Svend Johannsen

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Svend Johannsen (born October 15, 1903 in Flensburg ; † February 16, 1978 ) was a Danish minority politician in Schleswig-Holstein .

Life and work

Johannsen attended the German Oberrealgymnasium in Flensburg and then studied theology in Fredericia , where he passed the theological exam in 1930. In 1932 the teacher examination followed. On August 1, 1933, Johannsen took over the management of the Danish "Ansgar-Skolen" in Schleswig . After the war he became editor-in-chief of the Südschleswigschen Heimat-Zeitung . In 1974 he was awarded the Guldnål (gold needle) of the Sydslesvigsk Forening for his services to the Danish minority .

Minority policy

Even in his youth, Johannsen was involved in the Danish minority in southern Schleswig . Because of critical statements in a letter to his wife about the Nazi rule in Denmark , he was arrested by the Gestapo on May 29, 1940 and was in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until September 1941 .

When the SSW was founded out of the cultural association of the Danish Südschleswigs, the Südschleswigschen Verein / Sydslesvigsk Forening (SSF), under pressure from the British occupying power, which wanted the cultural and political activities of the minority to be separated , Johannsen became its first in 1948/49 Chairman. It was his merit to create workable structures for the new party and thus the basis for political work.

Later Johannsen got involved at the European level in order to be able to pass on his organizational experience in minority work to other groups. For this reason, Johannsen was President of the Federal Union of European Ethnic Groups from 1963 to 1967 .

Detention

In a letter to his wife dated April 8, 1940, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the threatened German occupation of Denmark. This was intercepted by the Gestapo on April 9th.

He was then arrested in Flensburg on May 29, 1940, taken to several interim camps and finally interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the concentration camp, Johannsen was given prisoner number 33032 and was imprisoned in barrack 48. In the concentration camp, he experienced the prisoners' everyday life, the torture, inadequate food and general bad treatment of the inmates and recorded this in his prisoner's diary.

On September 16, 1941, after persistent diplomatic efforts by the Danish government, he was released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and placed under house arrest in Schleswig until the end of the war in 1945 .

Experiences in the concentration camp

In his prisoner's diary, Johannsen described, among other things, the division of the inmates using sewn symbols (so-called angles) . As a political prisoner, a red triangle was sewn onto him.

In the "Block 48" assigned to him, he described, the toilet was almost always clogged and the inmates had to sleep in pairs on a carpet.

The food, which he described as "eating", consisted of "a drink called coffee in the morning, mostly vegetable soup at lunchtime and some tea and bread in the evening".

The SS guards did not shrink from torture. Johannsen described two instruments of torture (the bunker and the stake), in which prisoners were tortured to the point of total exhaustion or death, which Johannsen was able to escape.

“Outside the outer wall were SS barracks and villa quarters for the married block leaders . We often passed by on the way to work and then we could often see the brutal tormentors in all the glory of their uniforms, as they stood and played with their wives and children in the front yard. You couldn't believe your eyes. "

Heinkel Kommando and labor camp

In the Heinkel Kommando, a work unit for the construction of an airfield for the Heinkel aircraft works , near Berlin, the prisoners received somewhat better food than in the camp, but this also involved harder work. Johannsen experienced the arbitrariness of the guarding SS officers and wrote: “At least one SS sergeant turned out to be less malicious than the others (...). He watched me work for a moment and then moved on. A little later I heard him berating a fellow inmate and summoning a prisoner functionary (kapo) . Then I heard him command: finish him off! I watched the Kapo hit his fellow inmate. "

Discharge

Svend Johannsen was released from Sachsenhausen concentration camp on September 16, 1941. The discharge process stretched for several hours, during which he was given the privilege of using a proper toilet, among other things. He then received some information about the release and was taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Kiel. From there he was finally brought back to Schleswig. He had to report to the police headquarters once a day. In addition, he was forced to sign everything that the Gestapo presented to him.

After the Second World War he received compensation of 5 marks per prisoner's day.

Public offices

1945 to 1948 Johannsen was the second mayor of Schleswig and also the city's school clerk.

literature

  • Svend Johannsen: For old hvad du har kært . Forlaget Skandia, Herning 1978, ISBN 3-88060-013-9 , pp. 261 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Svend Johannsen: For old hvad du har kært . Forlaget Skandia, Herning 1978, p. 224 .
  2. ^ Svend Johannsen: For old hvad du har kært . Forlag Skandia, Herning 1978, p. 224-225 .
personal data
SURNAME Johannsen, Svend
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish minority politician in Schleswig-Holstein
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Flensburg
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1978