Thuringia under National Socialism

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Coat of arms of Thuringia 1933–1945
Coat of arms without a crown

The period of National Socialism in Thuringia lasted from the NSDAP's first participation in government in the state of Thuringia in 1930 until the collapse of the National Socialist German Reich with the occupation of Thuringia by US troops in April and May 1945. As everywhere in Germany, this period was marked by the gradual harmonization of the administrative system, imprisonment of the political opposition and dissidents , expropriation of the Jewish population and subsequent deportation and extermination as well as the conversion of daily life to the interests of the war economy. In building up the Nazi dictatorship, the later Gau Thuringia took on a pioneering role within the " Third Reich " in some areas due to the early participation of the National Socialists in government .

Participation in government and takeover by the NSDAP

Wilhelm Frick, here as a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946,
Interior Minister of the State of Thuringia 1930–1931

First government participation in the state parliament in 1930

With the formation of the "Baum-Frick government" in early 1930, the NSDAP provided two government posts in a state government for the first time in the Weimar Republic . Wilhelm Frick , who later became Minister of the Interior, was appointed Minister of the Interior and Education for the State of Thuringia. In addition, Willy Marschler came as a State Councilor without a department. This first participation in government was expressly praised by Adolf Hitler as a great success and described as a field of experimentation.

Already in the initial phase the conversion of the country in the National Socialist sense was pursued with reference to a constitutional emergency and the subsequent enactment of ordinances instead of laws. The administration was centralized and, as a result of the job cuts, mainly social democratic employees were removed. Another civil service decree led to the dismissal of communist teachers and mayors. In the creation of a central state police force, thanks to the influence of the interior minister, national socialist-minded police officers were given preference. Further steps led to the appointment of the "cultural racist " Paul Schultze-Naumburg as head of the Weimar Art Academy as a counterpoint to the Bauhaus and the racial scientist Hans FK Günther to the University of Jena.

A vote of no confidence against both ministers on April 1, 1931 was successful and led to the temporary exclusion of the NSDAP from the state government. Baum took over the economics ministry , while Wilhelm Kästner also received the ministries of the interior and public education. With the tolerance of the SPD, the Baum government was able to continue until 1932. The personnel changes in the administration under Frick remained, however, so that the following state government, led by the NSDAP, was able to dispose of a base of system-loyal police officers.

Fritz Sauckel, Gauleiter (1927–45), Chairman of the State Ministry and Interior Minister in Thuringia (1932–33) and Reich Governor for Thuringia (1933–45)

State election victory in 1932

In the elections for the VI. Thuringian state parliament on July 31, 1932, the NSDAP won with 42.5% of the vote. A new government was then formed with the Gauleiter in the NSDAP Gau Thuringia, Fritz Sauckel, as Minister of the Interior and Chairman of the State Minister. The NSDAP led the fourth state government with five ministers - after Anhalt , Oldenburg and Mecklenburg-Schwerin . Another ministerial post was occupied by the Thuringian Federation with Erich Mackeldey . Thus, the takeover of power by the National Socialists in Thuringia was anticipated. Sauckel used the parliamentary power he had gained to undermine the parliamentary system. Deliberate disruptions hindered sessions of the state parliament and the government and parliament were ruthlessly exploited to spread National Socialist propaganda. So Sauckel announced in the state parliament: We will of course use the power that the Thuringian people gave us in the last election in every respect!

On the day of the Reichstag fire, February 28, 1933, the Reich government issued an order to dissolve the KPD parliamentary group. A police report describes the search, closure and sealing of the parliamentary groups' rooms. The ten members of the KPD were transferred to so-called “protective custody”.

Reichstag election victory in 1933

The eighth election to the German Reichstag on March 5, 1933 took place a good five weeks after Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor . It had become necessary due to the dissolution of the Reichstag by the Reich President on February 1st. The NSDAP became the strongest force with 43.9% of the votes and 44.5% of the Reichstag seats. Due to the provisional law on bringing the states into line with the Reich of March 31, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 153), the Thuringian Landtag was subsequently dissolved and re-formed based on the distribution of votes in the Reichstag election. The mandates of the KPD had been declared invalid in advance, so that the absolute majority of the National Socialists in the state parliament was secured. The previous chairman of the State Ministry, Sauckel, was no longer represented in the government because he became Reich Governor for the State of Thuringia. On May 8, 1933, Willy Marschler became Prime Minister of the country and held the office until April 1945.

Culture

Gauforum Weimar : the parade ground of the Nazi leadership and an example of National Socialist architecture

The occupation of the Ministry of Interior and Culture by Frick from 1930 corresponded to the wishes of Hitler, who saw this post as a key position for the realization of his dictatorial plans.

Educational policy

Shortly after taking office, Frick enacted a decree on April 16, 1930 to reintroduce school prayer. The students should learn to pray again “the German way”. However, on July 11, 1930, three of the five prayer texts were declared unconstitutional by the State Court for the German Reich, as their content was not in accordance with Article 148, Paragraph 2 of the Reich Constitution. At the same time, the ministry prohibited the use of the book In the West by Erich Maria Remarque in school lessons. At the same time, Frick tried to implement the National Socialist racial and cultural ideology. After the Bauhaus had to leave Weimar in 1925 at the instigation of the nationalist state government led by the DVP , Frick appointed Paul Schultze-Naumburg head of the United Art Schools. This institution should "set the direction and become a focus of German culture". In October 1930, Schultze-Naumburg had the frescoes by the Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer whitewashed in the Van de Velde building of the art schools.

A little later, by order of Frick, 70 paintings and graphics were removed from the Weimar Palace Museum as "degenerate art". Works by Otto Dix , Ernst Barlach and Paul Klee , among others, were affected . On October 1, 1930, against the resistance of the Jena professors, the “Chair for Racial Issues and Racial Studies” was created under Günther's direction. Günther's racial doctrine was also adopted in the school system. A list of recommendations for school and teacher libraries by the Thuringian Ministry of Education from December 1930 already contained four of his works.

Church fight in Thuringia

The Thuringian regional church was the only one in the Weimar Republic to take advantage of the opportunity under Article 137, Paragraph 5 of the Weimar Imperial Constitution to unite to form a unified regional church, dissolving the previous territorial boundaries. As a result, according to Lautenschläger, the most liberal constitution of a regional church was created during this period.

In the years 1927/28, a group of pastors and teachers with close ties to the NSDAP was formed around the pastors Siegfried Leffler ( Niederwiera ) and Julius Leutheuser ( Flemmingen ). In February 1930, after a visit by Adolf Hitler, the local group Wieratal of the party was founded from this group. A year later, the church group took part in the church election in Altenburg and achieved 5 out of 16 seats. In 1932, the group began to publish letters to German Christians in which Nazi propaganda was openly carried out.

In the church council election on January 22nd, 1933, before Hitler came to power, the German Christians (DC) achieved a third of all votes cast. From April 21 to May 5, 1933 a regional church convention was held. The DC tried to overturn the liberal church constitution in Thuringia. At the request of the group it was decided: "Anyone who represents the Marxist or any other materialist worldview cannot be a pastor of the Thuringian Evangelical Church." With an additional motion, the DC extended this professional ban to members of the Religious Socialists , against the votes of seven Delegates. After further resolutions of the Kirchentag, the German Christians provided 4 of the 11 members of the legislative committee of the regional church. On May 15, the Legislative Committee succeeded in implementing the Enabling Act in terms of church policy. Now the extended regional church council has been authorized by the regional church convention “to take measures in its place (of the regional church convention) beyond the legal competence that are necessary to align with the national state and the Christian national renewal movement.” Pastor Leuthäuser was next to the later Regional Bishop Martin Sasse and Paul Lehmann, who worked as a Gestapo spy, were appointed to the Protestant regional church council.

General church elections were held on July 23, 1933. The Reich government under Hitler openly called for the election of German Christians, which enabled the DC to achieve an absolute majority. From May 13, 1934 Sasse officiated as regional bishop and operated the synchronization of the church with the Reich. The creation of a unified imperial church initially failed due to the resistance of Leutheuser and Leffler, who strove to establish an independent national church for Thuringia. In 1933, after an intervention and on instructions from Sauckel, the Thuringian regional church was incorporated into the imperial church. As a result, however, the intra-Protestant denominational differences became more and more pronounced. The Lutheran churches in particular sought to differentiate themselves from the churches of the Old Prussian Union. After a year, the incorporation of the Thuringian regional church was withdrawn for these reasons. By October 1934 at the latest, the plans to create the Reich Church can finally be viewed as having failed. The importance of the Berlin group of German Christians fell sharply, while the organization of the Thuringian DC was able to establish itself far beyond the national borders.

architecture

The Gauforum Weimar is an essential building in Thuringia that was erected under the National Socialist rule . As early as 1933, Sauckel, as governor and Gauleiter of Thuringia, submitted plans to Hitler to build “large buildings” as the headquarters of the NSDAP, the German Labor Front and his own official residence. In mid-1936, Hitler's architectural competition was decided in favor of Hermann Giesler . After Hitler had made his own changes to the draft, the first groundbreaking took place in July of the same year. Due to the early start of construction, the Gauforum was the only one in the German Reich to be largely completed and still stands today as the “only urban development document of National Socialism implemented in this way”.

Expropriation, discrimination and extermination of the Jewish population

First approaches

In February 1924, the anti-Semitic writer Artur Dinter was elected to the state parliament. As the parliamentary group chairman of the Völkisch-Soziale bloc , he demanded, among other things , as a condition of tolerating a bourgeois minority government of the Ordnungsbund “that the government unconditionally removes Jews from all government and official positions [...] In the legal sense, by 'Jews' we mean every racial Jew, the son or grandchildren of a racial Jew, regardless of whether baptized or not. ”Dinter's further demands for the expulsion of the Eastern Jews with confiscation of their property, a ban on the cattle and grain trade, dismissal or professional ban for Jewish doctors, teachers, lawyers and notaries and the ban on Attending public schools for Jewish children could not yet prevail in 1925. But they already mapped out the later path to the destruction of Jewish life.

Under the Minister of the Interior Frick (see above) a “Chair for Racial Issues and Racial Studies” was created at the University of Jena in 1930. This should put the racial ideology of the National Socialists on a scientific basis (racial hygiene). The inaugural lecture of the chair holder Hans FK Günther “The causes of the racial change in the population of Germany since the migration period” was attended by, among others, Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring .

The state of Thuringia took on another pioneering role by founding a "State Office for Race Studies". It was founded on July 15, 1933 in Weimar. Karl Astel was appointed head of the first such institution at state level. Under his leadership, a “genetic archive” was created, in which 466,000 personal files were archived by 1935. Ultimately, every third inhabitant of the country was recorded here. In 1934 Astel was appointed to the chair for "Human Breeding Science and Heredity Research" at the University of Jena.

Simsonwerke, first "Aryanization" of a company in the Gau Thuringia

The company Simson & Co , based in Gau Thuringia, was one of the first in Germany to be withdrawn from control by its Jewish owners in 1934 and placed directly under the administration of Reich Governor Sauckel. This event received a lot of attention abroad as it meant a far-reaching encroachment on the private property of the previous owners. At the same time, this incident, which was by no means discussed “behind closed doors”, provided the initial spark for the attack by the “Third Reich” on the activities of Jews in the economy. The foundation stone for the expropriation was laid in 1929 by lawsuits from local competition against the "taking advantage of the Jews Samson over the German Reich" with the active assistance of the NSDAP. The complaint about the uneven distribution of economic development was not in the foreground. The Simson company had been a Reich-wide monopoly for the manufacture of light machine guns since August 25, 1925. The Nazi hostility tried to denigrate the business owners as "Jewish white collar criminals". The strong position of the NSDAP in the Thuringian state parliament , although Suhl was in the Prussian administrative district of Erfurt , made a significant contribution. Several applications were made to prove the company's “fraudulent pricing”. Politically, the attempt by the NSDAP was unsuccessful, but the applications, combined with other “means of street fighting”, put the company under increasing pressure. The path to the final expropriation has already been mapped out.

Finally, in 1934, the Meiningen public prosecutor opened charges against the company for “taking advantage of the Reich”. The trial, still planned as a show trial under the rule of law, developed into a disaster for the prosecution. The defendants had to be acquitted on all counts for lack of evidence. Sauckel tried to make up for the embarrassment of the first trial and had the lost trial reopened in camera before the Jena Higher Regional Court. This forced "revision" ended in 1935 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 9.75 million Reichsmarks against the owners. The amount was calculated by a state commission of inquiry. The necessary money could only be paid by the owner renouncing the plant, so that on November 28, 1935 the company was transferred to the limited partnership Berlin-Suhler Waffen- und Fahrzeugwerke Simson & Co. , which had been founded in 1934 . The owner of the new company was Fritz Sauckel. The work subsequently provided the basis for the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation .

Social exclusion

As early as three months before the nationwide appeal by the National Socialist government, Sauckel made a radio speech on December 3, 1932, calling for a boycott of Jewish shops and crafts. Many Thuringian newspapers also joined the nationwide call to boycott on April 1, 1933 by the NSDAP. Readers were given detailed lists of shops owned by Jews. At the same time, the first Jewish associations were banned or forcibly dissolved.

Shortly after the NSDAP came to power in 1933, several laws and ordinances were passed to systematically exclude Jewish citizens from society. The following are to be emphasized:

Shortly after the government took over in 1932, a nationwide ban on slaughtering was enacted. Due to an objection officially presented in the Landtag by the Landbund, a coalition partner of the NSDAP, this ban on slaughter did not come into force until April 1, 1933, one month earlier than a corresponding unified law that followed later. As early as March 22, 1933, the sibling discount on school fees was withdrawn from Jewish children due to the "Regulation amending the School Fee Ordinance", ThürGS p. 243.

Such imperial laws sometimes only sanctioned what had already been locally enforced by party supporters. For example, Hans Simmel , the former chief physician of the Gera City Hospital, sued in March 1933 against his discharge due to his Jewish descent. The Jewish officials, who were left in office in 1933 because of the front-line combatant privilege , were dismissed in 1935 on the basis of an ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act .

expropriation

In the years 1935 to 1939, a phase began in which the expropriation of Jews in the Third Reich was systematically promoted. The high point was the year 1938, in which around 100 companies were “Aryanized”, and takeover negotiations were ongoing for a further 100. In addition, 200 companies had to close due to the boycotts due to a lack of orders. A total of around 650 Jewish family businesses were “Aryanized” in Thuringia. According to the current state of research, however, the topic has not yet been fully developed. The NSDAP districts of Sonneberg and Schleiz were able to report the completion of the Jewish expropriations as early as October 1938, the ordinance on compulsory Aryanization only came into force on December 3, 1938. The Rhön newspaper reported the same “success” on October 27, 1938 under the heading “Vacha judenfrei!”:

“The last two Jewish families left our city yesterday evening. Vacha is with it - thank God! - finally also become free of Jews. "

- Rhön-Zeitung, October 27, 1938

Deportation and mass extermination

In the course of the November pogroms in 1938 , the synagogues in Gotha , Eisenach , Meiningen , Vacha , Erfurt and Nordhausen were destroyed. One did not dare to set fire to the half-timbered synagogues in Berkach, Bibra and Mühlhausen, as the flames were feared to spread to neighboring buildings. The next day all Jewish men were taken into protective custody. 1178 of them were subsequently deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Pressure was exerted on the “ action Jews ” to “Aryanize” their property and to leave them to emigrate.

The mass transports of Jews from Thuringia began in May 1942. On May 9th, the first Jews from various smaller towns were transferred to Erfurt. A day later, a total of 600 people from 40 Thuringian locations were transported via Leipzig to the Bełżyce ghetto near Lublin. Some of the victims were transferred from there to the Majdanek concentration camp and murdered. The remaining Jews were shot by the SS in Bełżyce in May 1943. There are no known survivors of the transport.

Another transport with 364 older Jews from 38 communities reached the Theresienstadt concentration camp on September 20, 1942 . Few of them survived. As a result, no more mass transports from Thuringia were carried out. Individuals were transferred by the Gestapo to the Petersberg in Erfurt and deported from there to Theresienstadt, Auschwitz or Ravensbrück , often they were captured Jews or spouses from mixed marriages who had no protection after the divorce or death of the "Aryan" spouse enjoyed more.

Shortly before the end of the war, existing mixed marriages were also interfered with; Among other things, 173 Erfurt Jews from mixed marriages were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Gestapo in the Nazi Gau Thuringia

The work of the Secret State Police in the “Third Reich” can be roughly divided into six phases. In the early phase between the seizure of power in 1933 and the official establishment of the Gestapo in Thuringia on January 1, 1934, the later tasks of the state police were still carried out by regular police forces, reinforced by auxiliary police officers from the SA and, more rarely, the SS. In Thuringia, during this time almost the entire KPD leadership was arrested by treason by the KPD courier Thieme.

With the promulgation of the 1st Gestapo Act on April 26, 1933, the creation of a Secret State Police Office for Prussia in Berlin was decided. At the same time, a state police station was set up in Erfurt. The responsibility of this body initially extended only to the Prussian part of the Gau Thuringia. It was not until the law on the establishment of a secret state police office for the state of Thuringia of December 14, 1933 that the Thuringian state secret police office in Weimar was created on January 1, 1934. Heinrich Himmler became head of the Secret State Police Office in Weimar .

Sauckel subsequently tried to merge the two offices in Weimar. The transformation of the state police station in Erfurt into a branch of the state police station in Weimar did not take place until July 1, 1941.

The Bad Sulza concentration camp was set up in October 1933 to keep the prisoners in custody . The camp was operated by the State of Thuringia until June 1, 1936, after which the transition to the inspection of the concentration camps took place .

The second phase of the Gestapo's activity covered the period from the establishment of the State Police Office to the “establishment” of the judiciary, that is, the dissolution of the state judicial authorities in the years 1935–36. During this time, the opponents of the Nazi state were systematically persecuted. In addition to the political left, this also included religious resistance in the form of the serious Bible Students who called themselves Jehovah's Witnesses since 1931. The transfer of the prisoners to a concentration camp took place without a court ruling, which was increasingly received with skepticism by the population. The President of the Jena Higher Regional Court reported to the Reich Minister of Justice on March 2, 1938:

“The people understand that notorious communist and Bolshevik leaders are kept safe, but not that people who are by no means regarded as criminals are still disappearing in concentration camps without a verdict. In such administrative acts, which are easily perceived as arbitrary, more restraint should be exercised. "

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The third phase, covering the period from 1936 to 1939, is known as the phase of political-racial conceptualization . During this time, the systematic exclusion of Jews from society and the persecution of groups of people regarded as work-shy or criminal.

The fourth phase is seen in the period from the beginning of the war in 1939 to the attack on the Soviet Union in mid-1941. During this time the Gestapo office in Erfurt was dissolved and placed under the control of the Gestapo office in Weimar.

The period from mid-1941 to 1944 is seen as the fifth phase of Gestapo activity. During this time, the use of forced labor in Thuringia was intensified. The Gestapo was responsible for punishing the forced laborers for violations of the code of conduct, refusal to work or “racial disgrace”. Often the last two “offenses” mentioned above all meant bringing the prisoners to so-called “special treatment” and thus the death sentence.

In the last phase of Gestapo activities in Thuringia from the end of 1944 to the end of the war in 1945, the Gestapo made efforts to remove the traces of the crimes. First, the offices of the "commanders of the security police" were set up in Thuringia. These facilities previously only existed in the areas occupied by the German Reich.

When in April 1945 parts of the 3rd US Army under George S. Patton advanced along the Reichsautobahn (now BAB 4) to Thuringia, the Gestapo began to move east. On April 4, 1945 inmates of the Gestapo prison in the Marstall Weimar and the prisoners of the regional court prison were murdered. In total, more than 140 people were shot from behind in this end-of-war crime in a grove on the north-eastern outskirts of Weimar. 142 male and 7 female corpses were exhumed from three bomb craters between June 27 and July 5, 1945. In addition, files were burned for several days in the inner courtyard of the Marstall. After the destruction of the traces, the staff of the Gestapo Weimar set off in the direction of Bohemia and Austria. Further shootings of members of the military and civilians - among others in Bürgel and Greiz - were carried out.

Concentration camp in Thuringia

Gate to the camp in Buchenwald concentration camp

Between 1933 and 1945 the National Socialist state government set up a total of three concentration camps in the state of Thuringia. Shortly after the takeover of power, 1,679 prisoners were taken into so-called protective custody, citing the “Ordinance of the Reich President for the Protection of the German People” of February 4, 1933 and the “Ordinance for the Protection of People and State” of February 28, 1933. A first concentration camp was created in Nohra near Weimar to keep the prisoners . A large number of the prisoners were released in April and May 1933 and the Nohra concentration camp was dissolved again on April 12th. According to Wohlfeld, the first wave of arrests only served to secure the seizure of power in the early phase.

In October 1933, the city of Bad Sulza was selected as the location of a new concentration camp. The Bad Sulza concentration camp served mainly during the political mass trials in 1934 and 1935 both as a central accommodation facility for the accused until a judicial arrest warrant was issued, and as a remand prison. Thus the concentration camp had a double function as an extrajudicial and judicial place of detention. Until the summer of 1934, the political prisoners predominated in the camp. From the end of 1934, mainly "complainers and agitators" and "economic pests" were arrested. From the spring of 1936, the number of prisoners who were accused of “preparing for high treason” rose. Since 1935, Jews were increasingly taken into “protective custody”.

With the transfer of the camp administration from the SA to the SS on April 1, 1936, the second phase in the history of the camp began. Up to this date the camp was maintained solely by the state of Thuringia, from then on the SS (guarding) and the state (rest) shared the costs. From April 1, 1937, the administration and financing of the camp was completely taken over by the inspection of the concentration camps under Theodor Eicke and thus the SS. The camp was occupied by 120 to 160 prisoners.

In the course of the preparations for war, the Reich leadership wanted to protect itself on the home front. For this purpose, three concentration camps were created across the empire. In addition to the Sachsenhausen camps for the north and Dachau for the south, a camp was also to be built in central Germany. Sauckel's plan to expand the existing Bad Sulza concentration camp failed because of Eicke's objection, who did not consider this camp to be expandable. In the first half of 1937, the Ettersberg-Hottelstedt location was chosen . The prisoners from Bad Sulza were temporarily transferred to the Lichtenburg concentration camp until the new complex was opened as the Buchenwald concentration camp on July 15, 1937. The evacuation of the Bad Sulza camp was carried out exclusively by the SS.

Economic policy

Recovery after the economic crisis

The Thuringian economy was hit hard by the global economic crisis. Between 1929 and 1932, the industry had to cope with a drop in sales of 70%. At the same time, the number of industrial workers fell by 44%. While 54,661 Thuringians were registered as jobseekers on January 31, 1928, the number rose to 147,223 on June 30, 1932. In this environment extreme parties were able to distinguish themselves as “saviors in need”. The Sauckel government tried to accelerate the economic recovery that was already emerging through a package of economic development measures. The state labor service was founded in September 1932 and the first labor camp was created in the Hohe Rhön . In December a law was passed to take out a loan of 5 million Reichsmarks. This money was primarily used for investments in road construction, the housing industry as well as river regulation and improvement measures . After the takeover of power, the Gau Thuringia could fall back on strong support from the Reich. A further 3.2 million Reichsmarks flowed to Thuringia as part of the Rheinhardt Plan . Until 1935, the economic recovery was mainly due to the construction industry, especially civil housing. In 1934 alone, 5.6 new apartments were created per 1000 inhabitants.

War economy in peacetime

The economic development of the following years was based on the premises of the National Socialist four-year plan . In the pursuit of economic self-sufficiency in the food industry and raw material supply. Two projects in particular were implemented in Thuringia. On the one hand, this was the establishment of the Thuringian Zellwolle AG from 1936 in Schwarza , today part of Rudolstadt. This plant should enable the independence of cotton through the substitute rayon.

Thuringian Rohstoff AG shares of RM 1000 on December 22, 1936

The second measure led to the establishment of Thuringian Rohstoff AG. this dealt with the systematic research and exploitation of the natural resources of the Thuringian Forest . The inefficiency of the dismantling was consciously accepted. Another episode of the National Socialist competition in the pre-war period was the implementation of the Rhön Plan by Thuringian Prime Minister Willy Marschler . As early as 1933, the Lower Franconian Gauleiter Dr. Otto Hellmuth presented a Rhön development plan. Hellmuth planned the extensive reorganization of the ownership structure of the Rhön farmers. Measures for expropriating and relocating farmers were planned. these should then be replaced by "genetically healthy" and "politically harmless" farmers, for example from the Allgäu. In 1934 Marschler learned that the Thuringian Rhön should also be included in this cross-regional planning. However, he was not ready to submit to Hellmuth's claim to leadership. In 1934 the Thuringian Ministry of Economics wrote a memorandum on the Thuringian Rhön in which Hellmuth's plans were clearly rejected. Cultivation measures, some of which had already started before 1932, were presented as successes of National Socialist politics and were intended to serve as evidence of Thuringia's lead over Hesse and Lower Franconia. In December 1935, Marschler finally presented his own plan to boost the economy in the Thuringian Rhön .

Peace-like war economy

The start of the war on September 1, 1939 exacerbated the labor shortage by being called up for military service. Small industrial and craft businesses in particular had to be shut down when the owner moved in. At the end of 1939, the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs founded the “Committee for Performance Improvement” with the participation of industry. At the beginning of 1940, for example, the weekly working hours of Kahla AG employees was increased to 60 hours for men and 52 hours for women.

Due to the victories of the Wehrmacht and the successful blitzkrieg concept, as well as fear of social conflict, however, the switch to armaments production was slow. According to a report by the Eisenach District Armaments Inspectorate from April 1940, 45 workers manufactured wigs and curlers in the Franz Freund Leinefelde hair and curler factory . At the same time, there was a constant shortage of workers in the Bernterode Army Ammunition Plant, which was not far away . As a result of the war, the entire Western European and US American market ceased to exist for industrial companies. However, in the 1940/41 business year, the Carl Zeiss Jena company alone exported optical military technology worth 4 million Reichsmarks to the Soviet Union.

Total war economy

With the appointment of Albert Speer as "Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions" on February 15, 1942, the complete conversion of the economy to war production began. On March 21 of the same year, Fritz Sauckel was appointed "General Representative for Labor Deployment". Under his leadership, millions of people were subsequently abducted and forced to work in the German armaments industry or in agriculture . The central location of Thuringia led to the relocation of important industrial locations to the country. So underground production facilities for the V2 were built near Nordhausen , and Messerschmitt Me 262 jet planes were produced near Arnstadt . The prisoners' detention and living conditions were catastrophic. In the tunnels of the Kohnstein massif alone, more people died during the production of the V2 than during military use.

Forced labor

Due to the labor shortage in industry, higher wages were paid there. This led to the emigration of workers from agriculture and, as a result, to problems in supplying the population. In 1938, for example, 435,000 foreign workers were employed in Germany, 43% of them in agriculture. In the same year, 3,960 workers were employed in the district of the rural peasantry of Thuringia, 60% of them Poles and 30% Italians. Despite this, there was a shortage of over a million workers in the German economy in the middle of 1939. The outbreak of the war made the shortage even worse, as many German workers were drafted into the Wehrmacht.

Under such conditions the required number of workers on a voluntary basis could not be achieved. The German occupiers increasingly resorted to coercive measures to bring in workers. The number of foreign workers rose to 100,000 at the end of 1941. According to an official survey for the district of Thuringia, 185,479 foreign workers were employed there in May 1944, 112,519 men and 72,960 women. Of these, 86,806 people had the status of Eastern workers. However, initial estimates by historians assume a total of 500,000 forced laborers for the state of Thuringia and the Prussian administrative district of Erfurt. These deviations result, among other things, from a large number of forced laborers who were employed in small and medium-sized farms.

Despite the large number of workers, the demand could not be fully satisfied. For example, forced laborers from agriculture were employed in forestry in the winter months. Forced laborers from industry hired themselves out in agriculture on their Sunday off in order to improve their catering situation.

Effects of war

The Gau Thuringia was only slightly affected by the direct consequences of the war until 1945. The cities of Nordhausen , Gera , and Jena , however, were badly damaged by Allied bombing raids. Otherwise the damage has remained less than in other areas of the empire. In the last days of the war, the small town of Creuzburg was badly damaged during the battle for the Werra line . During the  Battle of Struth  on April 7, 1945, the heaviest fighting in World War II took place on Thuringian soil.

literature

  • Oliver Arnhold, "Dejudification" - Church in the Abyss. Vol. I: The Thuringian Church Movement German Christians 1928–1939. ISBN 978-3-938435-00-7 . Vol. II: The "Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life" 1939–1945. ISBN 978-3-938435-01-4 (Studies on Church and Israel, Volume 25/1 and Volume 25/2, Institute Church and Judaism at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 2010).
  • André Beyermann: Thuringia's Industry in the Third Reich. Thuringian sheets for regional studies, LZ for political education Thuringia, Erfurt 1999
  • Monika Gibas (Ed.): “Aryanization” in Thuringia Disenfranchisement, expropriation and annihilation of the Jewish citizens of Thuringia 1933–1945 (= sources on the history of Thuringia, 2 half volumes). 2nd revised edition Erfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-937967-06-6
  • Markus Fleischhauer: The NS Gau Thuringia 1939-1945. A structure and function history . Böhlau 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20447-1 . Dissertation at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (2009).
  • Marlis Gräfe, Bernhard Post, Andreas Schneider: The secret state police in the NS Gau Thuringia. Thuringia - sheets on regional studies, Erfurt 2005
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  • Karina Loos: The staging of the city. Planning and building under National Socialism in Weimar . Bauhaus University, Diss., Weimar 1999 online .
  • Norbert Moczarski , Bernhard Post, Katrin Weiß: Forced Labor in Thuringia 1940–1945 (= sources on the history of Thuringia), Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-931426-67-X .
  • Norbert Moczarski: Hellmuth Gommlich - rise and fall of the last NS district administrator of Meiningen . In: Yearbook 2005 of the Hennebergisch-Franconian History Association, pp. 251–276, Veßra-Meiningen-Münnerstadt Monastery 2005.
  • Steffen Raßloff :
    • Escape to the national community. The Erfurt bourgeoisie between the Empire and the Nazi dictatorship. Böhlau 2003, ISBN 3-412-11802-8 .
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    • History of Thuringia. Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60523-9 .
    • The "Mustergau". Thuringia at the time of National Socialism. Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-7658-2052-6 .
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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo, p. 2.
  2. ↑ Bernhard Schulz: "We achieved the greatest success in Thuringia". In: Der Tagesspiegel. February 6, 2020, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  3. ^ Neliba, Günther: Wilhelm Frick and Thuringia as an experimental field for the early National Socialist seizure of power. In: Heiden / Mai: National Socialism in Thuringia, pp. 75–98.
  4. ^ Raßloff: Sauckel, p. 56.
  5. ^ Post, Bernhard: Early takeover of power 1932: The Sauckel government, in: Heiden / Mai: Thuringia on the way to the Third Reich, pp. 147-181.
  6. ^ Raßloff: Sauckel, p. 60.
  7. ↑ Udo Wohlfeld / Falk Burkhardt: the network. The concentration camps in Thuringia 1933–1937, = wanted 2. Saving the past for the future; Ed. Geschichtswerkstatt Weimar-Apolda, Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-935275-01-3 , p. 64 ff.
  8. ^ Official Journal of the Thuringian Ministry for National Education 9 (1930) p. 39f
  9. ^ Gabriele Lautenschläger, Church fight in Thuringia. In: Heiden, May: National Socialism in Thuringia. P. 463 f.
  10. ^ Lautenschläger: Church fight in Thuringia. P. 466
  11. ↑ cf. RGBl. TI (1933), No. 25, p. 141
  12. ^ Lautenschläger: Church fight in Thuringia. P. 466
  13. ↑ Karina Loos: Gauforum in Weimar. In: Heiden, May: National Socialism in Thuringia. P. 335
  14. ↑ Gibas : “Aryanization”, p. 24.
  15. ↑ See Schulz: Simson & Co.
  16. ↑ Schulz: Simson & Co. pp. 2 and 3.
  17. ↑ Schulz: Simson & Co. p. 4.
  18. ↑ Gibas: “Aryanization”, p. 34 ff.
  19. ↑ Gibas: "Aryanization", p. 26
  20. ↑ Carsten Liesenberg, Persecution and Destruction of the Jews, in: Heiden / Mai: Nationalsozialismus, p. 448
  21. ^ Gibas: "Aryanization", Doc 43, pp. 137 ff .; Hoßfeld, John, Lemuth, Stutz: Jena University, p. 245
  22. ↑ Gibas: “Aryanization”, p. 34 ff.
  23. ^ Gibas: "Aryanization", Doc 15, p. 55
  24. ^ Carsten Liesenberg, persecution and destruction of the Jews. In: Heiden, May: National Socialism. Pp. 443-463; Liesenberg writes from 28./29. February (sic!), But in 1945 that is impossible due to the calendar.
  25. ↑ after Gräfe, Post, Schneider: The Secret State Police in the NS Gau Thuringia, p. 7f.
  26. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo sources, Doc. 84, p. 248ff.
  27. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo sources, Doc. 10, p. 79f.
  28. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo sources, Document 24: Sauckel's telegram to Himmler, October 8, 1936; Document 30: Sauckel's telegram to Frick of August 27, 1939.
  29. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo sources, Doc. 47
  30. ↑ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo, p. 7
  31. ^ Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo, p. 8; Gräfe, Post, Schneider: Gestapo, Doc. 158; according to this, at least one victim was an inmate of a concentration camp, three other victims had a prisoner number from a Stalag
  32. ↑ Udo Wohlfeld: Bad Sulza concentration camp, p. 1
  33. ↑ Wohlfeld, p. 2
  34. ↑ Beyermann, Industry p. 1
  35. ^ Joachim S. Hoffmann: Thuringia's “Rhön Plan” as an example of National Socialist agricultural and racial policy; in: Heiden / May: National Socialism in Thuringia; Pp. 293-312
  36. ^ Hoffmann Thuringia's "Rhön Plan". s. 296
  37. ↑ Roland Werner, Forced Laborers, p. 119
  38. ↑ Moczarski, Post, Weiss: Zwangsarbeit, p. 19
  39. ↑ all figures from Moczarski, Post, Weiß: Zwangsarbeit, p. 24 f.
  40. ↑ cf. u. a. Werner, forced labor, p. 116 f.
  41. ↑ Table of contents, excerpt
  42. ↑ Review on hsozkult.de (2010)
  43. ↑ Joachim Lilla / IFB : Review

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