Members of a great variety of political parties, organizations and social groups are among those that have to be considered as victims of political persecution, but also individuals who came into conflict with the NS regime due to their political views or deviating behavior. Thus a unified definition of this group of victims is not possible. “Political persecution” dated back prior to the takeover of power in 1933, e.g. when opponents of the national-socialist movement were attacked in “street riots” in the late years of the Weimar Republic. First these main opponents from the left political spectrum – Communists, Social Democrats and members of the trade unions – were arrested, tortured and locked up, sentenced and in some cases murdered. But soon representatives of Christian and conservative parties and organizations came into the focus of the “political police” and other NS institutions. The excessive use of force against the (late) resistance movement of national conservatives and members of the military in 1944 has to be viewed as political persecution in a wider sense as well as the persecution of student groups like the “White Rose” or the criminalization of opposition youths like the “Edelweiss Pirates”. During the Second World War any utterance that could be counted as critical of the regime as well as listening to enemy broadcasts or the prohibited contact to prisoners of war or forced laborers were counted as political offenses or treachery and persecuted by use of force, even though they were merely forms of the refusal of loyalty. Even former Nazis who had turned away from them could become victims of political persecution. And finally the actions to end the war on the local level in spring of 1945 can be interpreted as acts of resistance whose protagonists turned opponents at the last minute and had to fear the revenge of the regime. Furthermore, there were no clear dividing lines between the persecution for religious or “racial” reasons. The intent of the regime to establish a separate category “political persecution”, e.g. by marking them with red triangles in the concentration camps, falls short and is thus not suitable as criterion. That can also be seen in the fact the “Gestapo” continuously widened the range of the groups they would persecute throughout the time of the NS regime.
The time after 1945 saw renewed attempts to define “political persecution” when the question of compensation for the injustices suffered at the hands of the NS regime arose. The compensation laws of the early federal Republic of Germany use the expression “political opposition against the national socialism” which mainly refers to resistance by organized political groups. Other actions directed against the NS regime are put in the same category. But the status of “victim of political persecution” could also be lost again, e.g. when some communists lost their rights to compensation after the prohibition of the Communist Party in 1956.
In Augsburg the persecuting authorities also went for the declared political opponents of the NS regime first. Immediately after the usurpation of power in March 1933 the harassment and arrest of Communists, Social Democrats and trade union officials began so that the Nazis could destroy the working of their organizational structures. During a large raid on April 10, 1933 numerous members of the Communist Party were taken into “protective custody” and deported to concentration camps. Even members of the Catholic Bavarian People’s Party (BVP) were locked up. Other opponents, especially from the ranks of the workers’ resistance were later “uncovered” and deported. Also in Augsburg certain individuals who were openly critical of the regime and showed “illoyal” behavior for reasons of conscience were among the victims. So far it is not possible to determine exactly how many citizens of Augsburg were not only tortured and locked up, but lost their lives through use of force by the regime. At the cemetery in the West of Augsburg 235 victims of persecution from Augsburg or who died in Augsburg are commemorated – undoubtedly many of them died due to their politically motivated opposition to the NS regime.

Gerhard Fürmetz
Translation: Wolfgang Poeppel

Literatur

Michael Cramer-Fürtig/Bernhard Gotto (Hg.), „Machtergreifung“ in Augsburg. Anfänge der NS-Diktatur 1933-1937, Augsburg 2008.

Gerhard Hetzer, Die Industriestadt Augsburg. Eine Sozialgeschichte der Arbeiteropposition, in: Martin Broszat/Elke Fröhlich/Anton Grossmann (Hg.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit. Herrschaft und Gesellschaft im Konflikt, Bd. 3, München/Wien 1981, S. 1-233.

Winfried Nerdinger (Hg.), Bauten erinnern. Augsburg in der NS-Zeit, Berlin 2012.