A History of Zierenberg part 2

By the time World War One began, Zierenberg had 1500 residents. In all, 300 Zierenbergers were enlisted into the German army and 46 of them were killed between 1914 and 1918. The interwar years, of course, hardly helped lighten the mood. The Nazi Party first appeared on general election slips in 1928, when they won 15 whole votes in Zierenberg, against 283 and 161 for the two main parties. Two years later the Nazis won 57 Zierenberger votes; another two years after that, in 1932, they won 594. This was about 64% of the town's vote. In the country as a whole, the Nazis only won 30%. You do the math(s).

Hitler siezed power the following year, and the Zierenberg SA celebrated in style by parading about in uniforms, burning Weimar flags in the centre of town, hanging a swastika from the gables of the town hall and standing to attention while an orchestra played the Horst-Wessel song. All in all, things were getting a bit Nazi in Zierenberg.

He's here to help

Hederich's chapter on the years 1933-1939 is entitled 'The Deceptive Glamour of the Third Reich'. It makes for chilling reading how the rise of Nazism impacted on daily life even in a small town like this. Civil servants had to prove their Nazi sympathies, the local pastor's sermons were observed and his parishioners registered, all none-Nazi political parties and newspapers were shut down, independent societies and unions were 'synchronised' with the Nazi party line or else persecuted, the parish record office was swamped with requests for evidence of Aryan descent. All this happened within a few short months, remember.

The tightening grip of fascism was of course hidden within a velvet glove. All through 1933, as Hederich writes, came 'an endless series of glittering festivals and parades', each one glorifying the Nazi regime. On May Day 1933, a 4.5 ton 'Adolf Hitler Stone' was dragged by horses to the entrance of Friedrichsaue, just a few yards from where I now live (it appears to have been somehow removed since). In June an airship flew low over the town to the delight of its inhabitants. Very few resisted the collective hysteria. The November elections saw a 100% voter turnout, and 100% of the votes, all 1064 of them, officially went to Hitler. The local newspaper led with the headline: 'Zierenberg - the Adolf Hitler town.'

Zierenberg's town hall, minus swastika

The town's centuries-old Jewish population, of course, was not allowed to join in the fun, and was finally expelled after the destruction of the town's synagogue during Kristalnacht in 1938. Those who had not already left Germany fled to Kassel, staying there until their shipment to the death camps later in the war. Hundreds of Zierenberg's male population were called up to fight between 1939 and 1945, and like their eighteenth-century ancestors they fell more or less equally into three fates: death, wounding or capture. The nearby city of Kassel fell victim to Allied terror bombing in 1943, when the entire city centre, along with 10,000 of its inhabitants, was wiped out in a single raid. Zierenberg itself, too insignificant to bomb, was occupied by American forces at the end of the war.

Hederich memorably summarises the state of affairs in 1962:

Even now, more than 15 years after the end of the war, there is no final peace in Germany. The country is still torn into two, each part separated from the other by heavily guarded borders. The tensions between the superpowers lead to ever deeper divisions between the two German states and damage both urban and rural life. Many people are cut off from their relatives in another part of Germany; they are not even able to visit them for important family events; many are plagued by worry for loved ones who live across the not-too-distant border.

Yet he also saw glimpses of progress in material life - cars, fridges, televisions, new construction work - and promises of prosperity to come. In the end his optimism won out: it took another 26 years, but unification finally arrived, the Cold War ended and those fragile signs of prosperity continued to grow. And while Neo-Nazism is relatively strong in this part of Germany, the underpass near Friedrichsaue is full of anti-Nazi Anarchist grafitti: Nazis out! Racism kills! Fascism never again, war never again! Down with right-wing youth clubs!

Zierenberg has probably never been a happier, safer or more comfortable place than it is now. Coming from England, where - remarkably by European standards - there has not been a single pitched land battle for more than three hundred years, it is easy to take the modern-day tranquility of somewhere like Zierenberg for granted. But now I can hardly help but feel that it has earned a little peace. At least for another generation or two...

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