Interview Directory 

DÜSSELDORF

Name: Dr. Bastian Fleemann

Occupation: Director Mahn- und Gedenkstätte

‘We could have held a central ceremony in the town hall, but we decided against it and wanted to develop a decentralised programme that would run over several weeks and stand out for its diversity.’

AM: How long did it take to prepare such an extensive programme?

B.F.: We drafted a letter for the head of the Department of Culture that was sent to many players in Düsseldorf's cultural landscape, schools, civic associations and neighbourhood initiatives, asking them what was important to them about the end of the war and liberation. Next spring will be the 80th anniversary of this. We then curated the proposals.

These are the events organised by our partners, but our house is the umbrella organisation and has compiled everything for this booklet. Everything you find here is what the city of Düsseldorf supports and promotes. There should be as wide a range of offers and approaches as possible, because the people in this city are very different. There are old people, there are young people, there are people with a migrant background and long-established residents. All these people have very different points of view and perspectives on such a historical topic. We could have held a central ceremony in the town hall, but we decided against it and wanted to develop a decentralised programme over several weeks that stands out due to its diversity. Nobody, not you, not me, will attend all 70 events, but people should choose what particularly interests and appeals to them.

A.M.: Your museum is located in premises that were used as police interrogation rooms and detention cells during the Nazi era. What is it like for you to work there?

B.F.: The old town hall in Düsseldorf was actually still the police headquarters, especially in the early National Socialist era, but also the headquarters of the Düsseldorf SS, and at times also the headquarters of the Gestapo. I've been here for 18 years. In my everyday professional life today, it is more a place of diversity of opinion and open dialogue, and the historical dimension has taken second place.

‘We're talking about communist resistance, we're talking about social democratic resistance, church milieus, bourgeois milieus, liberal milieus, so very different.’

A.M.: Do you also report on resistance fighters, in particular on the resistance fighter Hermann Smeets in your organisation?

B.F.: When we deal with the Nazi era, we naturally have a lot to do with terror, the history of violence and oppression. It is always important, especially for young people who come to us, to learn that there were courageous men and women who put up resistance. The men who resisted in the last days of the war have become very well known. This prominence is somewhat unfairly distributed, because de facto the resistance began on the day of the seizure of power on 30 January 1933 and lasted until the last day. We have to look at all of them equally and evaluate them equally, because from the first to the very last day in Düsseldorf there was resistance by very courageous men and women, from very different directions. We are talking about communist resistance, we are talking about social democratic resistance, church milieus, bourgeois milieus, liberal milieus, in other words very different.

In the context of these 80 years, we look in particular at people like Alois Odental or Hermann Smets, who resisted in the final hours of the war in order to hand the city over to the Allies without fighting and without further bombardment. There were bourgeois groups in Düsseldorf who said at the very end that if we continue to shoot here now and leave the helm to the Party and the SS, then the city will be lost for good. So we have to act now.

Under these dramatic circumstances, they illegally - they were not allowed to - made contact with the Americans.

A.M.: Some of the resistance fighters were executed in the final hours.

‘In the end, Düsseldorf was actually conquered and liberated without further gunfire and without bloodshed.’

B.F.: Yes, the group around Wiedenhofen and Odental. There is a fatefully happy side to this story, namely that the negotiators were successful and were able to convince the Americans to stop firing on Düsseldorf.

In the end, Düsseldorf was actually conquered and liberated without any further shooting or bloodshed. But there is also a tragic side to this happy story: the betrayal of these men and the arrest of five members of the group and their execution at the very last minute by a hastily convened court martial. The happy outcome for those who survived and for the whole town. And there's the terrible twist of these five poor men being abused and shot.

A.M.: Who betrayed them? Was the memorial site the scene of these terrible events?

B.F.: The traitors were police officers loyal to the regime and SS men who freed the arrested police chief. The whole city was in complete chaos. The scene was a school on Färberstraße. We know that the men were detained there and then shot in the schoolyard. This room still exists. We are currently in the process of developing a concept with pupils to redesign this room as a memorial space.

A.M.: Have you organised an exhibition about Hermann Smets?

B.F.: From 7 or 8 April, we will be showing an exhibition entitled ‘Düsseldorf 1945 - Survival in the City’, which is all about the moments at the end of the war in Düsseldorf. 

‘It's about insane and ludicrous activities in this final phase that bear witness to the fact that this regime was at its end, that its power was eroding and collapsing. But also that the brutality of this regime was maintained until the last minute.’

A.M.: The prisoners also had to go on death marches from Düsseldorf.

B.F.: It began at the moment when the US troop units had advanced as far as the Rhine. When Düsseldorf on the left bank of the Rhine had already been liberated, the Rhine bridges were blown up and it was also decided at that moment that the concentration camp prisoners still stationed here in the subcamps in Düsseldorf would be evacuated for good. These prisoners were driven back to Buchenwald in Thuringia on foot.

In the first days of March, the large prison on Ulmenstraße was ‘evacuated’, as it was called at the time, and the prisoners were transferred to Remscheid-Lüttringhausen. These were insane and ludicrous activities in this final phase that testify to the fact that this regime was at an end, that its power was eroding and collapsing. But also that the brutality of this regime was maintained until the very last minute.

‘Everyone in Düsseldorf could see these concentration camp prisoners, sick, emaciated and half-starved, as they marched down the street in columns.’

A.M.: How did it come about that subcamps were set up in Düsseldorf?

B.F.: From 1943 onwards, there were a total of five satellite camps of the large Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen main camps in Düsseldorf. There were several hundred concentration camp prisoners in these subcamps, if you like, who were used for various forced labour tasks here in Düsseldorf. There was an entire camp complex on Kirchfeldstraße, Rather Straße and at the Stoffeln cemetery. People could also see all of this very clearly because these concentration camp prisoners in their striped prisoner suits were also used to clear bombs and rubble, among other things.

Everyone in Düsseldorf could see these concentration camp prisoners, sick, emaciated and half-starved, as they marched along the streets in columns. Seeing the concentration camp system in Düsseldorf was an everyday sight. Not an extermination camp like Auschwitz-Birkenau, but the mortality rate in the Düsseldorf camps was also very, very high.

A.M.: So the city's population was a witness? 

B.F.: There were many Nazi crimes that took place in the public sphere from the first to the last day. And that of course included the deportations, when thousands of people were simply driven through the city.

‘But of course there was also a lot of support for the Nazis from middle-class circles, from Protestant circles, from petty-bourgeois Catholic circles. It's all very complex.’

A.M.: How do you think the regime was anchored here in Düsseldorf? Were there many resisters or was it more of this, how do you put it, ‘Duckmäusertum’?

B.F.: That's a very big question that could take an entire evening to answer. Düsseldorf was a Gau capital, with a Gau leader as Adolf Hitler's direct representative. What we tend to forget today is that Düsseldorf was an industrial city. Today, the impression is given that Düsseldorf has always been an administrative city, a fashion city, a trade fair and exhibition city. But until the war, Düsseldorf was also a city in which tens of thousands of people were industrial proletarians. Think of the glassworks in Gerresheim, Mannesmann, Phönixröhrenwerke, Rheinmetall or the Henkel chemical works in Reißholz. There were medium-sized companies that employed up to six hundred people. It's not as if the people here only managed the city and worked in the Ruhr area. There was a lot of industry in Düsseldorf and, of course, a lot of industrial labour. And this working class was politically organised and largely tended towards the workers' parties, the SPD and above all the KPD at the end of the Weimar Republic.

This milieu was particularly responsive to the very stubborn resistance it put up. But of course there was also a lot of support for the Nazis from bourgeois circles, from Protestant circles, from petty-bourgeois Catholic circles. It's all very complex.

‘There are many people who are very enlightened about the crimes of National Socialism, but they are not informed about the question of what their own grandfather or father or grandmother did or did not do.’

A.M.: How do Germans deal with the chapter of their ancestors? How has this changed in the course of your work? 

B.F.: I believe that we have come a long way in Germany in terms of general research and public perception of the Nazi era. There are many research projects, publicity, films, books and exhibitions. 

My impression is that people in families, in private homes, have not yet come that far. There seems to be a reluctance to face up to the history of one's own ancestors. There are many people who are very enlightened about the crimes of National Socialism, but they are not informed about what their own grandfather or father or grandmother did or did not do. An interesting aspect: the discrepancy between a public history and a private history.

A.M.: Why have you dedicated your professional life to this topic?

B.F.: It's not a decision that was made in one afternoon. I was already involved in it at school, then studied history and came here by chance. But I've been dealing with the subject of National Socialism, anti-Semitism and Jewish history for much longer. It's a bit of a mixture of coincidences and things that just happened.

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