The November Revolution of 1918 after the First World War saw the eight Thuringian monarchs abdicate between November 9-25, 1918, clearing the way for the establishment of a unified state in Thuringia. On May 1 1920, therefore, the state of Thuringia was founded. In the Free State of Saxony-Gotha formed a communist council as it fell into political turmoil and civil war-like conditions until 1920. A special incident was the murders of Mechterstädt in 1920.
Because of the political unrest in Berlin, the new constitution was drafted by the National Assembly as the Weimar Constitution in Weimar in 1919, signed in Schwarzburg by Reich President Ebert and thus established the first democratic constitution for the whole of Germany. Society here as with the rest of the country was divided as young modernisers who gathered at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1919 onwards faced off against old traditionalists who longed for the monarchy.
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| Memorial to the Death marches at the end of the war |
As early as 1930 Thuringia was one of the free states where the Nazis gained actual political power when Wilhelm Frick was appointed Minister of the Interior for the state of Thuringia after the Nazis won six delegates to the Thuringia Diet. In this position he removed from the Thuringia police force anyone he suspected of being a republican and replaced with men favourable towards the Nazi Party. He also ensured that whenever an important position came up within Thuringia, he used his power to ensure that a Nazi was given that post. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, the state of Thuringia was brought into line with its Gauleiter being Fritz Sauckel.
The Nazis established three concentration camps in addition to the briefly operated Nohra concentration camp in 1933: the Bad Sulza concentration camp from 1933 to 1937, its successor, the Buchenwald concentration camp at Weimar from 1937 to 1945 and the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp at Nordhausen from 1943 to 1945. The British air raids on Nordhausen in April 1945 destroyed the city almost completely, with about 8,800 people died. Damage caused by bombardment and artillery fire also occurred in Erfurt, Gera, Jena, Weimar, Eisenach and some smaller towns and villages. Thuringia was occupied between 1 and 16 April 1945 by the Americans and handed over to the Soviet military administration on 1 July 1945, with areas around the city of Bad Sachsa in exchange for parts of the district of Blankenburg to the British military administration were left. The exclave Ostheim before the Rhön remained under American military administration and later became part of Bavaria. The state of Thuringia was restored and extended to the former Prussian administrative district of Erfurt. It was dissolved by the East German government in 1952 and replaced by the district of Erfurt , the district of Gera and the district Suhl . The Soviet occupation maintained the "special camp No. 2 Buchenwald" in the area of the former concentration camp near Weimar from August 1945 to 1950. Blankenburg
In the early days of Nazi era, those who opposed the Nazi regime were persecuted and murdered, most notably during the notorious campaign by Brunswick SS commander, Jeckeln, in September 1933, when 140 communists and social democrats were herded together in the inn, Zur Erholung. Here and in the Blankenburger Hof they were severely beaten, some dying as a result. During the Second World War the Blankenburg-Oesig subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp was set up in the Dr. Dasch (Harzer Werke) Monastery Works and, shortly thereafter, subordinated to Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Here some 500 prisoners had to carry out forced labour in the monastery factory and Oda Works. In addition, there was a work camp run by the Gestapo for "half-Jews" who were forced to do hard labour. Another camp was occupied in February 1945 by inmates of the Auschwitz subcamp of Fürstengrube and managed as Blankenburg Regenstein subcamp. As part of the division of Germany into occupation zones in 1945, Blankenburg district was actually assigned to the British zone in accordance with the Potsdam Conference and London Protocol. But because the larger eastern part of the district was linked to the rest of the British zone only by a road and a railway, the boundary was adjusted and Blankenburg incorporated into the Soviet zone. The largest part of the district thus ended up later in East Germany and became part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The main part of the former Free State of Brunswick went to the British zone and thus became part of Lower Saxony.
General
Karl Litzmann speaking to a gathering of Nazi officials at the
Stadthalle in 1932, and the Cavern Beatles performing inside recently.
The former barracks is now classified as a schlosshotel.
Jena
The former barracks is now classified as a schlosshotel.
Important for being the site where, on October 14, 1806, Napoleon fought and defeated the Prussian army in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, near the district of Vierzehnheiligen.
Striking workers in front of the Volkshaus at Carl-
During the Nazi period, conflicts deepened in Jena between the influential left-wing (communist and social democrat) and right-wing Nazi milieus. On the one hand, the university suffered from new restrictions against its independence, but on the other hand, it consolidated the Nazi ideology, for example with a professorship of social anthropology (which sought to scientifically legitimize the Racial policy of Nazi Germany). Kristallnacht in 1938 led to more discrimination against Jews in Jena, many of whom either emigrated or were arrested and murdered by the German government. This weakened the academic milieu, because many academics were Jews (especially in medicine).
The Volkshaus from around the time Hitler first spoke there and today, extensively rebuilt
The Fuchsturm (Fox Tower), Jena's oldest landmark, during the Third Reich and the Johannistor then and now
The Planetarium, the oldest continuously operating planetarium in the world opened on July 18, 1926.
The so-called Schillerkirche, where Friedrich Schiller married in 1790.
The Stadtkirche then, flying the swastika flag, and now
After the war.
In 1945, towards the end of the war, Jena was heavily bombed by
the American and British allies. 709 people were killed, 2,000 injured
and most of the medieval town centre was destroyed, but in parts
restored after the end of the war. Nevertheless, Jena was the Thuringian
city whose level of destruction was exceeded only by Nordhausen, which
was completely destroyed. It was occupied by American troops on April
13, 1945 and was left to the Red Army on the first of July 1945.
Hummelshain
The former Bauernschule (with flag of the Hitlerjugend in front) and today, now a seniors' home. During the Second World War, the National Socialist armaments company REIMAHG established a hospital for its forced labourers in the form of six barracks built in the castle grounds, each with 89 beds. Under catastrophic hygienic conditions and constantly overstated, the death rate among the 1,088 patients, including 980 foreigners, was correspondingly high. In this hospital a total of 175 forced labourers died, most of whom came from Italy. The dead were buried in a field east of the cemetery.
Oberdorla
Oberdorla
A photograph taken on April 4, 1945 by American reporter Charles Eugene Sumners showing infantrymen of 'B' Company, 44th Armoured Infantry Battalion, 6th American Armoured Division crossing the street past the body of 19 year old Pfc. Robert Vardy Wynne from Texas who had just been mortally wounded by a sniper. As subsequent research has revealed, the then 21-year-old photographer is said to have stood directly behind his fallen compatriot and had just inserted a new film in the camera.
Schützenplatz has been renamed from both sides of the political spectrum, from Adolf-Hitler-Platz to Karl Marx Platz.
Eisfeld
Looking at the church along the Straße der SA and today.
Ruhla
Platz der S.A. then and now
Hermsdorfer Kreuz
The
Nazi-era Hermsdorfer Kreuz resthouse built 1936-38 south of the Dresden
- Weimar autobahn. Here the federal motorways A 4 (Aachen - Eisenach)
and A 9 (Berlin - Leipzig - Munich) cross Görlitz.
Bad Salzungen
The Kurhaus from a 1942 postcard and today
Gotha
The fountain at what was once Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today, the Hauptmarkt.
Stolpersteine at Hauptmarkt 14 commemorating the Wirths, deported to Poland where they were killed. Under the Nazis the town became a centre of the arms industry with nearly 7,000 forced labourers working in the city's factories, where more than 200 died. Furthermore, the Gotha barracks in the southern periphery were enlarged and the synagogue was destroyed during the Kristallnacht in 1938. Bombings in 1944 and 1945 damaged some buildings in the city, in particular the theatre (whose ruins were demolished in 1958) and the main station (which remains only "half-a-building" until today) and the main church (rebuilt after the war). Nevertheless, some 95% of the city's buildings survived the war unscathed. The American Army reached the city in April 1945 but was replaced by the Soviets in July 1945 and in 1949 Gotha became part of the DDR.
Friedrichroda
Nordhausen
Adolf-Hitler-Haus
on what is today Baltzerstraße 7. In many German cities there were
representative public buildings used as "Adolf Hitler houses" or " Brown
Houses " serving as the local Nazi party headquarters. The Nordhäuser
party leadership had its headquarters in the former Kaiser Wilhelm club
house here on Baltzerstraße, renamed in 1933 in honour of Hitler. Here
was also the NSDAP district headquarters and the offices of the Hitler
Youth and the German Women's Federation.
Inauguration of the "Wehrfreiheits-Denkmals" in front of the Theater Nordhausen March 15, 1936 during the crisis in the Rhineland.
The Nazi rule led to the destruction of the synagogue during the Kristallnacht in 1938. The Jews emigrated or were deported to the death camps. The Mittelbau-Dora Nazi concentration camp, established in 1943 after the destruction of Peenemünde, was located on the outskirts of Nordhausen during the war to provide labour for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein. Over its period of operation, around 60,000 inmates passed through Dora and its system of subcamps, of whom around 20,000 died from bad working conditions, starvation and diseases or were murdered. Around ten thousand forced labourers were deployed in several factories within the city, up to six thousand of them were interned at Boelcke Kaserne, working for a Junkers factory.
The memorial was removed on the orders of the Bürgermeister on May 27 1945. During
this ceremony the theatre staged a show dramatising the destruction of
the "chains of Versailles" using imagery corresponding to the usual
repulsive anti-Semitic stereotypes. The theatre, formerly on Straße der
S.A., is now at Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße.
The
rathaus flying the swastika and today. In Nordhausen the Nazi party
immediately set out to realise its consolidation of the local
administration. Just one week after the Reichstag elections of March 5,
1933, when the Nazi Party won over 46 percent of the vote in
Nordhausen, the left-liberal Oberbürgermeister Dr. Curt Baller and the
Social Democratic councillor Albert Pabst were, like other local
politicians who did not belong to the Nazi party, deposed as was
more than half of the city council. This led to a wave of arrests of its
members, the seizure of party ownership and expropriation of property.
The new Nordhäuser rulers seized even bicycles and radios, in order to
prevent "communist aspirations."
Nazi flag flying from the stadthaus on the kornmarkt. From December 1939 to June 1940, around 9,000 Saarlanders were accommodated in Nordhäuser private households and collective accommodations. In the autumn of 1939 the first Polish prisoners of war arrived; at the beginning of 1942 there were about 450 prisoners and in March 1945 700 prisoners of war. From 1937 to 1945, Nordhausen hosted the Mittelwerk Dora armament centre, and from August 1943 the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp with 60,000 inmates (of whom 20,000 died until 1945), in which after the attack on Peenemünde the production of so-called retaliatory weapons, especially the new V2, but also the older V1, took place. In addition, 10,000 German prisoners and foreign forced labourers, housed in 38 camps, had to force-work in various companies. The largest forced labour camp with a maximum 6,000 inmates, some of whom worked for the Junkers Group, were in the Boelcke barracks. This was from the end of January 1945 a "sick and death camp of the Mittelbau complex" and was located in southeastern Nordhausen. It was severely hit during the British bombing raids on April 3 and 4. The US Army forced the inhabitants of Nordhausen to salvage, transport and burial of the dead. The 1,300 victims were buried at the Ehrenfriedhof on Stresemann-Ring. It is reminiscent of a monument erected in 1999. Next to it is a memorial cemetery designed in 1946 for 215 Soviet fatalities. On the night of 25 August to 26 August 1940 Nordhausen was the first target of an air raid when two bombers attacked the airfield. Smaller attacks were flown on April 12, 1944 and on July 4, 1944. On February 22, 1945 at 12 o'clock 30 US-American bombers attacked the moving train yard, met however the lower town, some plants of the industrial area and the former air force communication school in the Boelcke barracks. In total, 296 multipurpose bombs fell and killed forty people. The Südharzer Kurier published on 26 February a death notice for the "fallen of the terrorist attack" with the announcement to the funeral service of the city. On October 29, 1944, those born between 1884 to 1928 were forced into the Volkssturm and divided into 29 battalions. The first 200 Volkssturm men were called on 21 February 1945 to the front. At the beginning of March 1945 42,207 inhabitants were registered in Nordhausen. In addition there were 23,467 "non-local people" (659 prisoners of war, 503 wounded soldiers in 5 hospitals, 420 members of the Kriegsmarine, 6082 foreign workers in mass quarters). About 1200 to 1300 victims claimed the bombing on April 3-4 among the inmates of the KZ satellite camp in the Boelcke barracks. The bombs detonated on the camp roads and in the accommodation block. 
Nazi-led anti-Semitic boycott of April 1, 1933 of Modehauses Schönbeck, owned by the Weinbaum family.
After the Reichskristallnacht of November 1938, the fashion house was 'aryanised' and taken over by the Muehlhaeuser department store and renamed the Modehaus Kramer.
After this forced sale of the family business some of the Weinbaum
family managed to emigrate to the Netherlands, surviving the German
occupation and the war whilst others stayed in Nordhausen and sent to
the camps from where they never returned.
Lutherplatz
then and now. The Martini Festival on Luther Day in 1933 was used by the Nazis as a propaganda event. Superintendent Hammer, Mayor Sting and the Thuringian Gauleiter Sauckel gave speeches at Adolf-Hitler-Platz and later that same evening a public book burning took place, organised by the Hitler Youth.
Children in the uniform of the Hitlerjugend at Neumarkt (now August-Bebel-Platz) putting on gas masks in 1943 and today.
SA march down the eastern part of the Schlösserstraße in 1933
The
Siechenhof was the meeting place for Communists and Social Democrats in
Salza, a small village near Nordhausen. It was on July 10 1932 that 250
Nordhäusen Nazis, including SA-men, marched under the leadership of the
later mayor Heinz Sting. This led to the so-called Siechenhof riots.
The Nazis tore down election posters of the SPD and the KPD and smashed
the windows of the inn. With sticks and stones they attacked the
villagers and fought with their opponents; as the local SPD newspaper
wrote on the following day, a "brawl such as Salza has not yet seen."
Due to the strong opposition of the Social Democrats and Communists,
they finally had to retreat. The so-called "Battle of Salza" went down
in the collective memory of the inhabitants. The event is an example not
only for the growing pressure on the population, which was exercised in
the months before the seizure of power by the Nazis on political
opponents, but also for the possibility of active resistance.
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| Pfaffengasse |
Just
one week before the invasion of US forces, the city was destroyed 74%
by two British air raids on Nordhausen on April 3 and 4, 1945, killing
around 8,800 people and leaving over 20,000 homeless. The bombing was
ordered by the Allied High Command (SHAEF) on 2 April 1945. There they
demanded an attack in support of the 1st US Army with priority to the
earliest possible opportunity. The purpose of the RAF attacks in April
1945 was to pave the way for an unhindered advance from the
counterattack expected in the southern Harz region. The first major raid
on April 3 at 4:00 pm was carried out by 247 Lancaster bombers and
eight Mosquitos of the 1st and 8th bomber groups, which dropped 1,170
tons of blast bombs in 20 minutes, especially on the southeastern
quadrant of the city. It also killed about 1,200 prisoners. The second
major attack on April 4 at 9 o'clock with 243 Lancaster bombers of the
no. 5 Bomber Group and 1,220 tons of bombs is considered the heaviest
attack and was targeted as a surface bombardment, including with fire
bombardment triggered firestorm on the inner city area. It mainly
destroyed residential areas (10,000 apartments), the hospital and
numerous cultural monuments of outstanding importance. The city
hospital, which had already been evacuated on the evening of 3 April,
moved to the Stollenanlage im Kohnstein on April 8. There were from
April 3-4 many thousands of Nordhäuser forced to flee. beyond the former
Boelcke barracks, no targets were identified as militarily or important
to the war effort. Thus the station, the airfield, the railway tracks,
the industrial enterprises and the concentration camp Dora, in which the
"retaliatory weapon 2" had been produced, remained unbroken. Heavily
damaged were the St. Blasii Church, the cathedral and the Frauenberg
Church. Destroyed were Frauenberg monastery, Neustädtische parish church
of St. Jakobi, Marktkirche St. Nikolai and St. Peter's Church (its tower
partially preserved). The remains of these buildings were demolished
after the war.
The city wall, including the partially used towers and Wiechhäuser was hit hard, the city hall destroyed to the outer walls. In large numbers, the characteristic for Nordhausen bourgeois half-timbered buildings from Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and early Classicism were destroyed. For days on end, numerous fires raged in the city centre, bombs with time-bombs exploded, and the city was under attack by low-flying aircraft. Initially only a few inhabitants tried to bury the dead or to recover their belongings. Losses of the permanent population 6,000 Losses of non-permanent population 1,500 Losses of prisoners of Boelcke barracks 1,300 8800 together The estimated number of victims of 8,800 refers only to the narrower city of Nordhausen, without the losses in the later incorporated hamlets. There are also higher estimates of over 10,000 deaths, according to the Antifa Committee in June 1945. Of the 8,800 dead, there were about 4,500 women and children.
At the beginning of April 1945 the Volkssturm made preparations to defend the city. In the Gumpe, on the Holungsbügel, on the promenade, in the enclosure and at the city entrances ditches were dug. Much of the officers and aviators sat down in the following days direction "Harz fortress". Shortly after the police and party officials left the city, the Volkssturm, decimated by the air raids, broke up. On the morning of April 11, 1945 occupied over Werther 104th US Infantry Division (1st US Army) with tank support without a fight Nordhausen. At about 11 o'clock in the heavily damaged Boelcke barracks, the soldiers struck the survivors of the concentration camp Dora-Mittelbau. About 1,200 prisoners died in the bombing of the city in the accommodation block. On the same day, the northwest concentration camp was reached. The middle factory Dora itself had never been bombed and fell to the US troops undestroyed with all secret weapons and documents in the hands. In the vicinity of the Kohnstein and in the village of Crimderode, German followers blew up bridges over the Zorge. About 200 German soldiers and suspicious persons in the city area were captured and brought together in the collective camp Rothleimmühle. In the afternoon, the official transfer of the city took place; Military Governor was Captain William A. McElroy. The military government released Nordhausen on April 12 for eight days to plunder former prisoners and foreign forced laborers. Activities of the organization Werewolf became known at the end of April and some weapons and ammunition supplies were confiscated. On May 8, 1945, the mayor appointed by the Americans, the social-democrat workers' leader Otto Flagmeyer, had to threaten the death penalty in a call to all plunderers. On May 13, a memorial service for the victims of the Boelcke barracks took place at the Ehrenfriedhof. At her all adult Nordhäuser had to participate, after which they received personal documents and food cards. Since the Nordhäuser hospitals had all been destroyed, from April 1945 an auxiliary hospital was established in Ilfeld. Also in Nordhausen prevailed in the spring of 1945, a typhoid epidemic and exacerbated the desolate situation in the city.
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| The Petriturm after the war |
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...and reconstructed
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The Horst Wessel memorial has been destroyed and old war memorial replaced since the war. On
April 11 1945, the Americans occupied the town, and on 2 July the Red
Army took over. A Special Mission V-2: US operation, by Maj. William
Bromley, meant to recover V-2 rocket parts and equipment. Major James P.
Hamill co-ordinated the rail transport of said equipment with the 144th
Motor Vehicle Assembly Company, from Nordhausen to Erfurt (Operation
Paperclip). On July 18 the Soviet administration created the Institute
Rabe to develop Soviet rocket technology on the basis of the
substantially more sophisticated V-2 rockets. In May 1946 the Institute
was subsumed into the new Institute Nordhausen, under an expanded
programme of research across the Soviet occupation zone, including a new
Institute Berlin. On October 22 1946, under Operation Osoaviakhim,
10-15,000 German scientists, engineers and their families were deported
to the Soviet Union, including around 300 from Nordhausen. Transplanted
along with their equipment, many remained there until the early 1950s.
Erfurt
1933
parade attended by Attorney-General Frick, Gauleiter Sauckel, Hitler
and Hungary's Minister-President Gömbös (the first Head of State to
visit Hitler, setting off a continuous series of state visits from
Hungary all the way up to 1945) in front of the cathedral at the
Domplatz.
In 1938, the new synagogue was destroyed during the Kristallnacht. Jews lost their property and emigrated or were deported to Nazi concentration camps (together with many communists). In 1914, the company Topf and Sons began the manufacture of crematoria later becoming the market leader in this industry. Under the Nazis, JA Topf & Sons supplied specially developed crematoria, ovens and associated plant to the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Mauthausen. On 27 January 2011 a memorial and museum dedicated to the Holocaust victims killed using Topf ovens was opened at the former company premises in Erfurt.
Hitler
signing the goldene Buch der Stadt Erfurt June 18, 1933 (and footballer
Clemens Fritz shown doing so in 2009). It was on this occasion that
Hitler declared
Just as we have taken possession of this city today, we have also overcome the Social Democratic movement as it manifested itself in Erfurt, I am particularly pleased to accept the freedom of the city with very special thanks.
SA march down the eastern part of the Schlösserstraße in 1933
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| The rathaus in 1936 and today. |
Bombed as a target of the Oil Campaign of the Second World War, Erfurt suffered
only limited damage and was captured on April 12, 1945, by the US 80th
Infantry Division. On July 3, American troops left the city, which then
became part of the Soviet Zone of Occupation and eventually of the
German Democratic Republic. In 1948, Erfurt became the capital of
Thuringia, replacing Weimar.
Nazi demonstration June 23, 1933 at the Steigerwaldstadion, built 1933; the entrance has not changed.
Eisenach
Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today with the schloss and rathaus unchanged. Eisenach once had one of the largest Jewish communities in Thuringia with nearly 500 members at the beginning of the 20th century. Many Jews migrated from the Rhön area around Stadtlengsfeld to Eisenach after their emancipation in the early 19th century. The new synagogue was built in 1885 and destroyed by the Nazis during Reichskristallnacht in November 1938. Most Jews emigrated at that time, others were deported to concentration camps and murdered there.
St. George church at Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today
The now dilapidated Fürstenhof from where Hitler spoke on October 23, 1932.
Now
the Elisabeth-Gymnasium, it was opened August 13 1939 as the Hans
Schemm School after the late Gauleiter of Bavarian Ostmark Hans Schemm.
In the Second World War , the school was among other things used as a
hospital and officers' mess. During the bombing of Eisenach, the
building was badly damaged but today still sports its Nazi imagery.
More Nazi iconography on this gate on Jakobsplan which still has its hakenkreuz from when it served the SA. Before
the Second World War, BMW had produced motorcycles in the town. In
preparation for World War II, new barracks were established in Eisenach
and the car industry started the production of military equipment. After
1940, around 4,000 forced labourers (most of them from the Soviet
Union) were pressed to work in the city's factories, where some of them
died due to the bad working conditions. Postwar, the managing director
of the BMW aircraft engine works, Dr Schaaf, told the Fedden Mission
there were as many as 11,000 working in the town, 4,500 in a plant
inside a hillside turning out BMW 132 engines and parts for the 801, the
rest in town.
The
Geschäftshaus at Lauchergasse 6-8 is another hold-out from the NS-zeit.
The Nazi-inspired iconography dates from the opening year of the war.
The bombings during the war destroyed about 2,000 housing units and big parts of the car factories, as well as some historic buildings in the city centre, which were rebuilt soon after the war. The US Army arrived in Eisenach on 6 April 1945, but the Soviets took over control of the city on 1 July 1945.
The bombings during the war destroyed about 2,000 housing units and big parts of the car factories, as well as some historic buildings in the city centre, which were rebuilt soon after the war. The US Army arrived in Eisenach on 6 April 1945, but the Soviets took over control of the city on 1 July 1945.
Altenburg
The Landestheater and Philharmonie on Adolf Hitler Platz
Nazi flags behind the Scatbrunnen in the marketplace. The Skatbrunnen was built in 1903 and is the only monument dedicated to
this game. During the war, the bronze Wenzel, the pig heads and the iron
lattice were melted down. It was not until 1955 that the sculptures
could be reconstructed although the iron grates were not replaced.
A couple of swastikas hanging from windows of the schloss with one flying from the top.
Altenburg was a stronghold of the SPD, which had formed in 1932 with the KPD a working group in the city council. After the Nazis took power heavy clashes between members of the workers' parties and the Kampfbund black and white red took place. 91 Communist officials were arrested and some were sent to concentration camps. Nevertheless, in the 1933 Reichstag elections, the candidates of the workers' parties still received more than 50 percent of the vote. On May 2 another attack took place against trade unionists and members of the workers' parties. The SPD member of parliament Erich Mäder, who had meticulously interrogated Hitler in the parliament, was mistreated for revenge by the Nazis and died as a result of his torture in January 1934. Further groups persecuted by the National Socialists were members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Wehrmachtsdeserteure and "Wehrkraftzersetzer", a total of 274 recognised 'victims of fascism', including 45 murdered or deceased persons. 96 Jewish citizens of Altenburg lost their lives through the Nazi reign of terror, with over an hundred forced to emigrate. 390 people were victims of Nazi-induced suicides.
Now a dilapidated shell of what it once was, the Preußischen Hof had been the site of a speech by Hitler given on April 11, 1926.
May Day 1933 and the site today
By the end of the war, the situation had changed completely. This 31 year old Altenburg woman is forced to support a sign reading "I am cast out of the people's community."Altenburg was a working-class city during the Weimar Republic, ruled by SPD and KPD, which led to heavy conflicts between left- and right-wing forces after 1933. The Jewish community was destroyed during Reichskristallnacht in 1938 when many Jews emigrated or were killed in the concentration camps. Furthermore, communists and invalids from Altenburg were murdered. During the war several subcamps of the Buchenwald concentration camp were located here. They provided 13,000 forced labourers for HASAG, the third largest German company to use concentration camp labour.
During the Second World War Altenburg experienced several air raids between 1940 and 1945, a total of 265 times the sirens howled. There were building damage and at least 13 dead. Between 1941 and 1945 there were several camps in the city, in which prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp and foreign prisoners of war and civilian forced laborers were housed. During this time around 13,000 prisoners worked for the defence company HASAG. A total of 431 victims are remembered at the cemetery. On April 15, 1945, US troops invaded without a fight in the city, preceded by a coup d'état by Altenburger antifascists under the leadership of the Communist Walter Fröhlich, who was appointed in July by the Soviet commander as the first mayor. The Red Army took over the region Altenburg on July 1, 1945.
Zinnwald
Schwarzburg
The
Hans Breuer Haus Youth Hostel. It was in Schwarzburg that on August
11, 1919, whilst on holiday, Friedrich Ebert — the first Reichspräsident
of Germany — signed the Weimar constitution, the first democratic
constitution of Germany.
It was in Schwarzburg on August 11, 1919, whilst on holiday, that Friedrich Ebert — the first Reichspräsident of Germany — signed the Weimar constitution, the first democratic constitution of Germany.
It was in Schwarzburg on August 11, 1919, whilst on holiday, that Friedrich Ebert — the first Reichspräsident of Germany — signed the Weimar constitution, the first democratic constitution of Germany.
Saalfeld
Blankenburger Straße sporting swastikas and today. During the war 1,491 prisoners of war, as well as women and men from the countries occupied by Germany, mainly from the Soviet Union, had to carry out forced labour: at the optical station 99, at the SAG 99, at the Mecano works, at Mitteldeutsche Elektro, at the Max Schaede company, at Auerbach & Scheibe, at the working group of the Saaletalsperre in Hohenwarte, at the company Paschold, Döger & Co., the Mauxion chocolate factory, Adolf Knoch, Paul Eberlein Söhne, Gustav Bodenstein and the company Railroad In the cemetery, a Soviet memorial was built in 1947 with 68 gravestones and three memorial plaques. In memory of the victims of the death march of Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945, a stele was erected at the Schloßstraße / Auf dem Graben junction in 1985. In 2008 ten Stolpersteine for Jewish victims of the Nazis in Saalfeld were set up.
Bruderstrasse from both directions
From 1936 to 1945, Saalfeld was the garrison town of the Wehrmacht. 819 Saalfelder citizens were killed as soldiers. The city had been severely damaged by bombardments towards the end of the Second World War, the main focus being on the extensive railway installations. In an American air attack on Monday, April 9, 1945, the bombshell of the six attacks of six to seven airplanes, or of their guns, of at least 208 people, which had begun shortly before 9:00 pm and continued until 19:00. Victims were mostly women and children, military personnel, wounded in a hospital train station and railway staff. In addition there were countless injured people. According to surveys by the town administration, this attack destroyed 22 houses, bombing 146 apartments and damaging them. This resulted in a damage of 7.5 million Reichsmark, which caused more than 1,300 bombs with an explosive force of 500 to 1,000 pounds as well as the fires. The railway station, an important transport hub, and the industrial area (Altsaalfeld) near the railway station were severely bombed. An air raid attack at 8:20 clock also brought the production in the Maxhütte to a halt, because the energy supply centre was hit completely. Old-town buildings have also been affected: the Johanneskirche, the Franciscan Monastery (Stadtmuseum), the Saalfeld Palace, the Kitzerstein Castle, the Saaltor and the Town Hall. On April 12, American troops were on the outskirts of the city; on the 13th of April, in the morning, Saalfeld was handed over to the Americans by the acting mayor. Previously, on the 12th and 13th of April, all the bridges of the town and surrounding area had been blown up by the Wehrmacht.Schleiz
The little railway station sporting a swastika and today
Greiz
The Oberere Schloss from Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today
Platz der SA and today, Westernhagenplatz
Gera
During the German Revolution of 1918–19, the prince of Reuss had to abdicate and the state became a democracy – the Republic of Reuss, which joined the new founded state of Thuringia in 1920. After the incorporation of some suburbs in the 1910s and 1920s, Gera with its 80,000 inhabitants was the biggest city in what was Thuringia at this time (without Erfurt), nevertheless the more central located Weimar became its capital. After the Nazis' takeover, the Jewish community of Gera was destroyed, the synagogue burnt down in the Kristallnacht in 1938 and the Jews emigrated or were murdered in the concentration camps. Aerial bombing destroyed some parts of the city on April 6, 1945. Three hundred buildings were hit, including the former residence Osterstein castle and some historic buildings in city centre. Many of them weren't rebuilt after the war. The Americans occupied Gera on 14 April 1945 and were replaced by the Soviets on the first of July 1945.
Hitler in Gera September 1, 1931. Randall Bytwerk has provided a translated copy of the Illustrierter Beobachter's September 26 article “Deutschland erwacht! Der Freiheitstag in Gera” about this September 5-6 Nazi rally on his German Propaganda Archive page. Hitler returned in June 1934 just before launching the so-called Night of the Long Knives:
Addressing the Party faithful in Gera, Hitler attacked the ‘little pygmies’ who were trying to stop the victory of the Nazi idea. ‘It is ridiculous when such a little worm tries to fight such a powerful renewal of the people. Ridiculous, when such a little pygmy fancies himself capable of obstructing the gigantic renewal of the people with a few empty phrases.’ The clenched fist of the people, he threatened, would ‘smash anyone who dares to make even the slightest attempt at sabotage’Richard J. Evans The Third Reich in Power
The town hall with Nazi flags in the kornmark on the left and theatre on the right. On August 6, 1944, the theatre was closed due to the war and eventually
bombed on April 6 1945, the worst Allied bombing of the war on Gera.
Already on September 15th 1945 by decision of the Soviet city commander
the theatre reopened with Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. By November of
1945, the theatre was forcibly renamed the Reußischen Theaters.
The Tonhalle on Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today
The Handelshof during the 19th Sängerfest (Festival of Song) in 1935
The Handelshof during the 19th Sängerfest (Festival of Song) in 1935
The Biermann department store during the boycott of Jewish businesses organised April 1, 1933. It would become "aryanised" by the end of 1935. In front of the site today are stolpersteine for the members of the Biermann family who would be murdered in front of the former site of the Biermann department store at Johannisplatz.
From October 16, 1925 until January 24, 1946, what is now Ernst-Toller-Straße was named Hindenburgstraße.
The hakenkreuz flying above the town from Schloss Osterstein
Schloss Osterstein before the Great War and today
The central train station before the war and today
Schmölln
The rathaus flying Nazi flags. Under the authority of Saxon Minister of Justice Otto Thierack on July 31, 1933, Schmölln citizen Alwin Engelhardt was hired as "Saxon Scharfrichter." The execution of every death sentence was rewarded with 350 Reichsmarks, with several concurrent executions - for the future - allowig each further one with 150 reichsmarks. The Schmöllner address book of 1910 named Engelhardt as managing director of a shop at the Kemnitzgrund. The Communist resistance fighter Alfred Nitzsche from Schmölln died October 1944 in the Zuchthaus Ludwigsburg after five years of imprisonment. The Alfred-Nitzsche-Strasse is named after him. During the Second World War more than 300 forced labourers were employed in the hotel "Deutscher Kaiser." On April 13, 1945, the Schmollner citizens handed over the city to the 76th US Infantry Division and the 6th Panzer Division. These were used in Schmölln as occupying troops until July 1, 1945. This is today comemorated with a memorial stone. The Americans handed over the occupation to Soviet forces in July 1945.
Weida
Egendorf (Blankenhain)
The
Thüringische Staatsschule für Führertum und Politik flying the swastika
and today. It served as an ideological school for the NSDAP when
established in 1933 and was open to doctors, lawyers, teachers, military
leaders, et cet.
Zeulenroda
The town hall during the Nazi era and today. In the city council elections of December 4, 1932, the Nazis won nine out of 25 seats. During and after the war many refugees came to the city, especially after the bombing. The high-frequency laboratory of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt under its head Adolf Scheibe had been relocated to Zeulenroda with the onset of the surface bombardment. In an attack by the US Air Force on Zeulenroda on March 17, 1945, eight were killed. On April 16, 1945 the United States Army took over Zeulenroda without a battle. On July 1 the Red Army occupied the town. In 1949 Zeulenroda and Triebes became a part of the German Democratic Republic. After German reunification in 1990, the Free State of Thuringia was reestablished. Zeulenroda merged with Triebes in 2006 and so the new name of the town is Zeulenroda-Triebes. On their departure from Thuringia, the Americans evacuated the high-frequency laboratory, including its employees and their families, to Heidelberg.
Zeulenroda
Nazis commemorating the town's 500th anniversary.
Wasungen
Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now. During the Nazi era at least ten of Wasungen's inhabitants were victims of forced sterilisation. During the Second World War, 130 prisoners of war, military internees and women and men from the countries occupied by Germany had to endure forced labour in Wasungen. 295 persons died in the hospital in the prison. A memorial stone erected on the Hungerberg in 1948 commemorates the Soviet victims of the camp whilst an obelisk and another memorial stone are in the cemetery.
Masserberg
The Kurhaus overlooking what had been Adolf-Hitler-Park, now completely dilapidated.
Quittelsberg
The
Quittelsberg is a 709 metre high mountain in the Thuringian Slate
Mountains in the district Saalfeld-Rudolstadt. The summit of the wooded
hill is a designated nature reserve, where the ruins of a tower built
from June 1933 stand on a stone base- a tower named after Hitler with a
swastika affixed. The observation deck was a skyward closed hand. The
tower was inaugurated on May 13, 1934 in the presence of the then Reich
governor of Thuringia and Reichstag member Fritz Sauckel, who in 1946
was executed as a war criminal. The tower was destroyed October 1949 on
the orders of the Russian occupying powers; of the wooden tower today
only the base remains.
Meiningen
A mass Nazi Party rally in the marktplatz in 1932. Hitler had given a speech in Meiningen on March 19, 1921.
Meiningen
A mass Nazi Party rally in the marktplatz in 1932. Hitler had given a speech in Meiningen on March 19, 1921.
Another Nazi demonstration outside the rundbau of schloß Elisabethenburg. The three-storey round building connects the ends of the southern and northern wings in a semicircle and borders the courtyard of the schloß. Up to 1920 the ministries of the Duchy and the Free State of Saxony-Meiningen were accommodated, since the destruction of the Town Hall in February 1945, it is the headquarters of the city administration. The central arched gateway forms the main entrance to the castle ensemble. On the ground floor north of the gate, the city set up a citizen's office. South of this, the ground floor is occupied by a restaurant. During the war Meiningen was the site of a prisoner of war hospital, and several German military hospitals. The Deutsche Dienststelle was based in the Drachenbergkaserne barracks from 1943 to 1945. A heavy air raid on Meiningen on February 23 1945, by the USAAF caused 208 deaths, destroyed 251 houses and two bridges in total, and damaged 440 buildings. Meiningen was occupied by American armed forces on 5 April 1945.
Brunnhartshausen
The Gasthof Katzenstein then and now
Sonneberg
Built
in 1927, within six years of the Nazis' seizure of power, the décor
within the town rathaus still incorporates swastikas. In a blatant
attempt to offset its uncomfortable history, its façade sported a shield
of David over Christmas whilst keeping the hakenkreuzen.
At the beginning of Nazi era residents were persecuted for political, racial and religious reasons, imprisoned with imprisonment or penalties or deported to concentration camps. Among them was the co-founder of the KPD locality group Otto Bergner in Köppelsdorf, who was arrested many times before being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp and finally transferred to the concentration camp commando Witten-Annen, where he was killed in March 1945. A street name commemorates him. Adolf Wicklein, who was sentenced to death by the National Court of Justice and executed in the court of the Weimar district court for providing humanitarian aid to escaped Soviet prisoners of war, is also recalled through a street which had been renamed since then in Marienstrasse. In Köppelsdorf there was also resistance from Protestant churches against the Nazi regime, especially against the German-Christian church leadership. The pastor Reinhard Metz sat down with sermons and letters for preached priests. A member of the Confessing Church (BK) provided a room in their factory building Friedrichstraße 38 for confessional church youth work. The Jews of the city suffered anti-Semitic persecution and deportation, which brought them into the emigration or the extermination camps, which few survived. Between 1934 and 1943, 687 women and men from Sonneberg and surrounding areas were victims of forced sterilisation.
During the Second World War, about 4300 men and women, mainly from the Soviet Union, but also many other nations occupied by Germany, had to work mainly in armaments production: in the Thuringian gear trains, at Siemens-Schuckert (SSW) in Oberlind, in the companies Louis Siegel, JC Eckardt and Kopp & Solonot. In the KZ Buchenwald Auskommando Sonneberg concentration camp opened in September 1944 at the Reinhardt works site in Hallstrasse 39 an average of 400 mostly Jews-Polish / Hungarian detainees worked under conditions that were unsuitable for men. Many prisoners were killed on the death row in the direction of today's Czech Republic. Along the two routes were installed in 1982, at the instigation of the SED Kreisleitung Sonneberg metal panels which remind them of them.
The so-called Lutherhaus, shown flying the Nazi flag. It has since been ascertained that despite earlier claims, Luther could never have stayed here given the later age of the building. On February 16, 1945 an air attack from 23 American flying fortresses B-17 dropped 800 bombs (half of them fire bombs, the other high-explosive explosive bombs) onto Sonneberg. A residential area adjacent to the railways received the most hits. 28 civilians died and dozens suffered serious injuries. Had not many bombs fallen on open ground, more victims would have been recorded. After the war Soviet military tribunals sentenced to death 21 juveniles aged 15 and over from 1946-47 in Sonneberg as being members of the so-called "Werwolf" resistance movement or to long-term work-bearing fines. Ten of the youths were killed in special Soviet camps. A total of 77 juveniles were condemned, of whom 8 were shot, 30 died in camps. The three young men who were sentenced to death because of their supposed membership in the werewolf organisation were rehabilitated by the Russian authorities during the 1990s. Also rehabilitated was also pensioner Martin Albin, who was sentenced to death in 1946 because of the alleged production and distribution of leaflets and the visit of anti-Soviet assemblies. Other death sentences must be regarded as highly arbitrary.
Bad Klosterlausnitz
The Hotel Herzog Ernst flying the Nazi flag and Gasthof Friedrichshofthen and now
In an astonishing online marketing campaign by Kristall Sauna Wellnesspark, a spa in Bad Klosterlausnitz, guests were invited to take part in a “long, romantic Kristallnacht”—on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, a violent pogrom during which Nazis shattered the windows of Jewish businesses, raided homes, and lit synagogues on fire throughout Germany- with candles placed all over the baths.
The hotel owners eventually apologised for their “insensitive naming of this event,” which they admitted had been “extremely inappropriate.” They explained that they frequently tag part of their name, “Kristall,” onto their events. “We are extraordinarily regretful and of course this was unintentional; believe us, we are quite ashamed about our mistake,” the statement said. They changed the name of the special event to “the long romantic night.” Some who posted screenshots of the ad made crude jokes about the wellness center being a “Heil Bad,” or spa with hot springs, playing on the Nazi Heil Hitler salute.
Kahla
In 1944, a construction project was commenced by Nazi Germany to convert the former sand mines at the Walpersberg to a bomb-proof underground factory for the production of the Messerschmitt Me 262. These jet-powered Messerschmitt 262A had two Junkers 004 jets, each making 1,980 pounds of thrust, mounted under the wings. Top speed was 540 miles per hour over a range of 420 miles. Armament was limited to four 30-mm can- non. The aircraft was designed primarily to attack Allied bombers, which it did very effectively.
To achieve this, the existing tunnel system was extended to 30 km by the use of over 12,000 forced labourers from Italy and Eastern Europe, and a further 3,000 skilled workers. Conversion of the former sand mines into the aircraft factory led to construction of a runway at the top of the Walpersberg, with the first aircraft taking off on 21 February 1945. Had the aircraft been introduced earlier and in much greater numbers, its impact on the air war. However, Eventually only around 20 or 30 completed aircraft left the facility prior to the end of the war. The first group of forced labourers were housed here in the RAD Arbeitsdienstlager Kahla-Thüringen which had been converted from the Rosengarten guesthouse t which it returned after the war.
At the beginning of Nazi era residents were persecuted for political, racial and religious reasons, imprisoned with imprisonment or penalties or deported to concentration camps. Among them was the co-founder of the KPD locality group Otto Bergner in Köppelsdorf, who was arrested many times before being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp and finally transferred to the concentration camp commando Witten-Annen, where he was killed in March 1945. A street name commemorates him. Adolf Wicklein, who was sentenced to death by the National Court of Justice and executed in the court of the Weimar district court for providing humanitarian aid to escaped Soviet prisoners of war, is also recalled through a street which had been renamed since then in Marienstrasse. In Köppelsdorf there was also resistance from Protestant churches against the Nazi regime, especially against the German-Christian church leadership. The pastor Reinhard Metz sat down with sermons and letters for preached priests. A member of the Confessing Church (BK) provided a room in their factory building Friedrichstraße 38 for confessional church youth work. The Jews of the city suffered anti-Semitic persecution and deportation, which brought them into the emigration or the extermination camps, which few survived. Between 1934 and 1943, 687 women and men from Sonneberg and surrounding areas were victims of forced sterilisation.
During the Second World War, about 4300 men and women, mainly from the Soviet Union, but also many other nations occupied by Germany, had to work mainly in armaments production: in the Thuringian gear trains, at Siemens-Schuckert (SSW) in Oberlind, in the companies Louis Siegel, JC Eckardt and Kopp & Solonot. In the KZ Buchenwald Auskommando Sonneberg concentration camp opened in September 1944 at the Reinhardt works site in Hallstrasse 39 an average of 400 mostly Jews-Polish / Hungarian detainees worked under conditions that were unsuitable for men. Many prisoners were killed on the death row in the direction of today's Czech Republic. Along the two routes were installed in 1982, at the instigation of the SED Kreisleitung Sonneberg metal panels which remind them of them.
The so-called Lutherhaus, shown flying the Nazi flag. It has since been ascertained that despite earlier claims, Luther could never have stayed here given the later age of the building. On February 16, 1945 an air attack from 23 American flying fortresses B-17 dropped 800 bombs (half of them fire bombs, the other high-explosive explosive bombs) onto Sonneberg. A residential area adjacent to the railways received the most hits. 28 civilians died and dozens suffered serious injuries. Had not many bombs fallen on open ground, more victims would have been recorded. After the war Soviet military tribunals sentenced to death 21 juveniles aged 15 and over from 1946-47 in Sonneberg as being members of the so-called "Werwolf" resistance movement or to long-term work-bearing fines. Ten of the youths were killed in special Soviet camps. A total of 77 juveniles were condemned, of whom 8 were shot, 30 died in camps. The three young men who were sentenced to death because of their supposed membership in the werewolf organisation were rehabilitated by the Russian authorities during the 1990s. Also rehabilitated was also pensioner Martin Albin, who was sentenced to death in 1946 because of the alleged production and distribution of leaflets and the visit of anti-Soviet assemblies. Other death sentences must be regarded as highly arbitrary. 
The hotel owners eventually apologised for their “insensitive naming of this event,” which they admitted had been “extremely inappropriate.” They explained that they frequently tag part of their name, “Kristall,” onto their events. “We are extraordinarily regretful and of course this was unintentional; believe us, we are quite ashamed about our mistake,” the statement said. They changed the name of the special event to “the long romantic night.” Some who posted screenshots of the ad made crude jokes about the wellness center being a “Heil Bad,” or spa with hot springs, playing on the Nazi Heil Hitler salute.
Kahla
To achieve this, the existing tunnel system was extended to 30 km by the use of over 12,000 forced labourers from Italy and Eastern Europe, and a further 3,000 skilled workers. Conversion of the former sand mines into the aircraft factory led to construction of a runway at the top of the Walpersberg, with the first aircraft taking off on 21 February 1945. Had the aircraft been introduced earlier and in much greater numbers, its impact on the air war. However, Eventually only around 20 or 30 completed aircraft left the facility prior to the end of the war. The first group of forced labourers were housed here in the RAD Arbeitsdienstlager Kahla-Thüringen which had been converted from the Rosengarten guesthouse t which it returned after the war.
