SA deployment in Braunschweig

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Flag roll call of the SA on Franzschen Feld , Hitler in the middle.

The SA march in Braunschweig on October 17 and 18, 1931, in the presence of Adolf Hitler , was the largest paramilitary march during the Weimar Republic . Tens of thousands of SA and SS men from all over Germany took part in the National Socialist demonstration of force. In some contemporary reports, up to 104,000 participants are named. Street fights between SA people and communists that ran in parallel resulted in two deaths and 61 injuries.

prehistory

In September 1930, state elections were held in the Free State of Braunschweig , in which the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) received 22.2% of the vote. Since no party could set up a sole government, a coalition between the Bürgerlicher Einheitsliste (BEL) and the NSDAP came about , in which the latter received the Ministry of the Interior. Braunschweig became the second country after Thuringia with a National Socialist minister. With Minister Anton Franzen and, from September 15, 1931, with his successor Dietrich Klagges, the National Socialists had control of the police and the school system. After the Thuringian NSDAP State Minister for the Interior and National Education, Wilhelm Frick, was expelled from the local government on April 1, 1931, at that time in Germany only in the state of Braunschweig was it possible to authorize National Socialist marches and to use police force to counter possible disturbances by communists .

Harzburg Front

On October 11, 1931, the meeting of the Harzburg Front , the anti-democratic right-wing national alliance between the NSDAP and the German National People's Party (DNVP) and their associated fighting organizations SA and Stahlhelm , took place in Bad Harzburg . The National Socialists viewed this tense national opposition merely as a temporary alliance of convenience with the aim of smashing Weimar democracy. The contempt of the National Socialists towards the bourgeois parties, including the DNVP, becomes clear in an article in the NSDAP-Kampfblatt Braunschweiger daily newspaper of October 9, 1931:

“But we do not want to hide the fact that our sympathy is by no means staying in Harzburg, that we by no means like the parliamentary-tactical term of the“ national opposition ”. National opposition isn't much at all; Socialism is the goal. How did the reactionary Privy Councilor Hugenberg come to lead a conference in which the National Socialists are ten times more involved than all other participating associations? "

Hitler already arranged for the 17./18. October a deployment of 100,000 SA men in Braunschweig to demonstrate the strength of the National Socialist movement and the claim to take power. The difference to the German nationals should be made clear to the German people. The formal reason for the march was the consecration of 24 standards for newly established SA formations.

March in Braunschweig

National Socialist demonstration of power

The number 100,000 for the deployment of the SA men was not a coincidence, but a calculation : The victorious powers of the First World War had stipulated in the Versailles Treaty that the personnel strength of the new German armed forces should not exceed 100,000 professional soldiers (plus 15,000 men for the Navy) .

Just one week after the founding of the Harzburg Front, despised by Hitler, the Nazi leader wanted to prove on the one hand the NSDAP's claim to sole rule in Germany and on the other hand that his party - in his own person - was able to attract an equally large number of people of partisans to gather together - in a city that at that time had fewer than 150,000 inhabitants. The goal was consequently to politically push the bourgeois parties that had come together in the so-called National Opposition out of the field.

The SA meeting also served as a replacement event for the failed Nazi party rally . The Supreme SA leadership put the SA deployment in the tradition of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , which took place from October 16 to 19, 1813.

procedure

SA men were ordered to Braunschweig from all over Germany and arrived in the city with 38 special trains and 5,000 trucks. Despite the ban on uniforms that had existed since 1930 , all wore SA uniforms. They set up camp in the open field or with landowners in the surrounding villages. The march was organized by Supreme SA leader North Viktor Lutze .

Street battles

Hitler arrived in Braunschweig on the morning of October 17th. In the evening, the SA units held a torchlight procession through the streets of the city, which went without incident. Civil war-like riots did not occur until afterwards, when SA men were singing battle songs and rioting through working-class neighborhoods in which mainly the KPD was elected. The Braunschweig interior minister, Klagges, had previously distributed slips of paper listing the SPD and KPD strongholds, on the pretext of warning the SA of “dangerous” parts of the city . Smaller SA troops left the marching columns every now and then and went into the working-class quarters, where numerous fights ensued. In the course of these organized “ punitive expeditions ” , in particular around the Nickelnkulk , in the Langen Strasse or the Klint, window panes were thrown in, house doors were kicked in, shops were demolished, and street pavements were torn up. There were also shots. Bystanders and passers-by were provoked and beaten up. The two workers Engelke and Heinrich Fischer were murdered by the National Socialists. The SA later claimed to have been attacked by "communists" and therefore to have acted in self-defense .

The police officers of the Braunschweig Police Department were powerless to face the events. The police president even denied street fighting, while at the same time Otto Thielemann , the chairman of the Braunschweig SPD local association and eyewitness to the events, sent a telegram to Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Groener in which he wrote, among other things: “Street fights are raging in Braunschweig. Many injured people are in hospitals ” .

On the following Sunday, October 18th, the SA units marched to Franzschen Feld early in the morning . There Hitler “consecrated” the flags and standards of the new SA units by touching the “ blood flag ” of the failed coup of 1923 and gave a speech. During the march, aircraft with swastika wagons circled over the field. Hitler is said to have handed over the flags to the SA with the words "These are the last standards that I will hand over to you before taking power." At around 11 a.m., the SA marched off towards the city center, walking along Wilhelm-Bode-Strasse, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse (today: Jasperallee ), past the State Theater , down Steinweg , over the Ritterbrunnen to Schlossplatz, where Hitler from 11 : 45 picked up the march by. This march past the SA and SS units in front of the Brunswick Palace lasted about six hours. Local police stood along the route to secure the route. In the evening Hitler gave a speech in the town hall in which he made no mention of the National Front.

Double homicide

The murder of the two uninvolved workers Engelke and Fischer particularly heated the workforce in Braunschweig. Both were attacked in the open street by SA thugs and beaten or stabbed (Fischer). Fischer, who belonged to neither the SPD nor the KPD, was on his way home when he was attacked. The perpetrators could not be identified. The KPD called for a strike on the day of the funeral. On October 22nd, factories and factories were on strike. 25,000 people attended the funeral ceremonies in the cemetery.

On the return journey of the uniformed SA men, there were isolated arrests by the police outside the Free State of Braunschweig because of the violation of the uniform ban.

Prominent participants

Anton Franzen in party uniform next to Hitler in front of the palace on October 18.

Numerous members of the Nazi celebrities took part in the event, including:

Actual number of participants

In research it is disputed whether, as propagated by the National Socialists, 100,000 SA men in Braunschweig actually marched past Hitler or possibly considerably fewer. Numbers discussed today vary between a maximum of 104,000, 70,000, 60,000 or even just 50,000 participants. In any case, the staging did not fail to achieve its mass psychological effect : Communists , social democrats , members of the Reichsbanner etc. Some were intimidated with the use of force, while the national conservative bourgeoisie marveled at the strict order, organization and implementation of the event.

aftermath

Press reports and eyewitness reports

The parade found widespread reverberation in the regional, national and international press. The national socialist-influenced Braunschweigische Landeszeitung ran the headline in its Sunday edition of October 18, 1931: “The deployment of the Brown Battalions. Adolf Hitler in Braunschweig "

The social democratic friend of the people of Brunswick , whose editor Otto Thielemann had witnessed the riots, put street terror at the center of his reporting: "The fascists' rage went far beyond riot and breach of the peace, it was a dress rehearsal for the civil war!"

Vorwärts , the central organ of the SPD , which appeared nationwide , had the headline on October 20, 1931, "Civil War in Braunschweig" .

Just three days after the events in Braunschweig, Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels wrote in the NSDAP newspaper Der Attack on October 21 : “Harzburg was a partial tactical goal, Braunschweig the proclamation of the unchangeable ultimate goal. In the end there is Braunschweig, not Harzburg. "

Ban on the "friend of the people"

The publication of the SPD newspaper “Braunschweiger Volksfreund” was banned for eight weeks because of allegedly misleading and public safety and order endangering reports on the events of October 17 and 18 in the SPD newspaper “Braunschweiger Volksfreund” . The “Volksfreund” , however, lodged a complaint with Reich Interior Minister Groener, whereupon he shortened the period to 10 days. NSDAP Interior Minister Klagges ignored this decision and instead appealed to the Reichsgericht for a decision. Only after Groener intervened again did the Brunswick Prime Minister Werner Küchenthal - in the absence of Klagges - override the ban until a court decision was made. At the beginning of November 1931 the Reichsgericht finally decided in favor of Groener and at the same time criticized the Braunschweig state government for ignoring the ministerial decision. Klagges' reaction to this was that he again banned the "Volksfreund" for a week under a new pretext, whereupon the Reichsgericht again declared this ban to be unfounded.

Instrumentalization by Nazi propaganda

In memory of the events of 1931 took place on 19./20. October 1935 a roll call of the SA group Lower Saxony took place on Franzschen Feld. The parade area of ​​1931 was renamed "SA field" in 1935 and continued to be used for mass events. As part of a large-scale redesign, the construction of a 30-meter-wide street was planned that would lead over the SA field through the city park to the Braunschweig Cathedral . To commemorate the march, an 80 meter high " blood witness memorial " was to be erected on the Nussberg . Postcards with motifs from the event were still being printed in 1938.

Legal position

In Germany, the Nazi badge SA-Treffen Braunschweig 1931 is classified as anti-constitutional propaganda material . Its production, public wear or distribution is prohibited according to § 86a StGB .

literature

  • Reinhard Bein : Time signals. City and State of Braunschweig, 1930–1945. 2nd Edition. Döring, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-925268-21-9 .
  • Klaus Kaiser: Brunswick press and national socialism. The rise of the NSDAP in the state of Braunschweig as reflected in the Braunschweiger daily newspapers 1930 to 1933 (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke. Vol. 43 = Braunschweiger Werkstücke. Series A: Publications from the city archive. Vol. 6). Waisenhaus-Buchdruckerei und Verlag, Braunschweig 1970, pp. 86-88, (at the same time: Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, dissertation, 1969).
  • Hedda Kalshoven: I think about you so much . A German-Dutch correspondence 1920–1949. Luchterhand, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-630-86849-5 .
  • Ernst-August Roloff : Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich. Publishing house for literature and current affairs, Hanover 1961.
  • Bernd Rother : The social democracy in the state of Braunschweig. 1918 to 1933. Dietz, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-8012-4016-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hedda Kalshoven: I think so much about you. A German-Dutch correspondence 1920–1949 , Munich 1995, p. 123.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Bernd Rother: Die Sozialdemokratie im Land Braunschweig 1918 to 1933 , Bonn 1990, p. 244.
  3. ↑ Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Gerhard Schildt (Ed.): Braunschweigische Landesgeschichte. Millennial review of a region , Braunschweig 2000, p. 974.
  4. ↑ Klaus Kaiser: Braunschweiger Presse und Nationalozialismus , Braunschweig 1970, p. 82.
  5. ↑ Ernst-August Roloff: How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweiger Zeitung-Spezial, No. 3 (2003), Braunschweig 2003, 21.
  6. ^ Martin Schuster: The SA in the National Socialist "seizure of power" in Berlin and Brandenburg 1926–1934 , dissertation, Berlin 2005, D83, p. 123.
  7. ^ Alan Bullock : Hitler. A study on tyranny , Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1961, p. 185.
  8. ↑ Dirk Böttcher (Ed.): Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , Hannover 2002, p. 241.
  9. ↑ a b c Hedda Kalshoven: I think so much about you. A German-Dutch correspondence 1920–1949 , Munich 1995, p. 122.
  10. ↑ a b Hedda Kalshoven: I think so much about you. A German-Dutch correspondence 1920–1949 , Munich 1995, p. 121.
  11. ↑ a b Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930-1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 75.
  12. ↑ a b Joachim Fest : Hitler Eine Biographie , Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 425.
  13. ^ Kurt Schmalz : National Socialists wrestle for Braunschweig , Braunschweig 1934, p. 179.
  14. ↑ Kurt Schmalz: National Socialists Wrestle for Braunschweig , Braunschweig 1934, p. 178.
  15. ↑ Herbert Wagner: The Gestapo Wasn't Alone - Political Social Control and State Terror in the German-Dutch Border Region 1929–1945 , Lit-Verlag 2004, p. 171.
  16. ^ Stephan Malinowski: From the king to the leader , Akademie-Verlag 2003, p. 450.
  17. ↑ Richard Bein: In the German country we are marching. Free State of Braunschweig 1930–1945 , Braunschweig 1984, p. 24 (photo).
  18. ↑ a b Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How Hitler became German , Braunschweiger Zeitung-Spezial, No. 1 (2007), Braunschweig 2007, 31.
  19. ↑ Bernd Rother: Die Sozialdemokratie im Land Braunschweig 1918 to 1933 , Bonn 1990, p. 244, FN 108.
  20. ^ Britta Berg: Newspapers and magazines from Braunschweig including Helmstedt (until 1810) and Wolfenbüttel (until 1918) , Braunschweiger Werkstück, Volume 93, Braunschweig 1995, p. 50.
  21. ↑ Richard Bein: In the German country we are marching. Free State of Braunschweig 1930–1945 , Braunschweig 1984, p. 23.
  22. ↑ Networked memory
  23. ↑ Verfassungsschutz.de: Right-wing extremism: Symbols, signs and forbidden organizations (PDF) ( Memento from January 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ): Image of the SA-Meeting Braunschweig 1931 badge on p. 55.