Although Thuringia was allotted to the Soviet Occupation Zone, military requirements meant that the region was initially conquered during April 1945 by the Americans.^^ They remained until the agreed handover on 1 July 1945, the day on which the Soviets permitted the western allies to enter Berlin. Thus the populations of Thuringia and other SBZ border areas were uniquely able to compare American and Soviet occupation. The impressions left by the Americans later assumed greater significance in the developing Cold War.
Gutsche, Geschichte der Stadt Erfurt, p.472. Facius, pp.549, 559.
Herbert Homig, ‘Thüringen unter dem Nationalsozialismus’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8- 9 (1988-9) 13-27 (p.20); Bodo Herber, ‘Nordhausen; eine Stadt revolutionarer Veranderungen’,
Beitrdge zur Heimatkunde aus Stadt und Kreis Nordhausen, 4 (1979), 6-13 (p.7). Facius, p.559.
On the war in Thuringia, cf. Dietrich Grille, ‘Chronik politischer und militarischer Ereignisse von Ende Marz bis Anfang Juli 1945’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89), 46-79 (pp.46-65); Homig, pp.20-25; Facius, pp.559-563.
On the American period, cf. Ludwig Fuchs, Die Besetzung Thüringens durch die amerikanischen Truppen’, in Beitrdge zur Geschichte Thüringens 1968, ed. by Horst Müller (Erfurt: Museen der Stadt Erfurt, 1968), pp.53-111; various memoirs in Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89).
As clear central policies were lacking, the Americans made varied impressions. Although mainly fearful and apprehensive, Germans were often surprised at the Americans’ modem equipment and healthy and tidy appearance. In Saalfeld distrust diminished and was replaced with relief after the first days passed peacefully.^* Americans generally behaved correctly to Germans, though one observer disparagingly concluded:
The Americans’ attitude was essentially that of civilised victors over underdeveloped natives who had invited punishment of their own fault.^^
Some memoirs recall arrogance, especially among American officers, and an initial tendency to regard all Germans as ‘nazis’, but reports o f open attacks (verbal or physical) on Germans are scarce. Although many Germans suffered indignities and irritations at American hands, there were also reports of troops giving children chocolate.^ ‘
Beyond the most urgent denazification measures and attempts to secure public health, the Americans essentially conducted a holding operation, knowing they would not be in Thuringia long. The regular turnover of American personnel while the war continued also militated against much concerted action. Later, the generally non-interventionist nature of American rule contrasted sharply and favourably with the intrusive nature of politics under the SMA and SED.
Heinz Siebert, D as Eichsfeld unter dem Sowjetstem (Duderstadt: Mecke Druck und Verlag, 1992), p.38; various reports in Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89), especially Hermann Kreutzer, ‘Die Besetzung Saalfelds durch die Amerikaner 1945: Kommunal- und Regionalverwaltung in der “Stunde Null”, 28-45 (p.39).
Kreutzer, pp.39-40.
Gertrud Albrecht, ‘Nochmals Hildburghausen’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89), 114-118 (p. 117).
Siebert, p.40; Kàthe Meyer-Weyrich, ‘...was ware uns nicht allés erspart geblieben’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89), 137-143 (p. 138).
The Americans’ departure from Thuringia in early July 1945 greatly shocked many/^ The allied agreements on zonal borders remained largely unknown in Thuringia. The Americans and Hermann Brill, the American-appointed social democrat Thuringian president, denied rumours in late June of the feared Russians’ imminent arrival.
As the Americans retreated, Soviet occupation forces advanced from Saxony. They met a mixed reaction. Communists in some towns held special ceremonies. The liberal mayor of Gera, Dr Rudolf Paul, also ensured that he was prominent in welcoming the Soviets.^"* Conversely, there was little welcome in Weimar:^^ the Thuringian premier. Brill, refused to greet his new masters,^^ and residents remained safely indoors,^^ mindful of nazi propaganda and dreading the Soviets’ arrival.
Support for nazism at war’s end is hard to gauge accurately, but it is clear that confidence in and acceptance of the nazi regime seriously declined during 1945. Once the war was over, the external symbols of nazism were quickly discarded: for instance, SA uniforms and busts of Hitler were deposited into the Eichsfeld’s rivers,^* and prior to Saalfeld’s surrender,
people had buried, burnt, thrown away or otherwise destroyed the flags, books and emblems, indeed anything which might have reminded them of their own involvement with national socialism. Probably there was no longer any
Cf., e.g., Kreutzer, p.45; Ruth Knabe, ‘In der Stadtverwaltung von Hildburghausen’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8-9 (1988-89), 106-112 (p. 112).
Heinrich Hofihnann, ‘Vereinte Kraft Grosses schafift’ (1968), p.40, LPA, V/6/6-16; Volker Wahl, ‘Der Beginn der antifaschistisch-demokratischen Umwalzung in Thüringen; Die Organisierung der gesellschaftlichen Kràfte und der Neuaufbau der Landesverwaltung 1945’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena, 1976), pp.234-236.
Iwan Sosonowitsch Kolesnitschenko, Im gemeinsamen Kcanpf Jur das neue antifaschistisch- demokratische Deutschland entwickelte und festigte sich unsere unverbrüchliche Freundschcift, Beitrage zur Geschichte Thüringens (Erfurt: SED Bezirksleitung Erfurt/Beziikskommission zur Erforschung der Geschichte der ortlichen Arbeiterbewegung, 1985), pp. 10-12; Manfred Overesch, Machtergreifung von links: Thüringen 1945/46 (Hildesheim: Georg 01ms, 1993), p. 174.
‘Bericht an die Bezirksleitung der K.P.D. über die derzeitige Stimmung der Bevolkerung in Weimar’, 15 July 1945, Thüringjsches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Weimar (hereafter, ThHStAW), Mdl 273, fol
15.
Hofi&nann (note 33), p.41.
As elsewhere, e.g. Heiligenstadt. See: R olf Barthef M ajor M. B. Dsilichow, erster sowjetischer
Kommandant des Kreises Eichsfeld 1945/46, Eichsfelder Heimathefte (Worbis: Eichsfelder
Heimathefte, 1984), pp.28-9. Siebert, p. 17.
attachment to national socialism left by the last war year, so it was easy to part with the external symbols of this system.^^
Kreutzer is undoubtedly correct to emphasise that these were only outward signs, and that many still retained an inner attachment to the familiar political forms. Even three weeks after the fall of GroBwerther, a teenage diarist recorded on 2 May:
a sad, very sad piece of news. Our beloved Führer, Adolf Hitler, has died a hero’s death defending Berlin."^
Even days after American occupation, a Berkach vicar noted that popular opinion was ‘unfathomable’: ‘They still expect a radical change and reversal of the war [...] and still believe in the F ü h r e r . . .Similarly, Ernst Thape, a social democrat held in Buchenwald, noted on 22 April that very few Weimar residents believed the nazi system had collapsed; they feared the nazis would return and take their revenge.'*^ These latter reports suggest a slightly more lingering end to the ‘Hitler myth’ than suggested in Ian Kershaw’s book of that title."*^
Though NSDAP membership alone is no clear guide to inward beliefs, an October 1945 survey showed more than 187,000 registered ex-NSDAP members still in residence, some 6% of Thuringia’s total population. There were 23,000 in Erfurt alone, almost 10% of the city’s inhabitants."^ Thuringia had a far higher than average percentage of NSDAP teachers (98%) and local authority employees (96%) than elsewhere in the Reich (75%)."^^ While extremist incidents, such as the Werwolf murder of a KPD
Kreutzer, p.40.
^ Paul Lauerwald, ‘Schicksalstage 1945 in GroBwerther; Das Tagebuch der Ursula Schonemann’,
Beitrage zur Heimatkunde aus Stadt und Kreis Nordhausen, 16 (1991), 61-82 (p.67).
Werner Meyer, ‘Kriegsende im Hennebergischen’, Kultur und Geschichte Thüringens, 8/9 (1988- 89), 83-95 (p.92).
Frank Moraw, Die Parole der »Einheit« und die Sozialdemokratie, Schriftenreüie des Forschungsinstituts der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 94 (Bonn/Bad Godesberg: Veriag Neue Gesellschaft,
1973), p.67.
Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp.223-5. His Bavarian examples o f the immediate disappearance o f nazi symbols are, however, entirely borne out.
‘Meldung der Einwohnerzahl...’, 23 October 1945, ThHStAW, MdP5, 18, fol 42: This compares with some 8,500,000 NSDAP members in the Reich in 1945 according to Norbert Frei, Der Fuhrerstaat: Nationalsozialistische Herrschqft 1933 bis 1945, 2nd edn (Munich: dtv, 1989), p.255.
Figures cited by Fuchs, p.57.
member near Wehnde,'^ were exceptional, nazi allegiances did not disappear overnight. The Americans reacted to this by organising visits for local residents to concentration camps. Initially, 1,000 Weimar citizens were forced to visit nearby Buchenwald on 16 April 1945. Various sources note the deep impact o f such visits as they were reported throughout the population."^^
Dr Rudolf Paul remembered, when President o f Thuringia, that initially most people 'lived from day to day with no meaning or aim’.'^* However, an active minority already had clear visions of the future. These people had either been active against nanism and at liberty during the war, or held in Buchenwald concentration camp. The direct origins of some postwar political groupings can be traced to members of both groups.
Although Thuringia was later regarded as an important centre of antifascist resistance during 1944 and 1945,'*^ little was practically achieved beyond local efforts to disrupt the war effort and alleviate the worst effects of war and nazi terror on individual prisoners and other groups. The most effective wartime resistance came when local groups scuppered nazi orders to destroy facilities before the allies’ advance.^" Thuringia’s communist leader, Theodor Neubauer, perceptively wrote in late 1943:
Unfortunately there is a widespread current in Germany’s working class that expects all salvation from the ‘Red Army’ and would like passivelylook on until the ‘Russians come and liberate us’.^*
Thuringia’s most important centre of wartime resistance was within Buchenwald concentration camp. The illegal political activities there were of far greater significance for Thuringia’s later political development as a large number of leading KPD (e.g. Ernst Busse, Hermann Axen, Karl Reimann, Walter Bartel, Theodor Neubauer) or SPD (e.g.
Report by Ernst Egert, p.4, LPA, V/5/006.
Overesch, Hermann B rill in Thüringen 1895-1946: Ein Kampfer gegen H itler und Ulbricht (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz N achf, 1992), p.299; Gitta Gunther and Lothar Wallraf^ eds, Geschichte der Stadt
Weimar (Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus N achfolgeS p.634; Kreutzer, p.41.
Cited in Fuchs, p.57.
Günter Benser, Die KPD im Jahre der Befreiung (Berlin: Dietz, 1985), p.66. E.g., Egert (note 46), p.4, reports how his KPD cell saved a local potash works.
G. Glondajewski and H. Schumann, Die Neubauer-Poser Gruppe (Berlin: Dietz, 1957), p.41.
Hermann Brill, Rudolf Breitscheid, Benedikt Kautsky) members were imprisoned there. In the immediate post-liberation period many key postwar Thuringian politicians were influenced by their experiences in Buchenwald
Apart from a non-party political International Camp Committee, which coordinated resistance work, Buchenwald’s political organisation fell into three main categories: a complicated communist structure, parts of which became the first postwar Thuringian KPD leadership; a smaller, non-communist left wing organisation, developed shortly before Buchenwald’s dissolution and later the kernel of the Thuringian SPD; and the non-party, antifascist Volksfront initiative, elements of which formed the antifascist
Demokratischer Block in August 1945.^^
Although resistance work contributed little to nazism’s overthrow, there were three important longer term consequences. First, the wartime groupings shared great solidarity and often became the nucleus of antifascist committees and KPD or (less commonly) SPD party organisations after liberation. Their many underground meetings provided forums to discuss postwar possibilities and to spread anything known of the exiled KPD and NKFD leaderships’ line(s); when arrested communists arrived in Buchenwald, they transmitted this information to fellow inmates. Antifascists of other political persuasions without this wartime experience often reorganised themselves more slowly, allowing communist and social democratic groups to take the initiative in many districts. Secondly, where communists and social democrats collaborated in conspiratoiy wartime activities, foundations were laid for a united workers’ party. This was forcefully reflected by August Frolich, a Thuringian SPD minister in the 1920s who became a regional SED elder statesman. In August 1944 he was taken, chained to Theodor Neubauer, to a Gestapo prison in Berlin. He later recalled his thoughts:
Though executed in Buchenwald, the KPD’s leader Ernst Thalmann was never a prisoner o f the camp.
On prisoners’ political institutions in Buchenwald, see Wahl, pp.82-5, 92-3, 104, 113-4;
Konzentrationslager Buchenwald: Bericht des intemationalen Lagerkomitees Buchenwald (Weimar:
Thiiringer Volksverlag, [1949?]), especially p. 132.
Did we really have to be tied together like two desperate criminals by our deadly enemies whom we had always fought? Why didn’t we, as social democrats and communists, combine in the united struggle before 1933 instead of fighting each other? The answer to this question became a personal vow: if you should survive the nazi period, then you will start afresh and work to unite the two workers’ parties/'*
Thirdly, the (often exaggerated) record of dedicated antifascist wartime resistance by communists and social democrats, as presented in official SED histories, became legendary. Although the effects of antifascist resistance had been minimal in Thuringia, as noted above, they were exploited as far as possible and proved perhaps the largest element in the popular legitimation of SED hegemony, at least until autumn 1989.^^ Though Frolich’s private convictions were undoubtedly sincere, given his postwar active loyalty to the SED, publicly they could be used to strengthen such propaganda, giving rise to what some post-Wende commentators have controversially dubbed the ‘antifascist myth’.^®