The Sturmabteilung (SA) in Fürstenfeldbruck also spread during National Socialism.
Gerhard Neumeier sheds light on the beginnings up to their wedding in Nazi Bruck.
The city archivist sheds light on the role of two SA men.
Fürstenfeldbruck -
The beginnings of the SA go back to the year 1920.
At that time the NSDAP held its first mass events and needed its own security service.
In November of this year the watchmaker Emil Maurice (1897-1972) founded a "gymnastics and sports department" within the NSDAP in Munich.
After Adolf Hitler's internal party seizure of power in July 1921, the focus was no longer on the security service, but rather on the consolidation and physical training of the male youth in the movement.
The party group, called Sturmabteilung (SA) from November 1921, was a hierarchical organization based on military models and in its early days primarily served to enforce Hitler's claim to leadership within the Nazi movement.
The political breakthrough of the NSDAP in 1929 and 1930 meant a phase of rapid growth and organizational expansion for the SA; the party troops became the party army.
Members of all social classes were organized in the SA.
The SA adapted well to the prevailing local or regional social milieu.
The youthfulness of the SA should also be emphasized.
Of course, the SA was a men's association.
Its attractiveness was fueled by the economic crisis, the lack of functionality of democracy and the willingness of right-wing conservative forces to work with the National Socialists.
The beginnings in Bruck
At the end of 1922 the first local group of the NSDAP in Fürstenfeldbruck emerged from the local group of the Oberland.
In the Hitler putsch of November 1923, 20 Fürstenfeldbrucker members of the federal Oberland took part.
In any case, there were connections between Fürstenfeldbruck and the Munich SA, because on September 22, 1923, the Munich SA carried out a field and terrain exercise on Maisacher Straße.
As early as January 11 and 12, 1930, SA men, most of whom came from Munich, held a propaganda march in Fürstenfeldbruck as part of a National Socialist event.
On April 6, 1930, SA troops tried to disrupt an event organized by the Social Democratic Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold.
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The author: Gerhard Neumeier heads the Bruck city archive.
He deals intensively with the history of Fürstenfeldbruck and has already published several publications about the city.
Gerhard Neumeier is currently working on a chronicle of the history of Fürstenfeldbruck from 1945 onwards. He also gives lectures at the Gretl Bauer Adult Education Center.
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In Fürstenfeldbruck, too, the SA met once a week in an inn and was used to protect the hall at meetings.
As early as the early 1930s, the police in Fürstenfeldbruck were harassed and threatened by members of the local SA and SS in carrying out their official business.
On the evening of March 9, 1933, about 50 SS and SA men marched across the market in the direction of the district office.
On March 18, 1933, Marquart, who came from Munich, was appointed as a special SA political commissioner for the Fürstenfeldbruck district.
His most important helpers were the coal merchant Johann Ertl and his adjutant Johann Wolkersdorfer.
During the boycott of the NSDAP against Jewish shops, the SA in Bruck prevented the delivery of goods from the Munich department stores Uhlfelder and Tietz.
The SA also mistreated the Jewish cattle dealers Josef Pickard and Julius Fröhlich.
Many in protective custody
In the spring and summer of 1933, Fürstenfeldbrucker SA took numerous protective custody measures.
On March 24, 1933, Marquart had the editor of the Fürstenfeldbrucker Wochenblatt, Franz X. Habrich, taken into protective custody and sent to the Dachau concentration camp.
In June 1933, Marquart also had the printer Peter Jaidinger, a member of the Kolping Society, employed at the Woderer printing company and sent to the Dachau concentration camp.
In total, a little more than 100 protective custody measures carried out by the SA in Fürstenfeldbruck and the surrounding area can be proven in the archive documents by members of the SPD, KPD, BVP and Jews.
An indication of the size of the SA in Fürstenfeldbruck in the summer of 1933 was provided by the participation of 34 SA men at an SA man's wedding in Fürstenfeldbruck.
At the end of August 1933, the SA and Stahlhelm carried out a house collection for a Schlageter memorial stone.
Schlageter was a right wing activist venerated by the Nazis, who was executed for bombing attacks.
Relatively late - at the end of October 1933 - the steel helmet in Fürstenfeldbruck was incorporated into Sturmbann 1/2 of the SA.
In mid-February 1934, an SA meeting with around 800 participants took place in Fürstenfeldbruck.
At the beginning of March 1934, the Fürstenfeldbrucker Wochenblatt reported that long-term members of the SA had been awarded the honor dagger awarded by the chief of staff, Röhm.
There were from the local SA, the Standard 2 in Sturmbann 1: August Biermeyer, Hans Ertl, Alfons Fröhling, Joseph Fröhling, Georg Gillmeyer, Hans Kröner, Josef Kröner, Karl Kröner, Lorenz Lauchner, Franz Schonger and Anton Sonnleitner - so eleven SA -Men from Fürstenfeldbruck.
Brucker SA members
The so-called "stand quarters" of the NSDAP and SA in Fürstenfeldbruck was the Bichlerbräu.
The members around Hans Enzberger and Michael Härtl met there.
Hans Enzberger was born in Munich on November 12, 1890.
He learned the profession of painter and qualified as a master painter.
From 1922, Enzberger was likely to have worked as an independent master painter in Fürstenfeldbruck.
Before 1933 he was a member of the board of the trade and trade association in Fürstenfeldbruck.
In 1933, Enzberger was a district master craftsman, in 1939 he was a scrap material officer.
Since 1933 he was a member of the NSDAP, he was a sustaining member of the SS and since July 1, 1933 he was a member of the SA.
He later became an Oberscharführer in the Motor-SA.
In the denazification process, Enzberger classified himself as a follower.
The Spruchkammer agreed with this assessment and so he was classified as a follower.
After 1945, Hans Enzberger's painting business continued to exist in Fürstenfeldbruck, and he died in 1965.
Michael Härtl was born in Fürstenfeldbruck on April 3, 1882.
His father was Michael Härtl, who was born in Dießen on January 1, 1857, and his mother was Therese Härtl, a ladner, who was born in Geisenhausen on April 21, 1849.
The two married on April 24, 1881 in Bruck.
Michael Härtl junior learned the profession of confectioner and also passed his master confectioner examination, he was married.
In the spring of 1933 he became the second mayor of Fürstenfeldbruck and held this office in 1935.
He remained a community or city council from 1933 to 1945 - from 1935 to 1945 he was 1st alderman.
Härtl ran a café on Adolf-Hitler-Platz (today Hauptstrasse).
He joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933, and on the same day he also became a member of the SA's Motorsturm.
In 1934 he became a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Reich Air Protection Association.
On August 12, 1947, Mayor Hans Wachter testified in the court proceedings that, in his opinion, Härtl was a good supporter of the NSDAP and was considered a decent citizen.
Construction business owner Sebastian Unkmeier testified in front of the court on January 30, 1946 that he had known the Härtl family for three decades.
The party has shunned its business since 1936.
Härtl was not a fanatical National Socialist.
He remained in office in the interests of the city, the citizens and his business.
The metal goods manufacturer Fritz Paulin, a former National Socialist, confirmed to the Spruchkammer on January 12, 1947 that Härtl was upright and religious and that he was interested in a clean administration of the city.
On December 19, 1947, the Spruchkammer classified him as a follower, explaining that various citizens wanted Härtl to take over the post of First Mayor in order to safeguard the interests of citizens and business people and to prevent the old radical National Socialists would get too much influence.
This judgment came only after Härtl's death - he had already died on October 1, 1945.
Bruck's peculiarities
The activities of the functionaries in the SA played almost no role in the arbitration chamber proceedings.
This meant that membership in the SA was not seen as a great burden, neither by the public plaintiffs, nor by those concerned, nor by the tribunal.
Otherwise, the usual structure of the court proceedings prevailed, from the provision of persil notes to self-classifications and classifications, mostly as followers.
The relatively old age of the SA men in Fürstenfeldbruck was unusual, because the majority of the SA men here were born before 1900.
The SA in Fürstenfeldbruck did not have the youthful character that it had in most parts of Germany.
In addition, a large proportion of the SA men in Fürstenfeldbruck were married.
This also contradicts the relevant state of research on the SA.
The SA men examined were all born in Bavaria; the proportion of those born in Fürstenfeldbruck roughly corresponded to the proportion of local births in the population.
Very unusual is the fact that all members of the group examined here were members of the old and especially the new middle class, none of the SA men belonged to the working class and apparently hardly any of the SA men were affected by unemployment.
(Gerhard Neumeier)
The series
The lockdown means that people spend more time in their own four walls.
Events have been canceled, as well as face-to-face lectures and adult education courses.
This can also be a good opportunity to broaden your own horizons from home.
The daily newspaper presents excerpts from lectures by adult education centers & Co. in the district.