Remember, LORD, What Has Happened to Us

On the occasion of Jewish Culture Day last Sunday, Red Baron took part in a guided tour of Freiburg's Jewish cemetery.

Our guide was Ruben Frankenstein, author of the book: Denkmal und Name – Der gute Ort Freiburg. Dokumentation des jüdischen Friedhofs (Monument and name – Freiburg, a good place. Documentation of the Jewish cemetery).

Let's go back in history: Following a pogrom in Freiburg in January 1349, when all the Jews in town were murdered, they were hesitant, and only a few came back.

Eventually, the stay of those who settled in Freiburg was only short-lived. As a result of reports of ritual murders of Christians in distant Bavaria, the City Council, after consulting with Duke Leopold, announced the expulsion of all Jews from the pulpits on July 4, 1401.
On February 22, 1424, at the request of the City Council, King Sigismund officially confirmed the decree of 1401, of the Eternal Expulsion of all Jews from Freiburg.

It was not until 450 years later, in 1862, that Jews were allowed to take up permanent residence in Freiburg.

 
In 1863, a Jewish community was established in Freiburg. Seven years later, it laid out its own cemetery on the corner of Elsässer Straße and Rosbaumweg, covering an area of 83 acres. Today, there are approximately 900 mazevot (gravestones).

Our group entered the Jewish cemetery through the gate. Surprisingly, it was not desecrated during the Nazi era. Unlike in many Jewish cemeteries in Alsace in the recent past, grave desecrations did not occur in Freiburg.

Near the entrance, a cluster of gravestones bearing the name Kahn caught Red Baron's eye.

Ruben Frankenstein explained that in many Jewish cemeteries, there is a specific order in which members of different groups are buried. As the descendants of Moses' brother Aaron, the Kohanim are the priestly class and have, in a ritual sense, the duty not to defile themselves with the dead.

Cemeteries are considered a "place of impurity," therefore Kohanim are not allowed to enter a cemetery. So, burial places for them are provided directly near the entrance so that their relatives do not have to go far inside when visiting the grave.

Ruben made all the gravestones we visited speak.

Here lies Hofrat Dr. Gustav Weil, professor of Oriental languages at Heidelberg University.

Weil's surviving relatives were proud of his professorship because in the 19th century, it was difficult for a Jew to rise in the university hierarchy.

     

Here lies Eduard Salomon, candidate of medicine, deeply mourned by his loved ones. 

Eduard died in a duel* at the age of 26, three days before receiving his medical license. The cause was an anti-Semitic insult and a resulting altercation with a fraternity student in a restaurant. Read the full and lengthy story here in German.

*Read about Ferdinand Lassalle, who was another Jew killed in a duel 

The inscription on the pedestal, expressing trust in God, reads:

 
In vain have I sought power
In vain have I exhausted my strength.
But my right is with the Eternal One
My reward is with my God.

           

Therese Loewy committed suicide on October 22, 1940, on the very day when the Jews in Freiburg were rounded up to be transported to the concentration camp Gurs in Vichy, France. She decided to go with dignity on her own terms and not be murdered by Nazi henchmen.

On the Western Front in 1916, Jewish soldiers are celebrating Hanukkah, the commemoration
of the rededication of the Holy Temple, in the snow, showing the nine-armed Menorah.

During World War I, Jewish soldiers fought side by side with their Christian comrades for the emperor and their fatherland.

The Jewish cemetery embraces a war memorial for the many members of Freiburg's Jewish community who fell in World War I.

To our sons who fell in World War I, with gratitude and reverence. The Israel Congregation.

In addition to those who rest here, the following died for their fatherland. 

It follows a list of 24 names.

The Jewish cemetery in Freiburg is a tranquil place and makes you think.

Only once did I have to smile. In colloquial German, Billigheimer stands for a low-cost vendor, someone who is particularly inexpensive or cheap. 

In 1986, a memorial stone was erected with a commonplace inscription in Hebrew and German: "To the Jewish victims of tyranny 1933–1945."

In a cemetery, they should have taken the inscription from Lamentations 5:1.

Remember, LORD, what has happened to us.

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Where is Matt Dillon?

As a student, Red Baron listened on AFN Munich to Gunsmoke and heard U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon say, "I am the first man they look for, and the last they want to meet."

For me, Matt, who practiced the rule of law in Dodge City,  embodied the USA. The US kept global order, called out wannabe spoilers, and locked troublemakers up.

Lately, some gossipers claimed that Matt was dead. Well, he is still around and keeps law and order in his Long Branch Saloon; however, he no longer cares what's happening within Dodge City.

When the inkeeper of the House of Israel, Netanyahu, made a raid on the neighboring Qatar Saloon, killing some of his enemies, Matt did not brand that illegal action. He said that he was unhappy about the attack and was quick to emphasize that he had nothing to do with it.

Instead, Matt called in many sheriffs to watch the entrance of his saloon, sit at specific tables, and keep the place clean from people south of the border. 

Those who were apprehended without valid residence papers were thrown out, even though they hadn't caused any trouble, and although they were needed in the kitchen and as craftsmen in Matt's Long Branch Saloon.

In the eastern part of Dodge City, there lived a Russian, Potentate, who owned a vast saloon. Being greedy, he sent his gunmen to the nearby Ukraine Inn, trying to incorporate the place into his empire. 

Matt admired the strong man; he invited him to the western branch of his Long Branch Saloon, rolling out a red carpet, hoping that Potentate would make peace with the Ukrainian innkeeper.

But Potentate's bullets kept on flying, and one day they penetrated into the Poland Saloon on the other side of the street. Matt had an alliance with the owner, and so he felt embarrassed by the situation, issuing a statement:

Here we go? Matt went nowhere. Later, he claimed that Potentate possibly had men with poor aim whose bullets had gone astray. It is a Mad City instead of Dodge City.

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I Love Paris

Lutetia at the time of Julius Caesar.
Asterix Volume 6: Les Lauriers de César (©Udezero)

... but, non modo amo Lutetiam, urbem ad Sequanam, sed totam quoque Galliam. 

During his professional life, Red Baron was often in Paris. While my conversation partners worked at the CEA at Saclay, I stayed overnight in Paris and took the suburban train to the center of the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives the following morning.

I loved and still love the small hotels in the Latin Quarter. In the evening, I went to the theater. I saw Bertolt Brecht in French (!): The Life of Galileo at the Comédie Française and Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti at the Théâtre Marigny. Hilarious.

For breakfast, I had one or two pots of coffee, a crispy baguette, fresh from the bakery, with butter from a bowl and strawberry jam from a large jar. Delicious.

When the hotel didn't offer breakfast, I went to the nearest bistrot du coin de rue and enjoyed la formule café-croissant.

The lobby of the Saint Paul Hotel (©Google Maps)

On my last organized visit to Paris with a small group of twelve people, I again stayed on the Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, this time at the Hotel Saint Paul on ...

This name rang a bell. The Duc d'Enghien from the House of Condé was a key figure in the Battle of Freiburg on August 3 to 5, 1644. The House of Condé is a cadet branch of the French royal house of Bourbon.

The Great Condé - as he was later called - commanded the Armée de France and joined Marschall Turenne with his Armée de L'Allemagne to recapture the city held by Bavarian troops under Franz von Mercy. Read more about one of the bloodiest battles of the Thirty Years' Way here in German.

In the following, I'll report in several blogs about this fantastic and probably my last stay, where the price-performance ratio of our tour company was outstanding. Red Baron was exceptionally high and delighted to show his beloved Paris to someone close to him who had never been to the City of Light before.

After checking in, our group set off on its first walking tour to explore the Latin Quarter.

At the end of our street, a bust of Charles Aznavour greeted us. Here is one of his greatest hits. I dedicate it to the one accompanying me. 

Next stop: Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where you'll find the famous café frequented by well-known literary figures, Les Deux Magots. 

The name comes from a 19th-century play titled Les Deux Magots de la Chine. In fact, inside the café, you'll find two statues of Chinese mandarins perched on a central pillar, gazing out over the room. They are the Deux Magots and have become iconic symbols of the café. 

Red Baron had always confused that word with mégot (cigarette butt), which isn't so far-fetched, because the place was named after an icon of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Juliette Gréco. She knew Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Jacques Prévert, and many other philosophical and literary figures and was called la Muse de l'existentialisme.

L'Eglise de Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the oldest churches. It was part of an abbey and was consecrated in 558. The name refers to Saint Germanus, who was bishop of Paris from 550 to 576.

The nave is presented in a transitional Romanesque-Gothic style.

On our way to the Quai Voltaire, we passed the former Hôtel d'Alsace in Rue des Beaux-Arts 13, where Oscar Wilde once dwelt and died.

On the other side of the River Seine, the Louvre Palace awaits our visit.

The journey and the many new impressions of the afternoon had made us hungry.

 Cosy Au Père Louis (©Google Maps)

Our group ended the first day in Paris in style with a three-course dinner at the restaurant Au Père Louis.

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The Land of the Unfree?

A recent article in Der Spiegel with the English title "The Land of the Unfree" is affirmative.

Red Baron disagrees and puts a question mark behind this statement, as long as Stephen Colbert, in his Late Show, may openly call President Trump a moron without repercussions.

We Europeans rub our eyes every day and ask how long the American people will tolerate this man. Where is the public outcry or protest? In Germany, thousands take to the streets when Christian Democrats vote on a law with the help of the right-wing extremist AfD party.

Sure, the AfD has 26% of the vote in polls, and the Left has 11%. People are already invoking a Weimar situation. Back then, in the 1930s, the democratic center in the Reichstag (the German parliament) was crushed between the radical right-wing and left-wing parties. The German people were ultimately given a Reich Chancellor whom most consider to be the greatest criminal of all time.

The New York Times wrote, "The path of a democracy into authoritarianism is like a slippery slope, or a constitutional state erodes piece by piece, and suddenly it is gone. It took the Nazis just four months to complete their Machtergreifung (grabbing complete power).

In a Short, former President Obama warns that the current government's actions are inconsistent with democracy. America is drifting into autocracy, while Obama mentions Hungary and Victor Orban.

In America, the law is king," founding father Thomas Paine once wrote, but presently, Trump is the law.

When courts try to stop Trump, he often ignores them. He can do this because, with a compliant Republican Party in Congress, the checks and balances are undermined.

He can do this because many have resigned and given in. Is it fear of either Trump personally or his power, and why resist when you can suck up?

Powerful law firms do pro bono work for the Trump administration so that it will remain favorable to them. 

Many universities have changed their curricula or admissions procedures so as not to lose research funding.

Corporate America and tech billionaires Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg were among the top invitees when Trump took office on January 20.

They don't want Donald as an adversary and smiled as their new president renamed the Gulf of Mexico, sought to make Canada the 51st state, and seize Greenland, as well as the Panama Canal. 

The latest episode of Trump's actions is his transformation of

the traditional White House Rose Garden

into a "freedom slab," as Stephen Colbert called it.

The story didn't end there:

Red Baron shakes his head. Doesn't an American president have more important things to care about?

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Freiburg, Baden's Capital

Already in spring, Red Baron took part in a guided tour entitled "Freiburg as the capital of Baden 1945/46–1952." Our guide was none other than Professor Heinrich Schwendemann, who, as a historian at the University of Freiburg, specializes in pre- and post-war history and the history of Jews in Freiburg.

For Red Baron, this was a follow-up to a tour in 2012 focusing on Leo Wohleb, the first and last president of the State of Baden, and a supplement to the seminar in the winter semester 2024/25 "80 Years, End of the War in the Southwest" (1944/45) he had participated in.

Shortly before the end of the war, at the Yalta Conference in 1944, the Allies formulated their war aims. Among other things, it was decided that France, if it so desires, shall be invited by the three powers to take over an occupation zone and to participate as a fourth member in the Control Commission. The size of the French zone would be agreed upon by the four interested governments through their representatives in the European Advisory Commission.

The French not only wanted an occupation zone, but were also in a particular hurry towards the end of the war to create a fait accompli. French troops quickly advanced into southwestern Germany in early 1945, which did not sit well with the Americans.

The French advance across the Rhine began on March  31, 1945, north of Karlsruhe. On April 16, the troops reached Freudenstadt, and Stuttgart was occupied on April 21.

The 8th daily order of the commanding general, Jean-Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny, refers to the history of the advance of French troops into Reich territory:

Soldiers of the First French Army, faithful to the call of our commander-in-chief, General de GAULLE, you have rediscovered the tradition of French greatness, the tradition of the soldiers of TURENNE, the volunteers of the French Revolution, and the veterans of NAPOLEON.

On April 24, the tricolor flew over the walls of Ulm. The thought of Napoleon's victory at Ulm had inspired de Lattre.

Following the Yalta Agreement, the French would have liked to take all of Baden as their occupation zone and a little more.

General de Gaulle's border demands and the reality

However, the Americans were keen to control the Karlsruhe-Stuttgart-Munich autobahn, so de Gaulle's proposal for a French zone was consigned to the waste paper. With a large part of Württemberg attributed to the French as compensation, the Americans divided southwestern Germany in an unhistorical way.

French soldiers drive through Martinstor.

On April 21, 1945, the French occupied Freiburg.

On the left is the train station, on the right the Schlossberg.

French soldiers occupy a largely destroyed city.

In October 1945, the French celebrated their victory with a military parade in Freiburg on the former Adolf-Hitler-Straße between the Kaiserbrücke (now Europabrücke) and the Martinstor.

General de Gaulle, together with his colleagues de Lattre de Tassigny and Sevez, reviews the parade of French troops, the majority of whom are Moroccans.

The need is great. A report by Wolfgang Hoffmann, the mayor appointed by the French, states: Of the 29,550 apartments in Freiburg, almost 20% have been destroyed and more than 50% are damaged to varying degrees. More than 30,000 residents have lost all or most of their furniture, household goods, clothing, linen, and other belongings as a result of the bombing of Freiburg.

The city must accommodate 3,183 occupation soldiers. Among the houses requisitioned by the French occupation forces is that of Martin Heidegger. He protests in a letter to the mayor, I cannot understand on what legal grounds I am being subjected to such treatment. I raise the strongest objection to this discrimination against my person and my work.

A Nazi look for Freiburg's university Aula (Auditorium)

After Freiburg's bombing:
Hitler's bust looks down on the ruins of the Aula.

Even after the collapse of the Nazi regime Heidegger had supported, he had not understood that the blood-like forces, as the sole preservers of German culture, had bled dry.

Freiburg's population suffered from malnutrition. Food donations from Swiss Quakers and American CARE packages alleviate the worst.

To overcome Germany's economic chaos, US Secretary of State James Byrnes called in his Stuttgart speech in 1946 for an economic union of the occupation zones under a German government, a proposal rejected by the French and the Soviets. However, since the Americans saw the French as nothing more than ungrateful war profiteers, they formed the Bizone with the British in 1947 without consulting France. The Bizone later mutated into the Trizone after gentle pressure on France.

The unnatural borders drawn by the occupation zones in the southwest remained in place. Thus, under French auspices, a South Baden state parliament convened in the historic Kaufhaus (department store) in Freiburg on May 29, 1947, while in the east of the French occupation zone, Württemberg-Hohenzollern was created with Tübingen as its capital. In the American-occupied part of southwestern Germany, on the other hand, northern Baden and Swabia were governed from Stuttgart in the state of Württemberg-Baden.

Leo Wohleb and the French high commissioner.
Instead of hatred, an understanding reciproque!
No coercion, but freedom!

Thus, Freiburg became the capital of (southern) Baden, and Leo Wohleb became president by French grace.

He resided in the Colombischlössle. Wohleb fought tirelessly for the reunification of Baden, while in Stuttgart – after all, Württemberg was also divided – sentiment was growing in favor of Swabians and Badeners joining together to form a single state. In Freiburg, on the other hand, after a few glasses of wine, the fourth unofficial verse of the Badnerlied was sung:

In Basel, the Rhine is still blue,
In Mannheim, it turns gray.
There, the Neckar flows into the Rhine,
The old Swabian sow.

The vote resulted in the formation of the Southwest State, the Reichsgau, as Leo Wohleb bitterly referred to the new federal state. Reichsgau instead of Breisgau? This nasty expression is worryingly reminiscent of the long-defunct Reichsland, and weren't the Gaue and the Reich burned up in the inferno of the Second World War? 

The old man was probably a sore loser when, during the discussion about the new constitution of Baden-Württemberg, he wanted to strike harder from his Christian (!) heart, because the electorate had been betrayed and the new state was poisoned at its roots.

What a bitter old man.

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Nazi Justice in Freiburg

Nazi torchlight procession through what was then Adolf-Hitler-Straße:
The banner reads: Thank you, Führer. Yes!
On the left is the district court building.
Cover of the exhibition catalog published by Rombach Verlag.

Red Baron listened to a presentation on Nazi Justice in Freiburg by Dr. Thomas Kummle.

We participants entered the modern wing of Freiburg's district court (Amtsgericht) through an airlock.

The Amtsgericht in the 1930ies

While the new building fulfills all the requirements of the modern penitentiary system, the outer look of the court building on Holzmarkt has not changed over the years.

In this District Court, three branches of the Nazi justice carried out their inhumane work. In addition to the standard justice system, the Nazis established special courts (Sondergerichte). The Reich Court of War ruled on cases of desertion or undermining military morale (Wehrkraftzersetzung).

Euphemistically, the Nazis called their highest court in Berlin the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof), although it was not the people who administered justice. It was Roland Freisler who exercised ruthless, arbitrary justice to the point that being brought before the People's Court was tantamount to a capital charge, with most defendants being hanged.

Execution chamber with meat hooks in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin (©Ab Wondergem/Google Maps)

Especially after the assassination attempt on the Führer on July 20, 1944, the pig hooks in the Gestapo prison in Berlin-Plötzensee were never empty.

Well-known victims of this Nazi justice were the Scholl siblings. For their highly political trial, Freisler especially traveled to Munich. In an unnatural act of mercy, the students were not hanged from the gallows but guillotined.

Today's view of the large courtroom of Freiburg's district court,
where the trials of the Sondergericht took place.

Back to Freiburg and its Sondergericht. With the Nazis' seizure of power, numerous new criminal laws came into force. Therefore, the Reich Ordinance of March 21, 1933, established Special Courts. In particular, §16 of the ordinance stipulated that no appeal was possible against the decisions of a Sondergericht.

These Special Courts dealt with violations of the Malicious Acts Act (Heimtückegesetz), the People's Enemies Ordinance (Volksschädlingsverordnung), the War Economy Ordinance (Kriegswirtschaftsverordnung), and the Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures: 
§1: The deliberate interception of foreign broadcasts is prohibited. Violations are punishable by hard labor imprisonment.

Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures of September 7, 1939

When an offense against the Nazi regime was not covered by a law, it was treated by analogy with sometimes very far-fetched offenses.

Since 1933, the special courts have handed down a total of over 11,000 judgments.

In the following, I shall illustrate a case of broadcast crime (Rundfunkverbrechen).

Volksempfänger radio with a warning sticker on the tuning knob. Remember: Listening to foreign broadcasts is a crime against the national security of our people. At the orders of the Führer, it is punishable by severe hard labor imprisonment.

Otto Friedrich, 67 years old, from Offenburg, was accused of listening to the London radio station and the Swiss station Beromünster from September 1939 to November 1941.

As Dr. Kummle reported, Friedrich, who listened to foreign radio stations in his garden shed, had told a neighbor about Rudolf Hess' flight to Scotland*. The "good" neighbor reported him to the police.
*The Führer's deputy and pilot, Rudolf Hess, flew in a Messerschmitt 110 to Scotland on May 10, 1941, to persuade the British government to make peace. He crashed, was taken to a hospital, and later became a prisoner of war.

Secret document on the Rudolf Hess affair

Friedrich was taken into protective custody on November 15, 1941.

Collecting evidence in the Friedrich case

An arrest warrant was issued against him on December 8, 1941.

On February 27, 1942, the Special Court at the Freiburg Regional Court sentenced Otto Friedrich to a total of

 

Three years in a hard-labor prison (Zuchthaus)

for listening to foreign radio stations and disseminating foreign radio news. For time served in pretrial detention, the sentence was reduced by two months. Friedrich's civil rights were revoked for a period of three years.

When, on December 1, 1944, the remainder of his sentence was suspended, Friedrich was not released but immediately arrested by the Gestapo. The broadcast criminal (Rundfunkverbrecher) was accused of having close ties to radical left-wing circles.

Friedrich died on April 30, 1945, in the Dachau concentration camp.

If time permits, Red Baron will report in future blogs about other outrageous sentences of Nazi justice in Freiburg.

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