Synagogue (Bad Brückenau)

Bad Brückenau synagogue

The synagogue in Bad Brückenau , a spa town in the Lower Franconian district of Bad Kissingen ( Bavaria ), was built between 1911 and 1913. The synagogue , which was destroyed in the November pogrom in 1938 , stood in the Alter Schlachthofweg.

history

The house with the previous prayer room was destroyed in the town fire in 1876. Donations were used to buy the building at Unterhainstrasse 24, in which the Jewish school and a prayer room were set up. In the prayer room there were 16 places for men and 19 for women. Around 1900 there were calls for a representative new synagogue, which, after lengthy planning, was inaugurated on August 28, 1913.

destruction

In the course of the November pogrom of 1938, the synagogue was set on fire on November 10, 1938 between midnight and 1 a.m. by men from the SA storm in Brückenau. The NSDAP district leader of Brückenau / Hammelburg, Hermann Heinritz, who had his residence and official seat in Brückenau since 1935 and was also the SA storm leader, was the locally responsible leader of the pogroms in the Brückenau district.

After midnight on the night of the pogrom (November 9/10, 1938), after receiving Goebbels' pogrom order from Munich via the Würzburg district administration by telephone, the district leader and SA leader lit the fire in the interior of the synagogue with a bundle of hay soaked in petroleum. The synagogue burned for hours through the night until the morning of November 10th. The entire inventory of the synagogue and all cult objects were destroyed. The windows burst and during the pogrom day the roof also collapsed. While the synagogue was in flames, men of the SA storm Brückenau barbarically demolished Jewish shops, hotels, houses and apartments from around 1 a.m. on the night of November 10th.

The interior of the Jewish school was also set on fire and brutally demolished after the "burnout". Foreign thugs, who hit by motorcycle, took part in the serious violent riots during the pogrom day, so that the Jewish families in Brückenau were hit several times by thugs on November 10, 1938, first by local SA men and later again by foreign pogrom perpetrators. The SA storm leaders von Brückenau (Hermann Heinritz), Hammelburg (Karl Hartmann) and Bad Kissingen (Emil Otto Walter) had agreed by telephone that they would also use their storm formations "swapped".

The "pogrom order" Goebbels was in the region at midnight on the night of 9/10. November 1938 received by telephone from the Würzburg Gauleitung by the district leaders Hermann Heinritz (Brückenau / Hammelburg, 1935–1945) and Willy Heimbach (Bad Kissingen, 1938–1944). The district leaders then notified the SA storm leaders of their party group as well as the local propaganda leaders and leaders of the NSKK ("Motorcycle SA"). The pogroms in the Jewish communities of today's Bad Kissingen district all took place on November 10, 1938 or the following day, and not on November 9, 1938, the 15th anniversary of the Hitler coup of 1923, as later - after 1945 - by SA -Sturmführer was wrongly alleged before criminal courts and jury chambers.

The trigger for the pogroms was "the Goebbels order", which did not arrive by telephone in the region until midnight on the night of the pogrom (November 9/10, 1938). The district leaders and SA storm leaders then took action immediately. The largest synagogues in the district, the Brückenauer and Bad Kissingen synagogues, were the first to be set on fire. Then it was the turn of the smaller synagogues of the Jewish rural communities. These were also set on fire inside, "fumigated" and desecrated. Not a single synagogue in today's Bad Kissingen district was spared the pogroms on November 10, 1938. The NSDAP district leaders, Hermann Heinritz and Willy Heimbach, together with the SA storm leaders, proceeded with "German thoroughness" against every synagogue in their party district, even if it was so small or was no longer used.

After 1945 the Brückenau synagogue was converted into a residential and commercial building with the preserved masonry. Only the round tower, in which the stairs to the women's gallery was located, is reminiscent of the former synagogue.

Plans for the construction of the synagogue

East Side
West side
North side
Longitudinal section

swell

State Archives Würzburg: Judgment chamber files of the Hammelburg judging chamber of men of the SA storm and the NSKK Hammelburg.

literature

Klaus-Dieter Alicke: Lexicon of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area. 3 volumes. Gütersloher Verlagshaus , Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-579-08035-2 . ( Online edition )