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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