Wilhelm Aron

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm "Willy" Aron (born June 3, 1907 in Bamberg , † May 19, 1933 in Dachau ) was a German trainee lawyer. As a member of the Socialist Workers 'Youth (SAJ) and the Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold he was one of the defining figures of the workers' movement in Bamberg during the Weimar Republic .

Life

Aron was born as the son of the Jewish judiciary Albert Aron and his wife Bertha. At the age of 14 he joined the SAJ in his hometown. There he began to show solidarity with the struggle of the workers for better living conditions, and took an active role in the group as a functionary. In 1925 he began studying law at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . In Würzburg he became a member of the (striking) Wirceburgia student union in the Burschenbunds-Convent . He later moved to the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen and in 1927 to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . He stayed in contact with the SAJ during his studies and tried to pass on the knowledge he had acquired to the young workers in lectures during the semester break. After passing the state examination in law, Aron took up the position of trainee lawyer in Bamberg. In this position he took over the defense of numerous socialists in the early 1930s in the worsening conflict between the socialist labor movement and the emerging National Socialism. When a fighting organization of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold was founded in Bamberg, he joined the group as an active and one of the most fanatical fighters. He quickly rose to the management level of the Bamberg Reich Banner.

Aron was ostracized as a "red dog" by the National Socialists in his hometown. There were assaults several times. Six weeks after Hitler came to power , he was taken into “ protective custody ” on March 10, 1933 , and deported to the newly opened Dachau concentration camp on May 15, 1933 . After he was admitted, the guards brutally mistreated him, causing the flesh on his buttocks to be cut through to the bone. He was taken to the camp's infirmary unconscious. There Aron fell into a delirium. Despite his condition, he was regularly picked up in the morning by several guards in the following days, dragged into a room immediately adjacent to the infirmary, and there again brutally beaten with bull whips on the already festering abuse wounds. On May 19, Aron died as a result of the abuse. In order to remove the traces of torture, Aron's body was doused with gasoline and set on fire. On May 22, 1933, he was transferred to Bamberg and buried there that same evening. The parents were not allowed to open the coffin. The local daily newspapers said the cause of death was a heartbeat.

After the end of National Socialism, a trial was brought against Aron's murderer in 1948. The perpetrators received mild sentences and showed no awareness of wrongdoing. One of the perpetrators committed suicide in 1964.

Posthumous honors

  • A street in the Bamberg-Ost district bears the name Aronstraße in memory of Willy Aron.
  • In 2002, a memorial plaque was placed in the Bamberg judicial building, where he was trained until his arrest.
  • In 2003 the Willy-Aron-Gesellschaft Bamberg eV was founded in Bamberg. The purpose of the association is, among other things, to promote research on Willy Aron and other Bamberg resistance fighters and to hold an annual commemoration with a current speech on the subject of moral courage. A civil courage prize is also awarded to a person, an association, an institution or a municipality that has particularly advocated civil courage in the spirit of Willy Aron.
  • In 2004, a stumbling block was installed in front of his former home at Luitpoldstrasse 32 . Two stumbling blocks were also laid for his parents, who were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edith Raim (2013): Justice between dictatorship and democracy: Reconstruction and prosecution of Nazi crimes in West Germany 1945-1949 (sources and representations on contemporary history, volume 96. ISBN 978-3486704112 ), p. 673 ( online )
  2. ↑ https://lassalle-kreis.de/sites/default/files/Willy%20Aron%20CV%20lang.pdf Lasallekreis: Wilhelm (Willy) Aron, legal trainee and first Bamberg victim of National Socialism . Online text, viewed March 16, 2019.
  3. ↑ between Wassermannstrasse and Zollnerstrasse
  4. ↑ Acta Studentica, 160 (2007), p. 24
  5. ↑ a b Willy-Aron-Gesellschaft Bamberg e. V .: Purpose of the association
  6. ^ Willy Aron Society Bamberg e. V .: Stolpersteine ​​campaign in Bamberg
  7. ↑ see also the list of stumbling blocks in Bamberg
personal data
SURNAME Aron, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aron, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Bamberg
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1933
Place of death Dachau