Rudolf Benario

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Rudolf Benario (born September 20, 1908 in Frankfurt am Main ; † April 12, 1933 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German economist. Together with Ernst Goldmann and Arthur Kahn, he is considered to be the first Jew to be murdered in a National Socialist concentration camp .

Memorial plaque for Rudolf Benario in Fürth. The birch standing next to the blackboard was planted by Benario, after several attacks it had to be felled in July 2019

Live and act

Benario was born as the son of the then editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung and later head of the Institute for Newspaper Studies at the University of Economics and Social Sciences in Nuremberg , Leo Benario, and his wife Marie, née Bing. His maternal grandfather was the Secret Commerce Councilor Ignaz Bing .

In his youth he attended the old grammar school in Nuremberg from 1918 to 1922 and then the grammar school Carolinum , a humanistic grammar school in Ansbach , where he obtained the school leaving certificate at Easter 1927 . He then studied social sciences and law in Erlangen , Würzburg , Berlin and most recently again in Erlangen. In the winter semester of 1929/1930 he passed the examination to become a qualified economist at the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen . In 1932 Benario received his doctorate in Erlangen with a thesis on economic councils in German literature and legislation from 1840 to 1849 as a doctor of political science (oral examination on November 11, 1932). The work was published in 1933.

Benario, who last lived at Moststrasse 35 / II in Fürth , was politically active as the leader of the Young Socialists and, during his student days, as the head of a socialist student union called the "Republican Student Union, University Group Nuremberg-Erlangen". He was also a member of the KPD . As the head of the Jewish-Communist intellectual group in Nuremberg, he played an important role in the KPD district leadership in Northern Bavaria.

A few weeks after coming to power of the Nazis on 30 January 1933 Benario early March 1933 by the SA arrested. The National Socialist “Fürther Anzeiger” reported on the arrest of Benario in its edition of March 10, 1933: “… the well-known communist Winsler and Jew Benario [was] taken into protective custody” . One month later, on April 11, 1933, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp by the state police . On April 12, Benario, along with prisoners Ernst Goldmann, Arthur Kahn and Erwin Kahn, was called to empty a garbage can by the guard company leader, Hans Steinbrenner, and was beaten with an ox pizzle until they collapsed and bled from their mouth, nose and other parts of the body. In the evening Steinbrenner appeared after roll call in Barrack II, where the four men were staying, called them and asked them to follow him. He went with Benario, Goldmann and the Kahns to the firing range in the forest outside Dachau, where he handed them over to SS men Hans Brunner, Max Schmidt and SS Sturmführer Robert Erspenmüller , who led the men deeper into the forest and there shot down. Benario, Goldmann and Arthur Kahn died immediately, Erwin Kahn succumbed to his injuries a few days later. It was officially declared that the men were "shot while trying to escape".

The four men were the first Jews to be put to death in a National Socialist concentration camp. A few months later, Himmler successfully legalized the murder of prisoners within a concentration camp with the so-called post obligation .

Benario was buried in the New Jewish Cemetery in Nuremberg. His murder was announced abroad in the summer of 1933 in the communist brown book .

Since 2007, a plaque on the promenade in Fürth has been commemorating Benario ( ). This is where the boathouse of the Fürth Canoe Club founded by Benario, Ernst Goldmann and others stood. The plaque was stolen several times, including shortly before the event on the 80th anniversary of his death on April 12, 2013. At the same time, the name of the SS company commander was written on the floor in front of the plaque's location ("Hans Steinbrenner here"). The board could be replaced and the writing removed before the event. The birches in the immediate vicinity of the memorial plaque were planted by Benario and Goldmann, among others, to design the club's grounds and to reinforce the banks. In 2017, they were the target of several attacks that ultimately destroyed the trees. The birches had to be felled in July 2019. World icon

Proposals to name streets in Fürth after Benario were rejected by the city council's council of elders in 1988 and 2001, but the city council agreed in 2012.

Fonts

  • Economic councils in German literature and legislation from 1840 to 1849. Herzogenaurach 1933. (Dissertation)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 47 and p. 137; Hans-Günter Richardi: School of violence. The Dachau concentration camp 1933–1934. Munich 1983. p. 88 ff .; Udo Sponsel, Helmut Steiner: Memory of Rudolf Benario. One of the first victims of the National Socialist terror. In: Fürther Heimatblätter 1997, No. 2 .; Bernd Noack: Tormenting memories . Fürther Nachrichten of February 7, 2012, p. 3 (local section).
  2. Johannes Alles: Nazi Victims Mocked , Fürther Nachrichten v. April 12th, 2013.
  3. baumpflegeportal.de: The Birken des Benario , accessed on April 11, 2018
  4. Johannes Alles: Birches fall, Fürth remains steadfast . In: Fürther Nachrichten of July 3, 2019 (print edition) or After neo-Nazi attack: City of Fürth falls benario birches . In: nordbayern.de from July 1, 2019.
  5. Wolfgang Handel: Honor for the former mayor and two Nazi victims , Fürther Nachrichten v. March 28, 2012, p. 1 (local section)