1929 - Black Thursday in Neumünster

by Werner Junge

The year 1929. For almost twelve months there has been rumbling in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. The farmers are rebelling. Poor harvests, imported wheat is flooding the market, prices are rock bottom, interest rates and taxes are high. The Weimar Republic does not accommodate the farmers. On the contrary:crackdowns are being made and attempts are being made to collect debts with the help of the police if necessary. On August 1, 1929, the protest erupted again in a demonstration. About 3,000 farmers march in Neumünster. In front - on a pole with a vertically attached scythe - Walter Muthmann carries a black flag with a white plow and a red sword:the symbol of the new rural folk movement. The police do not want to see this symbol. With their sabers drawn, the green-uniformed crowd pushed into the protest procession. There was a scuffle, blood spilled, and in the end the black flag was in the hands of the police. The day goes down in the history of Neumünster as "Black Thursday".

The consequences

The violent confiscation of the Landvolk flag had consequences. The farmers from the surrounding area are boycotting Neumünster. Markets failed, groceries were not delivered, and the necessities were no longer bought in Schwalestadt. A heavy blow for the approximately 40,000 people in Neumünster. The leather and cloth industries were in shambles. After the crisis came the Great Depression and then the boycott. Only after 16 months did the mayor give up. In November 1930, the flag was returned to the rural people's movement in a ceremony.

A movement without structures

The country folk movement only existed in Schleswig-Holstein. In conscious opposition to its own traditional farming associations, it has not developed any organizational structure. There were two leaders. Once upon a time there was Wilhelm Hamkens from Eiderstedt. He was in prison in Neumünster until "Black Thursday". The demonstration march had formed to pick him up on Boostedter Strasse. The other leading figure was the Norderdithmarscher Claus Heim. In January 1928, Germany took notice of the rural people's movement for the first time. A total of 140,000 farmers demonstrated against the "system" in the 20 district towns of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. Hamkens and Heim went different ways. Heim was behind numerous bombs that had exploded in front of district offices, among other places, since May 1929. Miraculously, they only caused significant property damage.

Contemporary witness Rudolf W.F. Dietzen

As "auxiliary editor" Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Dietzen observed "Black Thursday". He was also involved in the resulting processes. In 1931 he processed what he had witnessed in the novel "Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben". For the author, writing as Hans Fallada, this book was a breakthrough. Even if Neumünster is referred to as "Altmark" and Hamkens and other participants were given new names, the novel gives a very precise picture of the end of the Weimar Republic in Schleswig-Holstein and the "rural movement".

Peasantry and the National Socialists

The trained historian and later Prime Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg found in his study of the currents in the rural population of Schleswig-Holstein between 1918 and 1933 that the voting behavior in the north was strikingly contrary to the trend in Germany. Shortly after the First World War, for example, the provinces voted red, but at the end of the Weimar Republic it turned into exactly the opposite. As early as 1929, the NSDAP achieved its best results, especially in the high areas of the rural people's movement. There were also contacts between the National Socialists and the rural people's movement. Gauleiter Hinrich Lohse tried to control everything in such a way that there were clear boundaries to the rural people's movement. Claus Heim - actually sentenced to seven years in prison after the bombings - was released in 1932. He remained true to his ideas, but deliberately kept his distance from the National Socialists and their ideology.