Gerlich, born 1883 in Stettin was a journalist, attacking the Nazis at a very early stage. In March 1933 he was arrested, torchered and 16 months later without a trial shot in Dachau. Stefan.
Thanks July 34 is correct I believe he was Jewish born and converted to be a Catholic. This probably made it worse for him. Stefan.
Stefan......thanks for posting the remembrance of German journalist who foresaw the future political scene for Germany before Hitler came to power.It led him to be a marked man and an early victim of the Third Reich. He is remembered in an article by Wolfgang Benz in the Encyclopedia of Resistance to the Nazi Movement. His vision of a National Socialist Germany was reflected In his journal Der Gerade Weg where from 1930 he sought to expose the criminal character of National Socialism.In July 1932,he published the assessment that "National Socialism.......means enmity with neighbouring nations,rule by violence at home,civil and ethnic war......National Socialism means lies,hate,fratricide and boundless danger". His death in Dachau on the night of 30 June 1934 was secondary to the cull of Rohm and his SA......the killing spree which took place on the same night....."The Night of the Long Knives"
Thanks Harry for this additional piece of information. I have to do some more reading. Fritz Gerlich was writing for the Newspaper which was follwed by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. My facvourite German newspaper since 1967 or so. Stefan.
Stefan Gerlich's journalistic crusade against Hitler started in 1923.He appears to have been quite a "thorn in the side" of Hitler and the NSDAP. Co-founder of Die Wirklichkeit. Editor in chief of the Munchner Neueste Nachrichen from 1920 to 1928 Publisher of the Catholic Illustrierter Sonntag In hindsight,Gerlich should have undertaken the journey taken by Konrad Heiden. A journalist on the staff of the Frankfurter Zeitung and a member of the SDP, Heiden must have recognised his dangerous personal position.He left Germany for Switzerland and on to France in 1933 where he wrote for the Pariser Tageblatt. Interned in 1939-1940,he fled for the US via Lisbon.(Must have taken advantage of the newly established flying boat service between Lisbon and the US.) In the US,Heiden wrote a historical classic of the events in Germany,"The Fuehrer" in 1944.His preface is a reflection on what had gone on in Germany.He wrote,"It is 23 years now since I first attended a National Socialist meeting,saw Herr Hitler (without particular enjoyment) at close range,and listened to the flood of nonsense.....or so then it appeared to me...that he was spouting.It was only gradually that the effects of these speeches made me realise that behind all the nonsense there was unrivaled political cunning".
