Katharina Grünewald. 29.04.1904 – 03.08.1929
Although the fallen of the NSDAP during the “time of struggle” were honoured in the Third Reich as martyrs, few details of these men and women are remembered today. Horst Wessel, Albert Leo Schlageter and Herbert Norkus are exceptions. The hundreds of others who made the ultimate sacrifice have no markers or plaques.
On this anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birth we are posting another of our ‘Martyrs of the Revolution’ series, this time a woman, 25-year-old Katharina Grünewald. Katharina was one of two National Socialists killed at the 1929 Reichspartietags in Nurnberg and one of only three known female martyrs. The other victim was 20-year-old Erich Jost, who we will feature in the next ‘martyr’ post.
Dr. Goebbels wrote enthusiastically in his diary about the Reichspartietag in Nurnberg in 1929, but the mention of clashes with political opponents made it clear that the National Socialists were not yet able to claim the upper hand in the city of the Reichsparteitage.
In its August 3, 1929 edition, the Frankish Courier explained the background: “Communists were becoming violent.”
“The so-called ‘anti-war day’, ordered by the Comintern on an international scale and prepared with unprecedented propaganda, was also to be held in Nurnberg-Furth despite the ban. On the night of July 31st to August 1st, 16 communists were arrested in Nurnberg alone for sticking up stickers with inflammatory content. As a result of the police investigations to date, it can be said with certainty that the serious conflict was undoubtedly a well-prepared communist action.
“The police prevented any gathering of the 800 or so people who had turned up. It may have been these people who, at around 8 o’clock in the evening in the vicinity of the Herkulessaal, began chanting against participants of the NSDAP conference (the Reich Party Conference).
“A National Socialist was seriously injured by knife wounds. As a result of the police investigations to date, it can be said with certainty that the serious conflict that followed was undoubtedly a well-prepared communist action.”
The political violence at the 1929 rally claimed two lives.
Katharina Grünewald was one of three female blood witnesses to the Nazi movement. She was born Katharina Fulbert in Worms am Rhein and spent her youth in Frankfurt am Main, where her parents lived. After finishing school, Katharina Fulbert moved to Lampertheim in Hesse, where she ran her grandfather’s household.
In 1924, the young woman married the merchant Georg-Ludwig Grunewald and ran a grocery store with him. Katharina Grunewald came into contact with politics through her husband, who led the Lampertheim branch of the NSDAP in 1927 and belonged to an early group of the NS women’s organisation.
Research into the circumstances of her death does not provide a clear picture of what happened. The mother of one attended the Reich Party Congress in Nurnberg in 1929 together with her brother.
On the evening of August 2, after the fireworks, the two walked towards their accommodation. At Museumsberg, between Lorenzplatz and Museumsberg, a car belonging to the Supreme SA leadership drove past. Several members of the Reichbanner tried to stop the vehicle at the corner of Karolinenstrasse, directly in front of St. Lawrence Church, but when they failed, one of the people fired at the car several times. A stray bullet fatally hit the twenty-five-year-old woman in Herznahe. The gunman was arrested by the police, according to the Volkischer Beobachter.
This is the most detailed and clearest description of the bloody deed; however, it is unequivocally denied by the police in the ‘Frankischer Kurrier’ of August 15, 1929, without giving any further details. There is only talk of crowds and scuffles between SA and Reichbanner members, which ultimately culminated in the death of the young woman.
Shortly afterwards, newspaper advertisements were placed seeking members of the NSDAP as witnesses, who had allegedly had a heated exchange of words with the Reichbanner men near the scene of the crime.
Katharina Grünewald, a National Socialist, a wife and the mother of a young son, we will remember you.
“Only The Forgotten Are Dead”
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