10th March 1933
Sign of the Times
Riots and abuses in Munich 9th/10th March 1933
Diary entry by Walter Gyssling
Dr Walter Gyssling (1903-1980), journalist; career officer, then university studies; joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1929; leading member of the CV bureau for resistance to antisemitism, 1930-1933; fled to Basel in March 1933 to avoid arrest; author of Der Anti-Nazi (1931).
Note: The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (also: Zentral-Verein, Central Verein, CV, CV, C.-V.) was founded on 26th March, 1893 in Berlin. It represented the majority of assimilated bourgeois-liberal Jews in Germany, stood up for their civil rights and social equality and tried to reconcile Judaism with 'Deutschtum' (Germanness).
'10th March. A night of horror lies behind us. Nothing else was ultimately to be expected. Whoever has heard the unbridled diatribes that were spoken yesterday evening in front of the Feldherrenhalle is disgusted but not surprised.'
[Correctly: Feldherrnhalle (field commander's hall), a monumental loggia in Munich commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1841 to commemorate the Bavarian army. On 9th November 1923 sixteen participants in the Beer Hall Putsch (as well as four policemen) were killed at the sitein a clash with the Bavarian police].
'Esser, Epp, Rohm, and whatever all the names of the 'leaders' are, have unhesitatingly poured oil on the flames. They bear the guilt for all the despicable crimes that took place last night. The workers' newspapers destroyed, the trade union premises attacked, hundreds of communist and social democrat leaders arrested. It is awful, but one is somehow used to it already, especially if one saw what happened the week after the Reichstag fire in Berlin. But that bloodthirsty criminals storm the apartments of peaceful, non-political citizens, that people are carried off and roughed up, that nothing, nothing at all, is sacred to these gangs, that was never the case in Germany until now.
Today we are trying to at least get an overview of the night's events.
Just now a leader of the Bavarian People's Party informs us that the current minister of police, Dr Stutzel, was taken out of his apartment during the night by SA members, brought barefoot in his pyjamas to the Brown House, and savagely beaten there. He probably would have ordered the police to march yesterday morning, had he foreseen his fate. Then a distraught friend comes and tells us that an acquaintance of his, a retailer who has never stood out politically, was assaulted in his apartment during the night by the SA. With words 'we've starved for fourteen years and you, Jewish pig, have devoured the money', the beasts literally tore off one of his arms. The advertising director of a department store was beaten, taken to a remote forest, and tied naked to a tree with rope. Of a Jewish furniture dealer one hears that, as a result of a night-time raid on his house by SA members, he now lies in a surgical ward with a fractured skull. I met the wife of a lawyer. Her husband has fled. Out of rage at this, she was viciously abused by intruding SA members. She can hardly walk. All her limbs are covered with welts and bruises. One arrest after another is reported. Not only the leaders of the left-wing parties, but also numerous Jewish retailers were simply arrested on the basis of some kind of list of proscriptions. We go to the offices of a well-known Jewish society. What we see there is an image of meaningless destruction. Doors and windows smashed, telephones and furniture demolished by axe blows, everything thrown around. Pale and crying, the employees tell us about the attack. Whatever wasn't nailed down and bolted, files, books, typewriters, money, everything was stolen. The looters did not even leave behind a single phonebook or train timetable. there I also hear more details about the despicable fate of the venerable rabbi [most likely Rabbi Leo Baerwald]. During the night, SA members took him to the Brown House, where he was greeted with the words 'here he comes, the crooked Jew-dog who will now be shot'. He was then led to the Oberwiesenfeld parade ground and placed blindfolded against a tree; an execution squad lined up and an officer commanded, 'Aim, fire!' But they did not fire. They merely wanted to give this dignified old man 'a little scare' and then let him go. Instead, another Jewish woman comes and tells about how National Socialists broke in her apartment in the night. Her husband and son were forced to sign a release with the following content: 'I, the Israelite J.L., hereby acknowledge that I am a traitor and agree to leave behind the assets that I have stolen from the German people and leave the country within four weeks.' Scarcely had they signed under the threat of drawn revolvers, when the SA explained to them that a Jew once demanded that Hitler be horsewhipped out of Germany. This utterance was now going to be avenged on them. Both were stripped naked and beaten with wire whips until they collapsed unconscious.
So it continues for hours. One shocking report after another. In the end I can't take it any more and leave. Yet I am not to have any peace. On the streets it is even worse. In front of my very eyes, berated and spat at by hysterical beasts, SA members chase a man with whips in broad daylight. He wears neither shoes nor socks, no jacket, no trousers, only a shirt and torn undergarments. A placard hangs around his neck with the inscription 'I the Jew Siegel [Dr Michael Siegal (1882-1979, lawyer in Munich] will never again complain about the National Socialists'. He is one of the most respected lawyers in Munich, who had gone to the police headquarters in order to intervene on behalf of an arrested friend. After he had first been cruelly beaten, he was then hounded through the streets in the condition described above.
After today, I know what a pogrom is.
For more information on the Michael Siegel incident click here
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