Germany's Heroes Remembrance Day 1940

 

Image size: 2048 x 1370 pixel. 457 KB
Date: Sunday, 10 March 1940
Place: Unter den Linden, Berlin, Germany
Photographer: Unknown

Heldengedenktag (Heroes Remembrance Day) 1940 on Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin. Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, accompanied by Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, greets the honor battalion of the Wehrmacht marching past. March 10, 1940. In 1919, the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) proposed a Volkstrauertag (people's day of mourning) for German soldiers killed in the First World War. It was first held in 1922 in the Reichstag. In 1926, Volkstrauertag became a feature on what Catholics considered Reminiscere (the second Sunday of Lent.). On 27 February 1934, the National Socialists introduced national holiday legislation to create Heldengedenktag ("Day of Commemoration of Heroes"), cementing the observance. In the process, they completely changed the character of the holiday: the emphasis shifted to hero worship rather than remembering the dead. Furthermore, five years later the Nazis abolished Buß- und Bettag as a non-working day and moved its commemoration to the following Sunday, to further the war effort. Joseph Goebbels as Propaganda Minister, issued guidelines on content and implementation, instructing that flags no longer be flown at half-mast. The last Heldengedenktag was celebrated in 1945. Photo by Popperfoto.

Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkstrauertag
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=412210326714464&set=gm.1641608349357915

Dutch SS Ceremony in Utrecht

Image size: 1056 x 1600 pixel. 317 KB
Date: Sunday, 11 May 1941
Place: Utrecht, Netherlands
Photographer: Unknown

Dutch SS ceremony in Utrecht, 11 May 1941. On 11 September 1940 the NSB (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland) formed the Nederlandsche SS (Dutch SS), it had up to 7,000 members. Himmler's vision for a Germanic SS started with grouping the Netherlands, Belgium and north-east France together into a western-Germanic state called Burgundia which would be policed by the SS as a security buffer for Germany. In 1940, the first manifestation of the Germanic SS appeared in Flanders as the Allgemeene SS Vlaanderen to be joined two-months later by the Dutch Nederlandsche SS and in May 1941 the Norwegian Norges SS was formed. The final nation to contribute to the Germanic SS was Denmark, whose Germansk Korpet (later called the Schalburg Corps) came into being in April 1943. For the SS, they did not think of their compatriots in terms of national borders but in terms of Germanic racial makeup, known conceptually to them as Deutschtum, a greater idea which transcended traditional political boundaries. While the SS leadership foresaw an imperialistic and semi-autonomous relationship for the Nordic/Germanic countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway as co-bearers of a greater Germanic empire, Hitler refused to grant them the same degree of independence despite ongoing pressure from ranking members of the SS.

Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_SS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Movement_in_the_Netherlands
http://virepicf.pw/Image-Dutch-SS-in-Utrecht-11-May-1941-History-World-War-II.html

Picture of People Giving a Nazi Salute, with August Landmesser Refusing to do so

Image size: 1600 x 1066 pixel. 695 KB
Date: Saturday, 13 June 1936
Place: Blohm + Voss shipyard, Hamburg, Germany
Photographer: Unknown

August Landmesser (born May 24, 1910; missing and presumed dead Oct 17, 1944; declared dead in 1949) was a worker at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, best known for his appearance in a photograph refusing to perform the Nazi salute at the launch of the naval training vessel Horst Wessel on 13 June 1936. August Landmesser was the only child of August Franz Landmesser and Wilhelmine Magdalene (née Schmidtpott). He joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1931 in hope of getting a job. When he became engaged to the Jewish woman Irma Eckler in 1935, he was expelled from the party. They registered to be married in Hamburg, but the Nuremburg Laws enacted a month later prevented it. On October 29, 1935, their first daughter Ingrid was born. In 1937, they tried to flee to Denmark but Landmesser was arrested and it became known that Irma Eckler was pregnant and expecting another daughter. Landmesser was charged and found guilty of "dishonoring the race" under Nazi racial laws in July 1937. Landmesser argued that neither he nor Eckler knew that she was fully Jewish, and he was acquitted on May 27, 1938 for lack of evidence, with the warning that a repeat offense would result in a multi-year prison sentence. Landmesser and Eckler publicly continued their relationship, and on July 15, 1938 he was arrested again and sentenced to two and a half years in the concentration camp Börgermoor. Eckler was detained by the Gestapo and held at the prison Fuhlsbüttel, where she gave birth to a second daughter Irene. From there she was sent to the Oranienburg concentration camp, then the Lichtenburg concentration camp for women, and then the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Their children were initially taken to the city orphanage. Ingrid was later allowed to live with her maternal grandmother; Irene went to the home of foster parents in 1941. After her grandmother's death in 1953, Ingrid was also placed with foster parents. A few letters came from Irma Eckler until January 1942. It is believed that she was brought to the so-called Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in February 1942, where she was among the 14,000 killed; she was pronounced dead in 1949, with a date of April 28, 1942. Landmesser was discharged from prison on 19 January 1941. Landmesser worked as a foreman for the firm Püst, a haulage company. The company had a branch at the Heinkel-Werke (factory) in Warnemünde. In February 1944 he was drafted into a penal battalion, the 999th Fort Infantry Battalion. He was declared missing in action and presumably killed during fighting in Croatia on October 17, 1944. He was declared dead in 1949, with an effective date of August 1 that year. The marriage of August Landmesser and Irma Eckler was recognized retroactively by the Senate of Hamburg in the summer of 1951, and in the autumn of that year Ingrid assumed the surname Landmesser. Irene continued to use the surname Eckler. In 1996, Irene Eckler published the book Die Vormundschaftsakte 1935–1958 : Verfolgung einer Familie wegen "Rassenschande" (The Guardianship Act 1935–1958: Persecution of a Family for "Dishonoring the Race"). This book about the story of her family includes a large amount of original documents from the time in question including letters from her mother and documents from state institutions. A figure identified as August Landmesser is featured in a photograph taken on June 13, 1936, published on March 22, 1991 in "Die Zeit". It shows a large gathering of workers at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, for the launching of the Navy training ship Horst Wessel. Everyone in the image has raised his or her arm in the Nazi salute, with the exception of a man toward the back of the crowd, who grimly stands with his arms crossed over his chest. Whether the depicted man is Landmesser is not known with certainty; calls to definitively identify him have gone unanswered, and his daughter Irene is not sure.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Landmesser