History of Baden-Württemberg

"Victory of the National Government" said the headlines in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Stuttgart a day after the Reichstag (national legislature) election of 5 March 1933. The future Reich propaganda minister Goebbels writes later about 5 March: "Above all others, southern Germany was in the lead of the whole election success." Of 2,925,218 votes, 1,275,039 in Baden and in Württemberg (almost 42%) went to the National Socialists. Together with coalition parties, the Nazis had the majority in the Reichstag.

"Sunday outing on the Heuberg" read a newspaper caption on 16 July 1933: The Botnang Workers Singing Club "Freedom," that was going to have a summer outing with 116 people in four buses, was stopped by the police and examined. The active participants were taken to the concentration camp on the Heuberg; women, children and guests were released.

Clandestine resistance. Even though all parties other than the NSDAP disbanded or were forbidden, there were still active supporters of the old parties after 1933. From a report of the Secret State Police (Gestapo) station in Karlsruhe dated 30 June 1936, which principally dealt with rewards for successful police officers: "In surveillance over and the fight against the enemy of the National Socialist state in the state of Baden, it was already evident that with the ban and destruction of the communist and Marxist party organizations, there had been absolutely no cessation in the activity of these movements...."In Mannheim police officers F. and M. were likewise able to uncover a newly formed illegal organization of the SPD, and to arrest a total of 62 persons in greater Mannheim, and to denounce them for conspiracy to commit high treason." ..."In Waldshut as in Mannheim police officers T. and R. succeeded in Freiburg in uncovering the illegal SPD there and denounced 29 persons for conspiracy to commit high treason." (Verfolgung und Widerstand unter dem Nationalsozialismus in Baden [Persecution and Resistance Under National Socialism in Baden], compiled by Jörg Schadt, published by the Mannheim City Archive, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1976, p. 193)

Agreement and enthusiasm was initially much stronger than refusal and resistance. Excerpts from a student essay appear in the local history book [Heimatbuch: I can't find a better translation.] "Unser schönes Stuttgart" [Our Beautiful Stuttgart] (second edition, 1938): "Finally, finally the liberating word has been spoken: the class is now marching to the Victoria Hotel! ...Many schools were already there. All the windows were occupied... We down below were roughly pressed and pushed here and there. Some boys called in chorus: 'Lieber Führer, sei so nett, zeig dich doch am Fensterbrett!' (Dear Leader, be so nice, show yourself at the window sill!) ...'Führer, gabst uns Wehr und Rüstung, zeig dich an der Fensterbrüstung!' (Führer, you gave us arms and ammunition, show yourself at the window sill!)... We were successful, because the Führer showed himself several times at the window. Each time he was received with great rejoicing, and police and SS men had a lot of trouble holding the people back." What had happened? Hitler had reintroduced universal military service (1935).

A year later, joy was especially great in Baden as German soldiers once again occupied the casernes. In the peace treaty following World War I, it was stipulated that no troops could be stationed in the area 50 kilometers east of the Rhine. The largest part of Baden was in that area.

Not only youths were impressed. A high official, who had served the state of Baden for nearly 50 years, writes in his memoirs in 1937: "Three years have now passed, the Spring of 1936 has come upon the land, and the Savior has really come. He is here, he has made it all come true, and we have become witnesses to it. Unemployment has lost its menacing face, Germany has become a secure, unified state, all power and authority are united in the hands of the Führer, his authoritative will can carry out what seems to him to be important for the rebuilding of Germany without the limitations, struggles and 'compromises' of earlier times.... Who would not say sincerely: A miracle has happened; a man has been given to us who all alone with his totally original thoughts, with his incredible strength of will, with his inflaming and sweeping authority over minds and hearts of the 'weary hopelessness' that pierces the heart and works the miracle. ... And I have been no less touched as a witness to women's assemblies, how the farmer's wife and our princess, the official's wife and the seamstress girl, full of gratitude, band together in praise, from now on according to his, the Führer's, will, and to tend and provide in accordance with his genius..."
Thus writes the 'True councilor of state and major of the state militia (retired)' Dr. Leopold Hegelmaier in 1937 in his memoirs (Beamter und Soldat [Official and soldier], Bonz, Stuttgart, 1937, p. 295 f.) Hegelmaier died that same year. What would he have said later about the transgressions against the Jews a year later?

The synagogues are burning. On 10 November 1938, all over Germany Jewish houses of worship, the synagogues, were set on fire by SA men and their helpers. In the Baden village of Gailingen on the Upper Rhine as well. All Jewish residents were herded together into a gymnasium and then were forced to march to the burned out synagogue. The rabbi's wife reports from her recollection: "As we got near the synagogue, we saw an enormous number of SA men. A foreboding of death ran through the formation. One saw the SA taking fuses here and there, heard the word dynamite, whether in fantasy or reality, I don't know....It was clear to me that they were taking us all into the synagogue and then would blow us up with all of it. Right in front of the synagogue, they told us to stand still, and in an instant there followed a colossal detonation. The wall that had been built in the back of the yard of our dear old synagogue fell, tearing away part of the façade and completely destroying the interior of the synagogue. We all trembled like aspen leaves. The children were hard to calm down."

The rabbi died at the end of 1938 in the Dachau concentration camp; his wife was able to emigrate to Israel with seven minor children. The Jews that did not emigrate were transported by the SS in 1940 and murdered in concentration camps. (Eckhard Friedrich and Dagmar Schmieder-Friedrich, Die Gailinger Juden [The Jews of Gailingen], Arbeitskreis für Regionalgeschichte e.V., Constance, 1981, p. 103 f.)

Only a few risked a word of protest. To that group belonged the pastor of Oberlenningen, Julius von Jan, who on 16 November 1938, a few days before the burning of the synagogues, said in his Day of Repentance sermon: "...Where in Germany is the prophet who will be sent into the king's house to speak the word of the Lord? ...God has sent us such men! They are today in concentration camps or rendered mute... Passions have been unchained, God's commandments neglected, houses of worship, sacred to others, have been burned down without punishment, the property of foreigners looted or destroyed, men who have faithfully served the German people and who have conscientiously done their duty have been thrown into concentration camps, just because they belonged to another race!..." (Evangelische Kirche zwischen Kreuz und Hakenkreuz [The Evangelical Church Between the Cross and the Swastika], Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1981, p. 128)
The response was inflammatory SA posters ("Jewish lackey!"), abuse, imprisonment, and exile.

Hitler's successes before the beginning of World War II generally silenced criticism. There were only a few exceptions.
"In my opinion conditions among the workforce have deteriorated since the national revolution. I have noticed for example that wages have gotten lower and deductions higher ... Further, the workforce is ... under a certain pressure. The worker cannot change his job as he wishes, for example, he is today, thanks to the HJ [Hitler Jugend: Hitler Youth] no longer the master of his children, and even with respect to religion he can no longer participate so freely... I have concluded over this time that for this reason the workers have a "rage" against the regime..." (Joh. Georg Elser, Autobiographie eines Attentäters [Autobiography of an Assassin], produced by Lothar Gruchmann, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, 1970, p. 80 f.]

These simple words were stated in a deposition by a worker, the cabinetmaker Johann Georg Elser from Hermaringen by Heidenheim, at the end of 1939. They were not just words. He had attempted, without any support from other people (or groups), on 8 November 1939, to kill Hitler by a bomb attack in the Bürgerbräu beer hall in Munich. The attempted assassination failed, but he stands in memory next to the Scholl Siblings [Hans and Sophie Scholl, members of the resistance group "Weisse Rose - White Rose", executed 22 February 1943] and Count Stauffenberg [Claus Count of Stauffenberg, Colonel, try to kill Hitler with a bomb on 20 July 1944].

The Württemberg state bishop Wurm writes on 19 July 1949 to the Reich interior minister: "Dear Mr. Reichsminister: Several months ago... the mentally ill, feeble-minded or epileptic wards of government and private sanitariums were moved to another institution... Family members were ... only later informed of the transfer. Most only received a few weeks later the communication that the ward in question had died of a disease and for disease police reasons, a cremation had to take place. As a rough estimate, there could have been several hundred wards of institutions from Württemberg who died in this way ..." Either the National Socialist government recognizes the limits that God has set for it, or it is aiding and abetting a depravity that would inevitably bring about the decline of the state." (Evang. Kirche zwischen Kreuz und Hakenkreuz, Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1981, p. 141 f.)

The Catholic bishops expressed themselves in like manner. The procedure - they spoke of euthanasia (Greek, "gentle death") - was interrupted because of the public sensation. In Grafeneck 10,654 people were killed.

The inner attitude of the people and the discord of the survivors of fallen soldiers can be read in the death notices:
"... My only, beloved son ... has laid down his young life in joyous service for his beloved Führer, for the people and for the homeland in the fight against Bolshevism." (1943) "According to God's holy will he gave ... in the East his life for home and fatherland." (1944) The people, home and fatherland were terms and values that even after 1933 united adherents and opponents of Nazi rule out of a traditional sense of duty.

Public criticism of the government was impossible after 1933. Rumors and critical remarks would be repeated in a small circle. One often heard: "Be careful, or you'll go to Dachau!"
As the decline, the bad ending, became ever more evident, it happened that individual citizens could no longer control themselves. The president of the superior state court in Karlsruhe reports on 2 January 1945 to the Reich justice minister: "My wife was struck by the following. She was standing in one of the best known butcher shops in Karlsruhe in the midst of a densely packed crowd of shoppers, mostly women. Behind her, someone else came in and greeted with "Heil Hitler!" The word had hardly been spoken, when a man, apparently thinking the Hitler greeting had been used by the woman standing next to him, went up to her, grabbed her by the hair and yelled aloud: "This scoundrel and war criminal should be hanged, and you along with him, they should be hanged from a beam and a fire started under them, so that they burn slowly." No one in the shop said a word about it or looked as if they were going to help her. Thus it happened in the bourgeois bureaucrat city of Karlsruhe ...(Der deutsche Südwesten zur Stunde Null [The German Southwest at Zero Hour], compiled by Hansmartin Schwarzmeier, Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, 1975, p. 41)