Heilbronn
In front of the town hall in July 2022 and when it was bedecked in swastikas. Richard
Drauz became Heilbronn's Kreisleiter in 1932. He was also elected to
the Reichstag from 1933 on (when the town voted 31.6% Nazi- considerably
lower than the national average) and pushed hard for the
Gleichschaltung of the Heilbronn clubs and press in Nazi Germany. On
March 7, 1933, the SPD-newspaper "Neckar-Echo" was last published with
the title "Forbidden"; the printing shop on the site of a shopping
centre today was occupied on March 12 and made to print the Nazis'
"Heilbronner Tagblatt." The Nazi takeover was celebrated for the first
time on March 16, 1933 in the town council in which only 17 of its thirty
town councillors were present after three KPD city councils were
deprived of their office, two SPD councillors beaten and prevented from entering
the town hall, and eight forced into protective custody. On that date
applications such as the renaming the alley Adolf-Hitler-Allee were
accepted whilst nevertheless refusing to deprive the Jewish lawyer Max
Rosengart and Jewish city councillor Siegfried Gumbel of their honorary
citizenship.
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The town hall sporting swastikas and today |
In front of the Nazi eagle still remaining on Rosenberg Bridge; the other side as another eagle with the date 1939-1939.
In front of an example of the the only wartime high-rise bunker in Heilbronn located
at the Theresienwiese and a similar type from Rüsselsheim for
comparison. It was built by Dyckerhoff & Widmann on behalf of the
Air District Command VII (Munich) in October 1940. Clad with sandstone
on the outside, the municipal slaughterhouse was intended to be the main
user, which is surprising given the very military equipment of the
building.Of the ten floors, six were designed as crew rooms for 42 men
each. Each of these crew rooms was equipped with two toilets, a sink,
three bunk beds with three floors and lockers. On the lowest floor was
the filter and ventilation system, a water pressure boiler with a well,
two diesel tanks and a 50 HP diesel unit from MAN. The generated
voltages of 400 volts and 62 volts were converted using a separate
transformer. The entrances were on the second and third floors and were
accessible via stairs and a catwalk leading across the street to the
slaughterhouse. In the event of an air alarm, the building could
accommodate around a thousand people. After the war it served as
emergency accommodation for a short time before it was closed in 1948.
In
1940 allied air raids began, and the city and its surrounding area were
hit about 20 times with minor damage. On September 10, 1944, a raid by
the allies targeted the city specifically, in particular the Böckingen
train transfer station. As a result of 1,168 bombs dropped that day, 281
residents died. The city was carpet-bombed from the southern quarter
all the way to the Kilianskirche in the centre of town. The church was
burnt out. The catastrophe for Heilbronn was the bombing raid on
December 4, 1944. During that raid the city centre was completely
destroyed and the surrounding boroughs heavily damaged. Within one half
hour 6,500 residents perished, most incinerated beyond recognition. Of
those, 5,000 were later buried in mass graves in the Ehrenfriedhof
(cemetery of honour) in the valley of the Köpfer creek close to the
city. A memorial continues to be held annually in memory of those that
died that day. As a result of the war Heilbronn's population shrank to
46,350. After a ten-day battle, with the allies advancing over the
strategically important Neckar crossings, the war ended for the
destroyed city, and it was occupied by the Americans on April 12, 1945.
Local Nazi leader Drauz became a fugitive because of executions of
American prisoners of war he had ordered in March 1945. He was
eventually arrested, tried, and hanged by the Allies in Landsberg on
December 4, 1946.
The
Nazi flag flying atop the Kiliansturm for the first time January 30-31,
1933 and the resulting damage to Kilianskirche after the war. Already
on September 10, 1944, the roofs of the choir, the northern side nave
and the sacristy were destroyed by fire bombs during an American air
attack. On October 12, 1944, an airmine destroyed the windows, parts of
the chimneys, the southern spiral staircase, and part of the the high
altar. On December 4, 1944, the church was almost completely destroyed
during the air attack on Heilbronn. The western tower and the northern
Chorturm burned out, whilst the choir with net vault, the gallery and
the organ were completely destroyed. In April 1945, strong American
artillery fire continued to inflict further damage, particularly on the
West Front.
As of today, anti-Semitism has made reappearance, especially with the huge influx of Muslims by the Merkel government with the latest attack occurring at 21.45 on Christmas Eve 2017 when the three-metre-high Hanukkah Menorah in the alley of Synagogengasse had been vandalised with several lamps and their glass cartouches knocked off.
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As of today, anti-Semitism has made reappearance, especially with the huge influx of Muslims by the Merkel government with the latest attack occurring at 21.45 on Christmas Eve 2017 when the three-metre-high Hanukkah Menorah in the alley of Synagogengasse had been vandalised with several lamps and their glass cartouches knocked off.
Schwäbisch Gmünd
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In
1933 there were ninety Jews recorded as living in Schwäbisch Gmünd,
which corresponds to 0.4% of the total of 20,131 inhabitants. Already
the year before SA propaganda parades called out "Germany awake - Judah
verrecke!" in the town's streets. Between 1936 and 1938 all Jewish shops
were forced to close, either sold off at knock-down prices or simpy
forced out. The interior of the synagogue was demolished as early as
1934. By 1939 there were still 22 Jewish inhabitants who were forced
into special "Jewish houses" at the beginning of the war located at
Königsturmstrasse 18 and Becherlehenstrasse 1/2. Eventually they would
be forced into the "Lülligdorf", a basic settlement for homeless people
from the 1920s on Mutlanger Strasse. From here the remaining Jewish
residents were transported to the extermination camps.
Just before Gmünd was
taken by the Americans on April 20, 1945- Hitler's birthday- without
bloodshed, Nazi
district leader Oppenländer fled along with his colleagues- but not
before committing acts of terror against their own population as Ian
Kershaw relates in The End:
In Schwäbisch Gmünd, a small town in Württemberg not far from Stuttgart, the Kreisleiter and combat commandant had two men executed just before midnight on 19 April, hours before the Americans entered the town without a fight. One of the men was known to have been an opponent of the Nazis since 1933, when he had been arrested for distributing anti‑Nazi pamphlets and returned from his stay in a concentration camp a changed person, psychiatrically disturbed. The other was a former soldier, no longer fit to fight after a serious injury. In a heated argument about handing over the city or fighting on, with the certainty of the destruction of the lovely town with its beautiful medieval minster, they had been heard to shout, probably under the influence of alcohol, ‘Drop dead Hitler. Long live Stauffenberg. Long live freedom.’ The two were removed from their police cells late at night, taken to a wood at the edge of the town and shot dead. The local Nazi representatives were ensuring, with their last act of power, that long‑standing opponents would not live to enjoy their downfall. Even as the executions were taking place, the Kreisleiter and his entourage were preparing to flee from the town.
Under Lieutenant Mortimer, the Americans immediately set up
their military government, which consisted of eight officers and fifteen
soldiers, initially at Villa Koehler. They had unrestricted authority
to issue instructions to the German authorities and the head of the tax
office, Emil Rudolph, was appointed acting mayor and the operations
manager of the Deyhle company, Konrad Burkhardt, was appointed district
administrator. In addition to supplying the population with food and
energy, the repatriation of the now liberated forced labourers posed a
major problem as many used their new freedom to plunder isolated farms.
Around ten thousand Poles, Balts and Ukrainians were housed in the two
barracks and in Gotteszell- a women’s prison on the grounds of a monastery- before being repatriated. Above all the
Americans saw their most important task in denazification, through which
all officials, who usually had to be members of the Nazi Party, were
automatically arrested, so that around 100,000 people were held in
internment camps throughout the American zone. In March 1946, the
denazification was placed into German hands and those affected had to
answer before the ruling chambers in a court-like procedure.
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At the bath complex near Schirenhof fort a mile away, shown in 2008
and when I visited in 2021. The fort itself had been built around 150
CE halfway up a mountain spur with a view over the Rems to the Rhaetian
Limes. This structure had been excavated for the first time in 1893 and
was opened to the public in 1975 in this restored condition after new
excavations carried out during urbanisation. These excavations showed
that the Cohors I Flavia Raetorum, named on brick stamps and the
fragment of a genius statue, had been the main troop unit garrisoned
here after having been transferred either from Eislingen-Salach or
another unidentified fort in Raetia. Shortly after 247 at the latest,
the last soldiers left the place based on the evidence from Roman coins
discovered here in the fort’s bath.
Aalen
Aalen's
market square on Hitler's 50th birthday, 1939. In the Reichstag
election on November 6, 1932, the Nazis performed well below average in Aalen, receiving 25.8 percent of the vote compared to 33.1% in the rest
of the country, making it only the second strongest party in Aalen after
the Centre Party which had received 26.6 (compared to a mere 11.9 %
nationally) and ahead of the SPD's 19.8%. However, by the time of the
next national election on March 5, 1933, the picture had changed; whilst
the Nazis still performed below average with 34.1 percent compared to
43.9% nationally, it now became by far the strongest party in Aalen as
well and the Central and SPD parties' results remained unchanged. At the
beginning of the Nazi era, the democratically elected mayor Friedrich
Schwarz remained in office until he was ousted by the Nazis in the
council's first meeting of 1934 when SA-Sturmbannführer and member of the parliamentary group, Fridolin Schmid declared "[t]he
city is [now] ours and not yours, Lord Mayor!" He was replaced first by
the chairman of the Nazi Party council group and brewery owner Karl
Barth as administrator and later by lawyer Dr. Karl Schübel. After the
war as part of the denazification process, Schübel was classified in the
second instance in the group of followers. Nevertheless, in May 1950,
he was elected Lord Mayor of the Aalen with 87% of the votes cast from
from among three applicants, with a turnout of 81%. Election posters of
an opposing candidate, Peter Lahnstein, had been smeared with anti-Semitic slogans because of his Jewish descent.
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In
August 1934, the Nazi consumer exhibition Braune Messe took place in
Aalen. This was primarily intended to serve as a platform for local
handicrafts to present themselves and their products. Similar events had
already been held in Nördlingen and Schwäbisch Gmünd during the year.
In 1936, a riding and driving school for the military was stationed in
the city, an army supplies office and an ancillary equipment office were
set up and housed an ancillary army ammunition facility. In 1935, the
incorporation of neighbouring towns began. In the town's hospital, the
deaconesses who had previously worked there were increasingly being
replaced by sisters of the National Socialist People's Welfare. At the
same time in the course of the Nazis' so-called racial hygiene
programme, around 200 people were forcibly sterilised there; three are recorded on the town's stolpersteine as having been murdered in the T-4 euthanasia programme.
In
September 1944, the Wiesendorf concentration camp, a satellite camp of
the Natzweiler/Alsace concentration camp, was set up in Wasseralfingen
for 200 to 300 prisoners who had to do forced labour in industrial
companies in the area. By the time the camp was closed in February 1945,
sixty prisoners had died. Between 1946 to 1957 the warehouse buildings
were demolished although I was able to still see its foundations still
in place on Moltkestrasse 44/46 as seen on the left. In addition,
prisoners of war as well as women and men from countries occupied by
Germany were concentrated in several labour camps who were forced to
work for the armaments industry in large companies such as the Swabian
ironworks and the Alfing Keßler machine factory.
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At
the staff building, the principia, with a modern statue of Hadrian
despite the fort being built during the 160s as part of the military
reorganisation and expansion of Marcus Aurelius; the dendrochronological
records fall in the period between 159 and 172. An impressive number of
sixteen building inscriptions have been found from Aalen, all datable
to the Severan dynasty. The fort was operational until the middle of the
3rd century and evidence from coins indicates that the fort was
destroyed following the reign of Aemilian, in the years after 253/254,
although there have been two disputable coins issued under Emperors Valerian and Gallienus that have also been found.
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Konstanz am Bodensee
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As
early as 1933, SA men prevented visitors to Jewish shops and medical
practices from entering. Signs on benches, shops, inns and at the Horn
outdoor swimming pool excluded Jews from use and visiting. The
systematic persecution of the Jews began in 1935 with the Nuremberg
Laws. Jews then sold their residential and commercial buildings at low
value and emigrated. From 1938, "Aryanisation sales" were only possible
with state approval, after the deportation in 1940 the property was
expropriated and auctioned. On
October 22, 1940, 110 Jews from Constance were deported to the Gurs
concentration camp in southern France, the last eight to Riga, Izbica
and Theresienstadt from 1941 to 1944. A
Reich flight tax of 25% was levied. In the first arson attack on the
Konstanz synagogue in 1936, the building was saved by the volunteer fire
brigade. The damaged seven Torah scrolls were buried in the Jewish
cemetery. On the Reichskristallnacht the Konstanz synagogue was set on
fire by members of the Allgemeine ϟϟ, section XIX Konstanz, under ϟϟ
senior leader Walter Stein. The fire department was not allowed to fight
the fire this time. On the contrary, attempts were made to open the
synagogue's roof hatches in order to give the fire better traction. The
synagogue was then blown up by the ϟϟ disposal force III./ϟϟ standard
Germania from Radolfzell and sixteen male Jews were brought to the
Dachau concentration camp. A Jewish property tax was levied in 1938.
Until 1939, some families in Constance managed to escape to Switzerland,
British Palestine, England, the USA, Argentina and Asian countries. The
Swiss cantons of Lake Constance sealed themselves off. 433 Jews lived
in Constance in 1933, 120 in 1940. On the evening of November 8, 1939,
Georg Elser was arrested in Constance when he tried to flee to
Switzerland after having previously placed a bomb in Munich to kill
Adolf Hitler. Jews, prisoners of war, forced labourers and German
deserters attempted to flee the Saubach. Escaping by jumping over the
Saubach was possible until 1938. From the end of 1939, a border fence
was erected on the Swiss side from Kreuzlinger Zoll to the Wiesenstrasse
crossing and from the railway line to the lake to prevent refugees.
Weingarten
The Basilica of St. Martin and Oswald. During Nazi Germany Weingarten
was incorporated into Ravensburg; after the war, the rival cities were
separated again.
Schloss Sigmaringen
Following
the Anglo-American liberation of France, the French Regime was moved from
France into Schloss Sigmaringen. The princely family was forced by the
Gestapo out of the castle and moved to Schloss Wilflingen. The French
authors Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Lucien Rebatet, who had written
political and anti-semitic works, fled to
Sigmaringen with the Vichy government. Céline's 1957 novel D'un château
l'autre, describes the end of the war and the fall of Sigmaringen on April 22, 1945 and was made into a German movie in 2006, called Die Finsternis. Relocated to
Sigmaringen in the summer of 1944, the Vichy government no
longer had any relevance. On September 7, fleeing the advance of the Allied troops in France whilst
Germany was in flames and the Vichy regime no longer existed, a
thousand French collaborators (including an hundred officials, a few
hundred members of the French militia and militants of the
collaborationist parties and the editorial staff of the journal Je suis partout), came here. Pétain and Laval were led away according to what they said had been
"against their will" by the Germans in their retreat in August 1944 and
resided there until April 1945. The government commission, chaired by
Fernand de Brinon and supposed to incarnate the continuity of the
Vichy regime, was formed, composed of former members of the Vichy
governments, but some who followed Petain to Sigmaringen refused to
participate. Visitors were
even obliged to present a piece of identification, since they were
entering French territory. This "Sigmaringen government" lasted until
April 1945. Petain, his suite, and his ministers, though on "strike," lodged in the castle whilst the rest were housed in schools and gymnasiums, transformed into dormitories, and in the few guest rooms and
hotels in the city, such as the Bären or Löwen, which received the most
prestigious guests, including the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline in the
book D'un château l'autre. The exiles in the city's shanty houses were
hardly able to live in summer, but especially in the winter under the
rumbling of Anglo-American bombs and an intense cold which reached -30°C in December 1944. On the approach of the Allies in April 1945, most of them
exiled themselves: Petain was taken by the Germans in a fashion to the
Swiss border, Laval fled to Spain, Brinon took refuge in the
surroundings of Innsbruck, whilst others found refuge in Northern Italy.
Postwar, some 10,000 French were executed for collaboration with the Germans, including Laval. Pétain, stripped of his rank, was condemned to death, but de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life in prison. Despite de Gaulle’s ridiculous efforts to cast France during the war as a nation of resisters, the four-year-long Vichy regime left a legacy of shame and controversy that still shames France today.
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Postwar, some 10,000 French were executed for collaboration with the Germans, including Laval. Pétain, stripped of his rank, was condemned to death, but de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life in prison. Despite de Gaulle’s ridiculous efforts to cast France during the war as a nation of resisters, the four-year-long Vichy regime left a legacy of shame and controversy that still shames France today.
Ravensburg
Irving
in Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich (30) writes how Goebbels played "the huge cathedral organ" in the cathedral shown in the
background in 1918 for two other students he had travelled the area
with. During the war, Ravensburg was strategically of no relevance.
Ravensburg did not harbour any noteworthy arms industry (unlike nearby
Friedrichshafen with its large aircraft industry), but was home to a big
aid supplies centre belonging to the Swiss Red Cross; so no air raid
destroyed the historic city centre. During
the Nazi era 691 patients from the Weißenau psychiatric clinic were
murdered as victims of "euthanasia." The Sinti resident in the city were
first interned in the Gypsy Forced Labour Camp, thirty-six Sinti were
deported in 1943 with 29 of them murdered in Auschwitz. The few Jews who
had settled in Ravensburg had been forced to flee with some murdered as
victims of the Holocaust.
The town hall then and now, with Nazi functionaries in front of the entrance in 1938 and today
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Nazis
intimidating those thinking of shopping at the Jewish-owned Kaufhaus
Landauer, and stolperstein at the site today, remembering the murdered
Landauers.
Böblingen
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Flughafen
Böblingen. On April 9, 1932 Hitler spoke at this airport that was later
used by the USAAF after the war. Some buildings remain, on the right is
the reception building dating from 1925. During the First World War, the Böblingen military airfield was inaugurated on August
16, 1915. Subsequently, it was of decisive importance for the further
development of the town that Böblingen became the seat of the
Landesflughafen for Württemberg in 1925 making Böblingen the "Brücke zur
Welt" (bridge to the world).
At the end of the airfield, Böschinger aviation pioneer Hanns Klemm set
up his company "Leichtflugzeugbau Klemm" at the end of 1926. Until the
war, this became the most important industrial city in the region.
The St. Dionysius church in 1943 and today. The air attack by Allied air forces in the night of October
7-8 1943 destroyed most of the old town with the town church, the castle and
the town hall. There were many dead and injured. Through this and other
bombings, about 40 per cent of the built-up area had been destroyed
during warfare and nearly 2,000 people were homeless.
Hardheim
The schlossplatz in front of what is now the Erfatal-Museum
Ludwigsburg
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The courtyard in use by the Wehrmacht and today. In 1921, Ludwigsburg became the largest garrison in southwest Germany.
The synagogue in the town was destroyed by the Nazis during Reichskristallnacht,
the pogrom of November 1938. Two years later the Nazi propaganda film,
Jud Süß, was filmed in Ludwigsburg. The film was based on a historical
figure, Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, who was executed in Stuttgart in 1738;
Oppenheimer lived in Ludwigsburg.
During the war, the city suffered moderate damage compared to other German cities. There were 1500 deaths. It was the home of the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag V-A from October 1939 till April 1945. After the war, there was a large displaced persons camp which housed several thousand mainly Polish displaced persons until about 1948. After 1945 until the middle of 1946, there was also an allied internment camp for war criminals in Ludwigsburg and the American Army maintained the Pattonville barracks on the edge of town, large enough to have its own American high school. The land was returned to Germany in 1994.
Freistett
During the war, the city suffered moderate damage compared to other German cities. There were 1500 deaths. It was the home of the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag V-A from October 1939 till April 1945. After the war, there was a large displaced persons camp which housed several thousand mainly Polish displaced persons until about 1948. After 1945 until the middle of 1946, there was also an allied internment camp for war criminals in Ludwigsburg and the American Army maintained the Pattonville barracks on the edge of town, large enough to have its own American high school. The land was returned to Germany in 1994.
Freistett
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The memorial to the Franco-Prussian War remains between the town hall and the church
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The rathaus at the turn of the century and today, appearing as it did when redesigned in 1933/34.
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The
former site of the town's Jewish cemetery; the last burial had been of
Gustav Bloch from nearby Rheinbischofsheim in 1939. Due to declining
membership, the Jewish communities in Freistett and Rheinbischofsheim
were combined in June 1935 and the synagogue attended Freistetter Jews
was henceforth in Rheinbischofsheim. The synagogue in Rheinbischofsheim
was finally demolished in 1953.
Schloß Kapfenburg
During the time the castle served as a Gauschule, which was a training centre for local government employees, in this case for the NSV (NS-Volkswohlfahrt, the Nazi welfare organisation).
Waldhilsbach
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Bräunlingen
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In
July 1940 Robert Wagner, now in charge of Alsace, and Josef Bürckel,
Gauleiter of the Saar-Palatinate and Chief of the Civil Administration
in Lorraine, both pressed Hitler to allow the expulsion westwards into
Vichy France of the Jews from their domains. Hitler gave his approval.
Some 3,000 Jews were deported that month from Alsace into the unoccupied
zone of France. In October, following a further meeting with the two
Gauleiter, a total of 6,504 Jews were sent to France in nine trainloads,
without any prior consultation with the French authorities, who
appeared to have in mind their further deportation to Madagascar as soon
as the sea-passage was secure.
Lörrach
Café Binoth, now the Drei König, on the former Adolf Hitler Straße. Early during the period of
the Weimar Republic, there was growing social unrest in Lörrach
starting on the 14th of September, 1923 which left three dead, many
injured, and several examples of hostage abuse. The economic slump also
led to the authorities and the administration being unable to carry out
urgent construction projects. It was around this time the Nazis grew in
support. The Nazi Party in Lörrach had existed since 1922. However,
during the 1920s the Weimar Republic was rather difficult to gain a
foothold, although there was also anti-parliamentary propaganda in
Lörrach with the German nationalist journal Der Markgräfler run
by Hermann Burte. After the Nazi seizure of power, Reinhard Boos was
appointed mayor of Lörrach in 1933. Boos, who built and strengthened the
Nazi party in Lörrach with great enthusiasm, subsequently taking part in the
defeat of the trade unions and the opposition parties. From 1938
onwards, Boos played a leading role in the actions against the Lörrach
Jews. During the November pogroms of 1938 several men gained access to
the synagogue and destroyed them. The destroyed Gotteshaus was then
demolished. Lorrach remained comparatively undamaged during the Second
World War thanks to the geographical distance to the fronts. On April
24, 1945, French troops occupied Lörrach, adding to its humiliation.
Amstetten
Amstetten
Adolf Hitlerplatz and today
Nagold
The
Hotel Post on Adolf Hitler Straße and today. Nagold was the home of
Emilie Christine (Christa) Schroeder, one of Adolf Hitler’s personal
secretaries before and during the war. Schroeder would
argue that she was never a Nazi but simply worked with Hitler. In 1945,
she was originally considered to be a war criminal but was later
reclassified as a collaborator and released days later, on May 12, 1948.
As early as 1924, Nagold was a Nazi base of support in which, according
to voting statistics, 19.4% of the population voted for the Nazis that
May. Comparatively, the Nazis captured just 6.5% of the vote nationwide,
and a mere 4.1% in Baden and Württemberg during the same election.
After the war, the town had the shame of falling within the French
occupation zone until 1947. Right-wing parties in Nagold have been
successful in the postwar period. In the state election in 1968 , the
candidate of the NPD was elected by the second count in the state
legislature. The NPD is possibly the party most aligned to the Nazis
today, and according to the Federal Constitutional Protection Report of
2012, the objectives of the NPD are "incompatible" with the democratic
and constitutional characteristics of the Basic Law due to their "anti-
pluralistic, exclusionary and anti-egalitarian characteristics." The
ideological positions of the party are "expressing a closed right-wing
extremist worldview." In addition, the candidate of the REP succeeded in
1992 and 1996 to collect on the second count in the state legislature.
Since 2007 however, the party is no longer listed in the constitution
protection report as being a right-wing extremist party.
Gengenbach
Adolf-Hitler-Straße
in a Nazi-era postcard with the 13th century Obertorturm in the
background, and from the same site today. Eduard Mack had served as the
town's mayor from 1921–1933 when he was removed from office upon the Nazi seizure of power. According to the local newspaper Der Kinzigtäler from June 27 of that year
Mack had been taken into protective custody in the Offenburg gaol for
"inflammatory speeches against the NSDAP." He was replaced by Franz Geiger, a master tin maker and local group leader of the Gengenbach branch of the Nazi Party. He in turn was replaced by Nazi member Anton Hägele during the whole duration of the war.
Bad Cannstatt
The Rosensteinbunker outside Stuttgart then and now. The town saw, as
with towns across Germany, egregious violence towards its Jewish
population. On January 28, 1936, the Stuttgart district court sentenced
the Jewish insurance official Edwin Spiro from Taubenheimstrasse 60/2 to
six months in prison after being charged with violating the "Law for
the Protection of German Blood and Honour", which stipulated in §2:
"Extramarital traffic between Jews and nationals of German or related
blood is prohibited." After the pogrom night in 1938, he was arrested
again with tens of thousands of other Jews and incarcerated in the
dreaded Welzheim concentration camp until January 31, 1939. The
synagogue in Cannstatt was set on fire by the head of the fire station,
two firefighters and some Nazis during Reichskristalnacht. On that night
of November 9, 1938, Ida Carlebach from Dürrheimer Straße 5 and her
eleven-year-old neighbour Margarete Carle witnessed the fire at the
Cannstatt synagogue. Margarete Carle reported that her father came to
the children's room with the call "Children are on fire!" From where
they were, the flaming synagogue on König-Karl-Straße was easy to
observe. In fact, the sparks flew almost towards the house. With the
synagogue's destruction, Ida Carlebach committed suicide on November 27,
1938 and her house became 'aryanised' in March 1939.
Hechingen
Many industries, including DEHOMAG, a predecessor of IBM, were relocated to Hechingen from damaged areas of Germany, such as Berlin. Parts of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were also relocated there. In April 1945, American troops entered Hechingen and took over the atomic research laboratory and nuclear reactor. Many of the physicists were interned in Farm Hall in England and tried over the following years. Many of the scientists went on to have successful postwar careers for instance; on 15 November 1945 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Otto Hahn had been awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei."
Above all, a few municipalities came to the Kreis area on the Fildern (formerly Amtsoberamt Stuttgart) and in the Schurwald. In the Reichspogromnacht (more commonly known as Kristallnacht) the Esslinger Synagogue was desecrated. Jewish citizens were deported to the East for extermination. The "Israelitische Orphanage and Educational Institution Wilhelmspflege" was demolished in 1939 and converted into a plaque commemorating the plague. The last Jewish home director Theodor Rothschild was murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944. Some of Esslingen's victims of the Nazis are now commemorated as elsewhere in German towns by Stolpersteine. On April 22, 1945, Esslingen was occupied by American soldiers. During the war, sixty houses were completely destroyed in Esslingen, seventy five heavily damaged, 260 were moderately damaged, and 1236 slightly damaged.
Spent
a night in this cheerless, dilapidated town (there are no less than
five kebab shops on a single street but no German rstaurants anywhere)
finding to no surprise as seen in these GIFs that 95% of the town centre
had been destroyed by wartime bombing.
For comparison, other Württemberg cities that had suffered from heavy
air raids and ground fighting were significantly less damaged such as Stuttgart (35% damaged) or Heilbronn
(57%). In the 1930s, the Luftwaffe built an airfield in the west of the city. During the war, the airfield and railway were the target of Anglo-American air raids from 1944 onwards. After the city had already been captured by the Americans in early April 1945, German counterattacks during the Battle of Crailsheim of April 5 to April 21 forced the Americans to retreat once again. On the morning of April 5, the 10th American Panzer Division began its planned breakthrough attempt and approached Crailsheim on April 6. By 17.00 American tanks drove into the city without resistance.
The defenders were surprised by the rapid advance, so that the tank barriers at the entrance to the city were closed but not manned. The air base crew and the local military withdrew from the city after minor skirmishes, and the Volkssturm went home. A few white flags were found on houses, so the Americans took the town almost without resistance. However, two days later ϟϟ units from Ellwangen two regiments of mountain infantry, and a smoke-thrower brigade attacked the town in an attempt to recapture it. In the process, the town came under mortar fire leaving the town center badly hit with fires destroying many houses. On April 9 and 10, German infantry attacked the American armoured unit stationed in Crailsheim from the south, east, and northeast. Although the American attempt to break through in the direction of Backnang failed, their troops were initially able to hold their ground in Crailsheim. Nevertheless, German units managed to significantly disrupt the American supply lines, and continuous attacks on the supply line on the Kaiserstrasse by mobile tank destroyers even made air support necessary resulting in the Americans finding themselves surrounded in the town itself.
Crailsheim, where there had once again been very hard fighting, was later nicknamed Little Bastogne by the American soldiers, a reference to the bitter fighting in the Belgian town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Jet-powered fighter-bombers of the type Messerschmitt Me 262 also repeatedly attacked the air base, now used by the Americans, with on-board weapons and rockets. Finally, on April 11, the Americans decided to retreat towards Bad Mergentheim. This retreat is considered the only major failure of the invading army during its final offensive against Germany east of the Rhine and the victory of the Wehrmacht and the ϟϟ was exploited for propaganda purposes in a time when there was little positive news for the Nazi rulers. The Wehrmacht report mentioned the Battle of Crailsheim, and Joseph Goebbels also wrote about the success in his diary - he even mentioned the recapture of individual villages. Motivated by the recapture, thirteen tank barriers were erected in the town, anti-tank ditches were dug, and anti-tank grenades were issued to the Volkssturm. The commander of the XIII ϟϟ Army Corps, ϟϟ Group Leader Max Simon, described as one of the "worst Nazi generals of endurance," had Crailsheim unofficially declared a fortress and personally ordered the defence. Anyone who dared to contradict him had to expect death, as was made clear by an incident that took place in the nearby village of Brettheim where Simon had Mayor Gackstatter, the Nazi local group leader, and a farmer executed for alleged treason. The three had disarmed Hitler Youth who wanted to resist the American tanks and had thrown their anti-tank grenades into the village pond. When the Americans withdrew, the ϟϟ troops from Schillingsfürst came and, on Simon's orders, hanged the three people on the cemetery's linden trees. So deterred, no one offered any resistance to the planned defence of Crailsheim.
On April 20 in time for Hitler's birthday,the Americans were again stationed in front of Crailsheim. After bombardments and artillery fire, they tried to persuade the garrison of Crailsheim to surrender although by now only about 600 residents were still present with the majority of the approximately 10,000 residents having fled to the surrounding villages, and Mayor Fröhlich hiding in Rechenberg Castle. The part of the population that was still in the city sat in intimidated cellars and was afraid of the ϟϟ, who were still in the city. After the Americans were unable to establish contact in Crailsheim for handover treatment, they continued the artillery bombardment with phosphorus shells. The defenders slowly withdrew as the bombardment began and moved towards Ellwangen. The bombardment of the city continued until the early hours of April 21, and around midday the Yanks marched into the rubble. as several important buildings in the town centre including the castle and large parts of the city fortifications burned with no one attempting to put out the flames. Hundreds were killed in the last weeks of the war with only St. John's Church in the southern old town surviving the firestorm relatively unscathed, along with some surrounding buildings.
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The
Nazi flag flying in front of Schloss Rosenstein when it served as a war
museum during the Nazi era. After its destruction during the war in
1944, the castle was rebuilt in 1955-1956 and turned into a museum for
natural science. Between 1990 and 1992, the building was renovated and
adapted to the requirements of a modern museum.
Hechingen
Adolf-Hitler-Platz, now Obertorplatz
Located
37 miles south of Stuttgart, during the start of Nazi rule most of the
businesses in Hechingen were in Jewish hands and were closed or
'aryanised'. Much of the architecture of the city was destroyed or
damaged by Nazi attempts to build air raid shelters in public buildings.
Here is St. Johnnes Kirche, from an 1880 engraving and today.Many industries, including DEHOMAG, a predecessor of IBM, were relocated to Hechingen from damaged areas of Germany, such as Berlin. Parts of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were also relocated there. In April 1945, American troops entered Hechingen and took over the atomic research laboratory and nuclear reactor. Many of the physicists were interned in Farm Hall in England and tried over the following years. Many of the scientists went on to have successful postwar careers for instance; on 15 November 1945 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Otto Hahn had been awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei."
The
town has completely restored its nineteenth-century synagogue, shown
here in 1937 and today. As recently as June, 2018 the Jewish cemetery
which had only been reopened after considerable refurbishment was targetted by vandals.
Perpetrators knocked over and destroyed one tombstone whilst throwing a
second, smaller tombstone over the newly renovated cemetery wall,
damaging it. Unlike previous attacks- the last attacked a quarter century earlier- there had been no right-wing
extremist graffiti found although Michael Kashi, a board member of the
Jewish community in Württemberg which owns the cemetery, says one does
not need swastikas to identify targeted anti-Semitism. "You can see that
someone did this on purpose. Unfortunately, we experience this again
and again and everywhere." The town mayor, Philipp Hahn, stated how
"awareness of the Jewish past in Hechingen is important to me and to the
local council. Such vandalism is loathsome." The desecration had been
discovered on Saturday by employees of the specialist company Kiris-Bau
from Freudenstadt, which was renovating the crumbling surrounding wall
on behalf of the city of Hechingen. The Jewish community, which was
informed by the city, immediately filed a complaint with the Hechingen
police against unknown persons - even if Michael Kashi's hope that the
perpetrators would be caught is rather low. "A few months ago the facade
of the synagogue in Ulm was damaged. There is even video surveillance
there, and yet the crime has not yet been solved."
Obertürkheim
Just outside Stuttgart is the Gasthaus Ochsen shown here sporting Nazi flags and today, in the centre of Obertürkheim.
Künzelsau
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Oberen Marktplatz with Nazi flags and today |
There had been a Jewish community here since the 14th century; by 1933 there were still 65 Jews living in the town. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in the city as early as March 1933 when, on the 20th, SA men under the leadership of SA Standartenführer Klein from Heilbronn carried out a "weapons search" among Jewish citizens and opponents of the Nazi regime. Jewish teacher Julius Goldstein, who would manage to emigrate to the United States with his wife and two children in 1939, was dragged to the town hall by SA men and was so abused that the iron synagogue key he was carrying in his pocket broke in two. The head of the Jewish community, businessman Max Ledermann, died of a heart attack whilst visiting Goldstein at the time. Another community member, David Furchheimer, committed suicide as a result of the incident. As the years went on due to the consequences of increasing disenfranchisement and the consequences of the economic boycott, some of the Jewish residents emigrated or moved from Künzelsau. The synagogue, dating from 1907, was destroyed during the Kristallnacht as the last of the Jewish shops were either closed or 'aryanised'. Until the final deportations in 1941 and 1942, the Jews still living in the town were forced into a few "Jewish houses" and were used for forced labour, including in the city quarry. The Jewish community was dissolved on July 12, 1939. Whilst some of the town's Jews were able to emigrate, the majority were deported to the death camps with only the merchant Sigbert Baer surviving the Nazi era.
Esslingen
Adolf-Hitler-Platz, now Rathausplatz during the Christmas market. The eagle-adorned war memorial from the First World War remains in place. On November 9, 1918, the day the Kaiser was forced to abdicate and the country became a Republic, workers' demonstrations were held. A Workers 'and Soldiers' Council was elected. In 1919 communist workers took over the city. A military intervention from the Stuttgart government cost sixteen people's lives and forced the return to rest. As early as 1922 a branch of the Nazi party was formed here. In 1933 the town council of Esslingen was dissolved by the Nazis in the course of the so-called co-operation. In 1935, Esslingen am Neckar was declared a "city district" on the basis of the German municipal regulation. In the course of the administrative reform, the former Oberamt Esslingen was transferred to the Landkreis Esslingen in 1938 and extended by a number of areas.
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The Gypsy is and remains a parasite on the people who supports himself almost exclusively by begging and stealing. . . The Gypsy can never be educated to become a useful person. For this reason it is necessary that the Gypsy tribe be exterminated . . . by way of sterilisation or castration.—Esslingen Chief of police in letter to the chief administrative officer, 1937
Crailsheim
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Of the town's 1,799 buildings, 444 of them were totally destroyed and 192 severely damaged. Two thirds of its houses were either usable for residential purposes or only to a limited extent. According to the two planners who were mainly responsible for the town's reconstruction, building councillor Gustav Schleicher and Ludwig Schweizer, “[t]he city centre offered the image of a single ruin.” ![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmvVLMRbSvlX_l8DDXdILVtxaHCWjL02OGILTQUIL3wbJwqW_jUmX3R-oTB01sq1AcsOyF3OBKA1GQwGUANgudM4YCHrURPq9N9Na289AQMLHaGgIujX5ePM8veBsgO_RGnLkWyMBXPTpzQh3BkDNDAcZU1MWBwFri6ZZBVKdHHI2KwYkYC8QMoCB2Pp6S/w533-h270/ezgif.com-animated-gif-maker%20(54).gif)
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One
indication of the destruction of Crailsheim culture and architecture is
seen here from a postcard from the Nazi era of Schlossplatz; today all
that remains is the name itself. Built around 1400, the schloss was
completely destroyed in April 1945 during the war and subsequently
demolished.
After the war, Crailsheim wasn't rebuilt according to historical models like in Munich, but as part of a general plan based on the then modern concepts; the cityscape was changed significantly. From the very beginning it was clear that the new town couldn't be a copy of the destroyed Alt-Crailsheim, one in the core mediæval town with narrow streets and densely groups of houses moved together. The implementation of the new street development plan meant that not all ruined properties could be rebuilt in the old square. About fifty owners of the ruins had to be resettled to loosen up the town centre, primarily the owners of farms and non-commercial private individuals.
In front of the new town hall building, inaugurated in 1954. Of the historic buildings that survived or were rebuilt after the war, the Liebfrauenkapelle, consecrated in 1393, standing beside the town hall, the Johanneskirche (built between 1398 and 1440), the Spital zum Heiligen Geist from 1400 and the 57.5 metre high town hall tower were preserved. Despite claims on the information board on the town hall tower describing it as the "highest Reformation monument in the world," there is in fact no historical evidence that the tower was built to mark the 200th anniversary of the Reformation.
Beside the white shell limestone stele on Adam-Weiß-Straße commemorating the site of the former synagogue. Jews in Crailsheim are first mentioned as victims of the Black Death persecutions of 1348-49 and from 1540 were subjected to severe disabilities until their presumed expulsion in 1560. By the time the Nazis took power, 160 Jewish residents were counted which amounted to 2.5% of Crailsheim's 6,444 residents. In July 1939, the Jewish community was dissolved. The last Jewish residents of Crailsheim were deported in 1941-42. During Kristallnacht the synagogue's interior was destroyed but, because of the dense development of the area, the building itself wasn't set on fire and so remained standing although its windows were smashed. Jewish
men were arrested and deported to the Dachau concentration camp; among them
Berthold Stein was murdered there as a result of torture. About an hundred Jewish were able to emigrate although 29 perished after expulsion to the east in late 1941 and 1942 with another 26 murdered locally. In 1942, it was converted into accommodation for forced labourers but was eventually destroyed during the Anglo-American bombing in 1945. This memorial plaque at the former location commemorates the synagogue. In the city museum, a brass pendant, a tin wick holder and a blanket are still available from the former synagogue. The Federal Archives' memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany (1933–1945) lists the names of 52 Jewish residents of Crailsheim who were deported and mostly murdered. Yad Vashem 's Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims lists the names of 45 Jewish citizens who lived in Crailsheim before the war and who were subsequently murdered.
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At the memorial for Hans Scholl and Eugen Grimminger, both of whom were born in Crailsheim and who supported the White Rose group resisting against dictatorship, racism and war. Costing 70,000 euros, the outside of the monument are made of safety glass and are fixed on an aluminium frame. The dynamic element on the north side shown on the left consists of a changing picture with the word 'Freiheit', taken from the last exclamation of Hans Scholl before his execution. The image changes depending on the location of the viewer and is framed by the text of the fifth leaflet of the White Rose. On the south side shown on the right, a gilded shell attached behind the glass pane begins to glow depending on the time of day and sunlight flanked by portraits and short information about Scholl and Grimminger. A week after Scholl's execution the Gestapo arrested Grimminger, bringing him to Munich where he was interrogated and forced to admit that he had given 500 Reichsmarks to the White Rose which was enough for the prosecutor to demand the death sentence. He was saved by his secretary Tilly Hahn who convinced the court that her boss had believed that the money was supporting needy soldiers. Instead, he was sentenced to ten years in jail, which he spent in a prison in Ludwigsburg. His wife however was arrested and murdered in Auschwitz. In the nearby Geschwister-Scholl-Schule there is a Scholl-Grimminger room with furniture from the Scholl family's apartment on Ulmer Münsterplatz and from the possession of Eugen Grimminger and his Jewish wife Jenny, née Stern, who was murdered. In the Crailsheim town hall a display case was set up with changing exhibits relating to the Scholl siblings and Eugen Grimminger.