Count Helldorff , had issued the slogan that ten Marxists should die for every National Socialist killed. Braunschweig seemed to want to proceed according to this maxim: Immediately after the death of Landmann, Jeckeln initiated a large-scale campaign to persecute political opponents under the pretext of searching for the fugitive murderers of the SS man. This action, called "Landmann-Welle" based on the name of the victim, encompassed the entire Free State.
Several hundred people, the "usual suspects" of the National Socialists, were arrested and taken to the AOK building on Fallersleber Strasse, which had previously been occupied by the SA and had been used as a " protective custody " prison . Some were tortured for days in order to extort information and confessions, including the 20-year-old Alfred Staats, who was a member of the KPD. He was tortured in the AOK building until he finally confessed to Landmann's murder . After the extorted "confession", Jeckeln planned to let Staats hang publicly on the Nussberg on the day of Landmann's funeral, which the NSDAP staged with a lot of pathos as a major political event . However, Klagges refused. Thereupon Jeckeln had other prisoners selected in the AOK building on his own initiative, on whom an example should be made together with Staats.
The murders
The crime scene
Jeckeln chose the Pappelhof near Rieseberg , about 30 km east of Braunschweig, as the location for the example . The farm is remote from the village in the direction of the Rieseberger Moor . Until May 2, 1933, the day on which the National Socialists confiscated all the property of the trade unions and confiscated them for their purposes, the Pappelhof had been union property and a. Served as a vacation home for working class children.
The prisoners were transported to the Pappelhof by truck on July 4th. According to a testimony from 1950 that afternoon, apart from the prisoners, only the two SS men Meyer and Adler and the caretaker couple with their daughter were in the yard.
According to the couple, the prisoners were severely mistreated for several hours by the two SS men. Finally, around 11 p.m., a car drove into the yard, from which four to five people got out and shot the prisoners. A few days later the bodies were buried in unmarked graves in the Rieseberg cemetery.
The victims
- Hermann Behme (born November 11, 1884 near Klein Mahner ), lathe operator, member of the Spartakusbund and the KPD. Employed at the Braunschweig company MIAG , chairman of the works council
- Julius Bley (born January 11, 1890, Cologne ), chemigrapher and KPD member
- Hans Grimminger (born July 26, 1899 in Braunschweig), locksmith at MIAG, KPD member
- Kurt Heinemann (born December 16, 1906 in Echternach ), tailor in Schöningen , KPD member and Jew
- Reinhold Liesegang (born June 6, 1900 in Güsten ), welder at Voigtländer , union and KPD member
- Wilhelm Ludwig (born August 28, 1888 in Braunschweig), worker at the Reichsbahn and a member of the KPD
- Walter Römling (born October 12, 1890 in Braunschweig), unskilled worker at MIAG (there on the works council), successively member of the SPD, the Spartakusbund and the KPD
- Gustav Schmidt (born October 9, 1908 in Holzwickede ), student teacher at the Technical University of Braunschweig and co-founder of the socialist student group there .
- Alfred Staats (born November 20, 1912 in Braunschweig), employee and KPD member
- Willi Steinfass (born May 13, 1892 in Braunschweig), unskilled worker at MIAG, KPD member
When the bodies of the murdered were exhumed in 1953 , an eleventh dead person was found who was not known up to this point in time and whose identity has not yet been clarified beyond any doubt. It is believed to be
- Kurt Hirsch (*?), Student.
Unsuccessful cover-up attempts
The public, which had already been ideologically influenced by Nazi propaganda and accordingly launched newspaper articles in the press controlled by the National Socialists in the days after Landmann's death, was suggested that the death of the “prisoners” was the work “Unknown “ Who wanted to avenge the death of the SS man . Nevertheless, very soon after July 4, 1933, rumors about the actual circumstances of death were making the rounds, because due to the large number of participants or witnesses in Rieseberg itself, but also in Braunschweig and elsewhere, it was impossible to conceal the actual course of the events or to falsify.
Gattermann stated in 1950 that Jeckeln had arrived at the Pappelhof shortly after midnight, on July 5th, followed a little later by the Braunschweig Murder Commission , which wanted to investigate the "attack" and multiple murders reported by the SS. Finally, Chief Public Prosecutor Rasche from Braunschweig also appeared. Although a district judge of the District Court Königslutter and a judicial inspector an official protocol recordings and homicide on the scene started its work, ensured Attorney Rasche that the prosecutor Braunschweig received no official letter and therefore not working was. The trial of ex-Prime Minister Dietrich Klagges , which also took place in Braunschweig in 1950, showed that he too had helped to thwart the persecution of the perpetrators .
Reprisals against family members
On July 24th, the KPD distributed a leaflet in Braunschweig denouncing the Rieseberg murders. At that time, the communists did not yet know who were among the victims. Initially, the former Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig , Heinrich Jasper , who had also been subjected to massive reprisals since the "seizure of power" (he was murdered on February 19, 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp ) , was suspected to be among them . On August 4, another KPD leaflet appeared with the names of four victims.
A few weeks after the crime, at the beginning of August, the relatives of the victims were informed of the whereabouts and fate of the men in a brief official text message. The identical text was:
“You are told that your husband died in a robbery on the Pappelhof. In order to avoid further developments, the burial took place in Rieseberg. "
The crime could not be covered up, let alone concealed - on the contrary: From the report of the "Commission for the Investigation of the Situation of Political Prisoners" published at the end of 1933 (see below under literature ), which is not only in German, but also in English and French appeared clearly shows that much of the facts became known to the public quite soon. Even then it was assumed that Landmann had been shot either deliberately or accidentally by his own SS comrades and that the National Socialists wanted to use the opportunity to settle and discredit political opponents - in this case the KPD and SPD. It was also known that the bodies had been buried in the Rieseberg cemetery.
In the period that followed, the families of the victims faced severe reprisals. Access to the cemetery was initially blocked for the relatives of the murdered. The State Ministry later issued permits to visit the graves. The cemetery was guarded by the SS for some time and the relatives were only allowed to enter after reporting to the guard on the Pappelhof.
The wives of the murdered Römling and Liesegang could not withstand the pressure for long and fled with them to the Soviet Union , from which they moved to East Berlin after the end of the Second World War, for fear that their children could be taken away .
Mrs. Heinemann suffered far more. The murdered Kurt Heinemann was half-Jewish according to the National Socialist definition . His wife Helene Heinemann was a Christian; the four children - including two sons - were Protestants, but were considered "quarter Jews" . In 1941 the youth authorities transferred the brothers Günther and Wolfgang Heinemann to the welfare education as unable to educate themselves and placed them in the Neuerkeroder institutions . On June 16, 1943, the Brunswick State Ministry ordered the brothers to be admitted to the Hadamar State Hospital . There they were murdered on July 6, 1943 and August 14, 1943, respectively. After the news of the death of the first son, the mother had tried in vain to get her second son to live. Helene Heinemann then refused to continue working in the armaments industry. Therefore, she was punished by the Braunschweig Special Court with three months in prison. Mrs. Heinemann and her two daughters survived the war.
The offender
Those involved in the crime and those behind them
It is not clear how many people ultimately committed the murders or were directly or indirectly involved in their planning and execution. So is z. For example, it is still not known who the four to five people were who got out of the car and carried out the murders. The indirect involvement of the NSDAP Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of the Free State of Braunschweig Dietrich Klagges as well as the Minister of Justice and Finance Friedrich Alpers has been proven.
It is also proven that the following SS members were directly involved (e.g. in the abuse in the AOK building):
- Albert Adler
- Peter Behrens (Klagges' secretary)
- Reinhard Krügel
- Karl-Hermann Meyer
- Paul Sstaak
Furthermore, at least the following people were indirectly involved in the crime:
- Friedrich Jeckeln , the instigator, was actively involved in mass murders (including in Babi Yar , Rowno , Dnepropetrovsk and in the Riga ghetto ) in the occupied " Eastern Territories " (most recently in the rank of General of the Waffen SS ) or for them Responsible for planning and execution. In 1946 he was sentenced to death by a Soviet court martial and hanged in Riga .
- Friedrich Alpers (from May 8, 1933 to 1934, Minister of Finance and Justice of the Braunschweig state government)
- Otto Gattermann, a former SA member, was sentenced to imprisonment after the end of the war.
- Kleist, a former SS member, probably responsible for Alfred Staats's “confession” extorted through torture, did not survive the war.
The post-war process
The suspects were searched for with an arrest warrant dated April 16, 1946, and in 1950 the Braunschweig jury court initiated proceedings against them. The convicted perpetrators were sentenced to imprisonment between four and 25 years, but mostly released on parole after a short imprisonment . Klagges was sentenced to imprisonment for "approving" the murders.
Meyer, one of the main participants, had evaded the access of the judicial authorities by hiding under a false name in southern Germany after the war, where he could only be tracked down in 1996. Before the trial against him could be initiated, he died.
Commemoration
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Commemorative card
Just a few weeks after the murder, commemorative cards made by the KPD appeared in the form of a photo of the graves with the handwritten names of the ten killed (nothing of an eleventh was known at the time), which were secretly sold. The proceeds were used to support the survivors of the victims.
Exhumation and burial
On July 22, 1953, at the request of the relatives, the bodies were exhumed and brought to Braunschweig for an autopsy . The investigation report provides information about the cause of death of the individual persons: Most of the victims were shot in the head , several had additional serious injuries such as (in some cases multiple) bone and skull fractures. In two of the dead, the cause of death could not (no longer) be determined.
After completing the investigations, the remains were cremated on August 21, and the urns were transferred to a memorial for the dead of Rieseberg in the Braunschweig city cemetery , where they were buried on November 14, 1953 with great sympathy among the population. Only Kurt Heinemann's urn was transferred to Schöningen at the request of his wife and buried there.
At the Pappelhof crime scene, which is now privately owned, there has been a memorial stone since 1959. It is set up at the entrance to the property. In 1983 another memorial was set up in Rieseberg.
Rieseberg Forum
The German Trade Union Federation in Braunschweig has been organizing memorial events for the murdered since the 1950s . In this context, the DGB founded the "Rieseberg Forum" in 1995. In the meantime, the forum is being organized and designed alternately by various Braunschweig schools. The forum results for each year are then published.
literature
Non-fiction
- Gundolf Algermissen (Ed.): The mass murder in Rieseberg 1933. In: Regional trade union sheets. Issue 39, 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition, Institute for Braunschweigische Regionalgeschichte at the TU Braunschweig, Academy Regional Trade Union History for Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, German Trade Union Federation, District Lower Saxony - Bremen - Saxony-Anhalt, Braunschweig 2010.
- Reinhard Bein : We are marching in Germany. Free State of Braunschweig 1930–1945. 7th ext. Edition. Doering, Braunschweig 1994, ISBN 3-925268-02-2 .
- Heinz Cordes: Murder in Braunschweig (facts; vol. 278). Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1985.
- Robert Gehrke : From Braunschweig's darkest days. The Rieseberg mass murder. About the resistance in the former Free State of Braunschweig 1933–1945. Self-published, Braunschweig 1962.
- Reinhard Jacobs: Terror under the swastika. Places of remembrance in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Verlag Steidl, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-88243-761-8 ( otto-brenner-shop.de PDF).
- Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Gerhard Schildt (Hrsg.): Braunschweigische Landesgeschichte. A region looking back over the millennia. Edition Appelhans, Braunschweig 2000, ISBN 3-930292-28-9 .
- Alfred Oehl: The mass murder in Rieseberg 1933. In: Regional trade union sheets. Issue 20, 2nd, supplemented edition, German Trade Union Confederation Region Southeast Lower Saxony, Braunschweig 2004.
- Hans Reinowski : Terror in Braunschweig. From the first quarter of Hitler's rule. Report issued by the Commission investigating the situation of political prisoners. Publishing House Socialist Workers International, Zurich 1933.
- Ernst-August Roloff : Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich. Magni-Buchhandlung, Braunschweig 1981, ISBN 3-922571-04-2 (reprint of the Hanover 1961 edition).
- Gerhard Wysocki: The Secret State Police in Braunschweig. Police law and police practice under National Socialism. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1997, ISBN 3-593-35835-2 .
Newspaper articles
- Braunschweiger Zeitung , various issues from June 1950.
Web links
- The Rieseberg murders at Networked Memory
- Friedenskapelle Memorial - Rieseberg Monument gedenkstaette-friedenskapelle.de
- Rieseberg monument volksbund.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Berger: Resistance against a brown Braunschweig. Hanover 1980, p. 79 f., Quoted from Alfred Oehl: The mass murder in Rieseberg 1933 . (Regional trade union papers; Vol. 20). 2nd supplemented edition. DGB, Braunschweig 2004, p. 19.
- ^ The Riesebergmorde on July 4, 1933 igmetall-wob.de.
- ↑ Keyword "Heinemann" in: Gedenkveranstaltungen ... 2008 - Writings of the Hessischer Landtag, issue 8 (accessed on November 12, 2011; PDF; 499 kB)
- ↑ Neuerkerode.de - keyword “Heinemann” ( memento from February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on November 11, 2011; PDF; 3.0 MB).
- ↑ Current history of justice. from November 2010 (accessed November 12, 2011)
