Albert Leo Schlageter
Albert Leo Schlageter (12 August 1894 — 26 May 1923) was a member of the German Freikorps and a Martyr-figure for the National Socialists.
Life
Schlageter was born in Schönau im Schwarzwald to strict Catholic parents.
After the outbreak of the First World War he became a voluntary emergency worker for the military. During the war he participated in several battles, notably Ypres (1915), the Somme (1916) and Verdun. Following his promotion to second lieutenant he took part in the Third Battle of Ypres (1917). After the war, and his dismissal from the army, Schlageter described himself as a student of the political sciences; but he studied the subject at the most for one year. At this time he also became a member of a rightwing Catholic student group. Soon Schlageter also joined the Freikorps and took part in the Kapp Putsch and other battles between military and communist factions that were convulsing Germany. In 1922 his Freikorps unit in Upper Silesia merged with NSDAP. During the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 he led an illegal "combat patrol", that tried to resist the French occupying forces by means of sabotage. A number of trains were derailed in order to disrupt supplies to troops. On the 7 April 1923 Schlageter was betrayed, possibly from within his own ranks, and was arrested by the French. Tried by court-martial on 7 May 1923, he was condemned to death. In the morning of the 26 May he was executed on the Golzheimer heath near Düsseldorf.
On 8 May Schlageter wrote to his parents: "from 1914 until today I have sacrificed my whole strength to work for my German homeland, from love and pure loyalty. Where it was suffering, it drew me, in order to help…I was no gang leader, but in quiet labour I sought to help my fatherland. I did not commit any common crime or murder."[1] The truth of this statement may well be doubted, since he is thought to have been involved in assassinations of presumed "informers".
Almost immediately after Schlageter's death Rudolf Höß assassinated his alleged betrayer, Walther Kadow. He was assisted by Martin Bormann. Höß was sentenced to ten years but only served four; Bormann received a one-year sentence.[2]
Creation of heroic mythology
After his execution he became a hero to some sections of the German population. Immediately after his death a Schlageter Memorial Society was formed, which agitated for the creation of a monument to honour him. The German Communist Party sought to debunk the emerging mythology of Schlageter by circulating a speech by Karl Radek portraying him as an honourable but misguided figure.[3] However, it was the Nazi party who most fully exploited the Schlageter story. Rituals were constructed to commemorate his death, and in 1931 the Memorial Society succeeded in getting a monument erected near the site of his execution. This was a giant cross placed amid sunken stone rings.[4]
After 1933 Schlageter became one of the principal heroes of the Nazi regime. Hanns Johst, the Nazi playwright, wrote Schlageter (1933), a heroic drama about his life. It was dedicated to Hitler, and was performed on his first birthday in power as a theatrical manifesto of Nazism. The line "when I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun", often quoted by Nazi leaders, derives from this play. The original line is slightly different: "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning," "Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!" (Act 1, Scene 1). It is spoken by another character in conversation with the young Schlageter.[5]
Several important military ventures were also named for him, including the Jagdgeschwader 26 Schlageter fighter-wing of the Luftwaffe, and the naval vessel Albert Leo Schlageter. His name was also given as a title to two SA groups, the SA-Standarte 39 Schlageter at Düsseldorf and SA-Standarte 142 Albert Leo Schlageter at Lörrach.
Schlageter also featured as a prominent character in British author Geoffrey Moss's 1933 novel I Face the Stars, about the rise of Nazism.
After the war the Schlageter memorial was destroyed by occupying Allied forces as part of the denazification process.
References
- ^ Calvin College German Propaganda Archive
- ^ Biography of Bormann; Biography of Höss
- ^ Leo Schlageter: The Wanderer into the Void, by Karl Radek
- ^ Christian Fuhrmeister: Ein Märtyrer auf der Zugspitze? Glühbirnenkreuze, Bildpropaganda und andere Medialisierungen des Totenkults um Albert Leo Schlageter in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus, Zeitenblicke, 3 (2004), N. 1.
- ^ New York Review of Books, Reaching for the Gun, by Susan Sontag