Schorfheide assassination attempt
The Schorfheide assassination attempt was an alleged assassination attempt that was carried out on June 19, 1934, on the National Socialist politician and Reichsführer of the SS Heinrich Himmler in Schorfheide near Berlin .
The incident of June 19, 1934 and its consequences
Heinrich Himmler, who had served as Reichsführer SS since 1929 and had held the position of Inspector of the Secret State Police (de facto Chief of the Secret State Police Office in Berlin) from April 1934, lived on June 19, 1934 at the transfer of Carin Göring's coffin , the The first wife of Hermann Göring, who had been Prime Minister of Prussia since 1933, died in 1931 at his country home in Carinhall in Schorfheide. For this purpose, the body of Göring's wife, a native of Sweden, had been transferred from Sweden, where they were originally buried, to Germany in June 1934 and were now, on June 19, 1934, as part of a state ceremony in the presence of numerous dignitaries , among them Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, are buried in the crypt of a representative mausoleum built especially to accommodate their coffin on Göring's country estate.
On the way back to Berlin from this state act, an object broke through the windshield of Himmler's Maybach limousine and injured his arm. Himmler himself was convinced that this object was a projectile that an assassin had fired at him to kill him. Other people close to the events later stated that it was probably not a projectile, but a rock or something similar blown up by Himmler's car driving at high speed - or by another car overtaking Himmler's car - and that it was The episode was therefore probably not an attack on Himmler's life, but an accident. Hans Bernd Gisevius , then active in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, claimed in his memoirs after the Second World War that Police General Kurt Daluege led the official investigation into the incident, which in its final report came to the conclusion that the episode was not an assassination attempt, but that The object that broke through the window of Himmler's car was merely a rockfall that drove through the condition of the road on which Himmler's car was driven and caused the driving behavior of Himmler's car or another car.
According to Gisevius, Himmler did not accept the results of the police investigation, but instead made sure that the Sturmabteilung (SA), which at the time was in a permanent conflict with his SS, was responsible for the incident he continued to see an assassination attempt - was responsible. In the course of the political "wave of purges" carried out a few days later on June 30, 1934 , Himmler left the SA standard leaders and detectives in the Gestapo service, Karl Belding and Bernhard Fischer-Schweder , who he identified as assassins, who had been transferred from Berlin to Breslau in spring 1934 believed to have been arrested by the SS in Breslau. On that day, when they came to work at their place of work in the Wroclaw Police Headquarters, both were arrested and arrested by the SS, who had been given executive authority in Silesia in the morning hours of that day and who thereupon took control of the Wroclaw police locked in the house prison of the police headquarters. They were held there along with numerous other arrested members of the SA. In the early morning hours of July 1, 1934, Belding was fetched from the house prison on orders from Berlin and shot together with six other SA members in a wooded area outside of Breslau by an SS commando led by SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Schlumps. Fischer-Schweder, who was also to be shot, escaped this fate due to the intercession of a high-ranking Silesian SS leader. He was later released and taken over into the SS service.
Hitler, who drove behind Himmler, suspected, according to his personal servant Heinz Linge, immediately after the incident that the actual or alleged attack was not directed at Himmler, but against him. Linge also stated in his memoir that the incident resulted in Hitler's automobiles being fitted with bulletproof armor soon after the event.
Reception in the foreign press
The German press was not allowed to report on the "attack", which was kept strictly secret from the public on the instructions of the secret police. Since foreign press representatives in Berlin found out about him anyway, foreign press reports about the process appeared after a few days. The emigrant newspaper Pariser Tageblatt published a short article on June 25, 1934, “Assassination attempt on Himmler”, which informed readers of the incident, although the authors of the article naturally assumed that it was an authentic assassination attempt and not one another option was considered.
The SPD in exile (Sopade), based in Prague, also assumed in its reports on Germany - these were reports on the overall domestic political development and on particular individual events compiled at the headquarters of SOPADE on the basis of messages from informants in Germany - that it The incident in the Schorfheide had been an assassination attempt, whereby she suspected the perpetrators to be in the ranks of the SA. However, she identified Hitler as the target of the attack - it was only by chance that Himmler was the one whose car was targeted by the assassin: the assassin would have suspected Hitler in this car. So it said in the report:
“There was a report from SS circles that an attempt was actually made to assassinate Hitler at the burial of Goering's wife in Karinhall (Schorfheide). As always, Hitler drove into four cars with a large group of guardians. He always takes a seat in a different car, so you never know exactly which one he will use on the respective journey. On the trip to the Schorfheide, however, you thought you knew that he was driving in the first car. This car was then shot at by SA men. In this car sat Himmler, among others, who was seriously wounded by a shot in the arm. For this reason, Himmler has not been seen in public since then and has not taken action even in the bloody action against the rebels [action of June 30, 1934]. But Hitler was in the third car. "
In the domestic German press - which was controlled by the regime - the alleged assassination attempt was not announced until July 1934. The newspaper Der Deutsche said on July 19:
"Now the shot becomes clear which, shortly before the revolution, got you right through the windshield of your car, which is very important in these days of saving the Reich."
In the article in question, SA Standartenführer Julius Uhl , the leader of the bodyguard of SA chief Ernst Röhm, who was executed on July 2, 1934, was linked to the assassination attempt, Uhl as “an individual who did not commit the first murder. .. “is characterized.
Witness report on the incident at a glance
Hitler's press chief Otto Dietrich , who witnessed the incident, gave the following account of the incident in his memoirs:
“On the drive through the forest from Berlin to Schorfheide, where Göring lived, an object the size of a sphere broke through his [Himmler's] windshield, which was then unsecured; Whether it was a projectile or a chipped stone - as I assumed, since no firing bang was heard - could not be determined. "
Hitler's personal servant Heinz Linge , who also witnessed the event personally, wrote in his memoir:
“Heinrich Himmler drove in front of us. Suddenly shots rang out from the thicket of the forest. Himmler's car stopped. He had been hit. Himmler, terrified and pale, hastily explained to Hitler that he had been shot at. After the incident we continued our journey, and Hitler said: "That should have hit me, because Himmler usually doesn't drive before me. It is also known that I always sit next to the driver. The bullet holes in Himmler's car are in that direction. ""
Himmler's predecessor as head of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels , noted in his book Lucifer ante Portas about the incident in the Schorfheide:
“On the way to the Schorfheide, Himmler's car had been" shot "from behind. The perpetrator had "without a doubt" wanted to meet Hitler. There were raids and arrests and long-lasting excitement - whether a harmless stone chip hit the rear window of the car. But it was one of the practices to put Hitler in the right mood for the violence of June 30th. The clique gave birth to mistrust, madness and arbitrariness. "
Hans Bernd Gisevius, who, as an employee of the Interior Ministry, was given second-hand information about the "assassination attempt", wrote about this in his book Until the bitter end , which was first published in 1946:
“Everything is on its way, Reich ministers, diplomats, the party's leadership corps, the generals. Hitler is also present. The ceremony is about to begin, the Gauleiter Kube memorizes one last time his greeting to the 'noblest woman in Germany' who passed away two years ago - she comes from Sweden - because he seems as white as a sheet, excited, Himmler. He hastily pulls Göring aside, Hitler tries hard, and a council of war takes place in front of the astonished guests. Himmler demands the immediate shooting of forty communists: they were shot at on the way to Schorfheide; the bullet went straight through the automobile's protective glass. He owes his life only to "Providence." A few hours later, Daluege laughingly tells me about this incident. [...] With the expression of a perfectly honest man, he [Daluege] offers to investigate this attack. At that time I took the original report of this test result with me. It is a valuable appendix to the June 30th. Because on that day two SA Standartenführer had to bite the grass as the alleged assassins. Himmler had her shot, although the report submitted to him showed unequivocally that the hole in the protective window did not come from a shot at all, but from a rockfall from another car overtaking his car at more than a hundred kilometers. The same Himmler, who initially wanted to massacre forty communists at random, later also arbitrarily picks out two SA leaders who may have committed all sorts of other things, but certainly did not shoot him. Is that a contradiction? No. First of all, Himmler wants quick revenge for the shock in his limbs. Everyone should know how expensive an attack on him will be. But at the same time, this creepy story fits him as if called to his preparations for June 30th. Calculating coldly, he therefore blames the attack on the SA. The devil knows, now Hitler and Göring have to understand how far Karl Ernst, Heines and Röhm have already ventured out! Where something like that is concocted, the tension must be unbearable. And so from mid-June there will actually be no more compromises. It is no longer possible to bend, but only to break. The second wave is rolling in powerfully. Everyone senses that this time it will grasp the revolutionaries themselves. Who will swallow whom? That is the general question. "
And at another point he adds: “Belding is one of the two SA standard leaders who carried out the alleged assassination attempt on Himmler in the Schorfheide. Since 'you' 'know' that, it is better not to ask at all. Lichterfelde [ie shooting]. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Martin Graß : Edgar Jung, Papenkreis and Röhmkrise 1933-34. Heidelberg 1966, p. 282 and Part II (Notes and Literature), p. 83 f. (footnote 793). Graß mentions Belding and Nixdorf here, citing Diels, Gisevius and the judgment in the trial against Udo von Woyrsch in Osnabrück in 1957.
- ↑ Heinz Linge: Until the downfall: As head of personal service with Hitler , 1980, p. 29.
- ^ Assassination attempt on Himmler in: Pariser Tageblatt of June 25, 1934.
- ↑ Germany reports by SOPADE. 1st year 1934, 1980, p. 189.
- ↑ Assassination attempt on Himmler is admitted. In: Pariser Tageblatt. July 19, 1934 ( portal.dnb.de reproduction of the report in German in the exile press).
- ↑ Otto Dietrich: 12 years with Hitler. 1955, p. 183.
- ↑ Heinz Linge: Until the downfall: As head of personal service with Hitler. 1980, p. 29.
- ↑ Rudolf Diels: Lucifer ante portas: ... the first chief of the Gestapo speaks. 1950, p. 73.
- ↑ Hans Bernd Gisevius: Until the bitter end. From the Reichstag fire to July 20, 1944. Special edition brought up to date by the author. 1960, p. 143.
- ^ Gisevius: Until the bitter end, p. 176.