In 1931, 100,000 SA men marched through Braunschweig. With such demonstrations of power, the Nazis fought their way to power in northern Germany. Contemporary witnesses remember.
October 1931 in Braunschweig:100,000 men from the Sturmabteilung (SA) in brown uniforms march past their party leader, Adolf Hitler, in front of the Residenzschloss. He had ordered his paramilitary units into the city from all over the Reich - a tremendous demonstration of power. And it was an event for Braunschweig citizens like young August Roloff:"I stood 30 meters across from Hitler, but of course I didn't know what was happening, who Hitler was," recalls the then five-year-old. "The whole spectacle, this military deployment, lasted almost seven hours. It's such a memory that the mood lingered for a long time."
Roloff's father also watched. He did know the Brownshirts, though. The arch-conservative professor had opened the door to power for the Nazis. As a member of the right-wing German National People's Party in the Braunschweig state parliament, he had engineered a coalition in which conservative parties and the NSDAP shared the government. A few days earlier, the merger of the nationalist forces in Bad Harzburg had been sealed:the self-proclaimed "national opposition" wanted to overthrow democracy.
Election successes of the National Socialists
1933:Torchlight procession of the national associations at the Brandenburg Gate.The election results at the beginning of the 1930s show how quickly conservative voters switched to the NSDAP. The Nazi ideology was particularly popular in the Protestant, rural, small-town milieu. In addition, the global economic crisis had severely damaged the German economy. At the beginning of 1933, almost eight million people were unemployed in the German Reich. This also weakened the political organizations of the workers.
In the Prussian province of Hanover, which largely corresponds to what is now Lower Saxony, the NSDAP electorate was already well above the national average in the 1920s. In Braunschweig, the NSDAP entered the government in 1930. Here the Austrian Adolf Hitler was appointed to the government council at the beginning of 1932 and thus became a German citizen. In this way he was able to apply as a candidate in the 1932 presidential election. In the same year, the NSDAP also took over government power in Oldenburg with an absolute majority. In April 1933 the leading Nazi Dietrich Klagges proclaimed Braunschweig as the first country to be purely National Socialist.
Fighting between political camps is increasing
This gave the National Socialists sovereignty over schools, civil servants and the police. The SA was able to provoke street battles with left-wing parties and associations. The young Roloff experienced this as an eyewitness:"I remember, for example, that during elections there were street fights between socialists and national socialists and the police drove up with trucks." The atmosphere was almost like that of the civil war, he says today. The Free State of Braunschweig became the test case for the Nazi takeover of power throughout the Reich. Workers, leftists and trade unionists were at the mercy of the terror.
30. January 1933:Adolf Hitler becomes Reich Chancellor
As in the entire Reich, the political fronts hardened in northern Germany. The most important place for the argument was the street. And at this point it is already firmly in the hands of the brutal SA, the armed wing of the Nazis. Their appearance was martial:With their military formations, the shouted commands, the banners and flags, the brown shirts determined the streetscape in some places. Especially since January 30, 1933, the day Hitler came to power in Berlin.
In Hanoversch Münden, more than 350 kilometers away, the then 13-year-old Heinz Hartung also found out about it. He still remembers the reactions of the National Socialists well:"That evening they marched through the city singing, I was then able to look out of the window and then for the first time heard them say 'stand still!'. Then he yelled Location man:'Our Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler a triple victory Heil!'. That's when I heard it for the first time, they had never called it before."
Propaganda and pogroms
Armament of SA men in 1933.In what was then a deep red town of Hannoversch Münden, the triumph of the Nazis triggered great unrest, especially in the working-class district of Hermannshagen. The SA marched there with reinforcements from Göttingen and Kassel, Heinz Hartung recalls:"From then on things went pretty smoothly, there were a number of brutal attacks against people from the social democrats and from the communist sphere." The opponents of the new rulers fared particularly badly:"They were arrested, there were regular beatings in the town hall, so that the cleaning ladies had to wipe away traces of blood afterwards. So something bad happened there."
In the working-class districts of Hanover, too, the Nazis provoked violent fights with the socialists almost every evening, remembers Emmi Baumgarte, who is now 95. Adolf Hitler's coming to power was a completely normal day for them. But in the weeks that followed, everything changed:"They imprisoned many workers. They had the first concentration camp in Moringen in 1933, that's when the SPD and KPD were brought there."
Although the then 20-year-old lived in Bückeburg, she learned a lot from regular visits from her parents. And now it was getting more and more dangerous for them too. Emmi Baumgarte's fiancé entered Germany illegally from Russia to take action against Hitler. The young woman hid her lover and a friend of his. She was betrayed and arrested a few days later:"I didn't know how and why." For Emmi Baumgarte, this meant:custody and a two-year prison sentence for preparing to commit high treason. Her fiancé was also caught and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was only released by the Allies.
The beginning of the end
Because the republican forces could not come to an agreement, they paved the way to their downfall. Today the 95-year-old is certain:Hitler could have been prevented. "But the workers didn't agree. God's a pity. Some wanted Hott and others wanted Hüh. If they had pulled together, things might have turned out differently."
In northern Germany, too, approval and participation far outweighed the negative. The National Socialists had meanwhile brought all decisive political and social areas under their control. There was only occasional resistance, as in the small village of Gillersheim near Nordheim. A few weeks after the seizure of power, the convinced Social Democrat Ernst Fahlbusch was there when NSDAP opponents marched on the Nordheim market square:400 people, musicians and minstrels. Right in the middle was Fahlbusch, then 21 years old, an unemployed bricklayer, with the black, red and gold flag in his hand:"I can still remember exactly how we marched down town. And then the SA came with 40 or 50 men on a truck, and then they tried to interfere. The police then pushed us away to avoid a collision."
Pushed to the outskirts of the city, the demonstrators were allowed to hold their protest speeches, far from any publicity, while SA men marched unhindered in the city. At that moment, Fahlbusch knew that he and his people had lost. The march was the last political gathering of the Nordheim Social Democrats for the next twelve years.