How does a city administration change under the influence of right-wing radical ideas and guidelines? How do radical ideologies prevail even in municipalities that were initially strongly opposed to them? A new research project is intended to help clarify this question using the example of the city of Regensburg during the Nazi era. The focus is on the development of the Regensburg city administration between 1933 and 1945.
Regensburg was initially a difficult place for the National Socialists, as the city was a stronghold of the Bavarian People’s Party and Catholicism until the early 1930s. The majority of the population was initially rather critical of the National Socialists. At a district council of the NSDAP it was later said: “Here the political battle of opinions raged long and hotly, because the opponent had fixed positions that were difficult to take.” The Regensburg local group of the Nazi Party was founded in November 1922, but initially received little support and some headwind, as Erich Ziel from the University of Regensburg found in a study a few years ago. In the state and Reichstag elections in 1928, the NSDAP only received around four percent of the vote in Regensburg.
Time from 1933 in focus
But from 1929 onwards the mood in Regensburg also gradually changed. “The effects of the global economic crisis were also felt in Regensburg, namely in the decline in production, in the increasing number of unemployed and in reduced social benefits,” explains Ziel. As a result, the radical parties NSDAP and KPD gained more support. At the end of 1930, the Nazi propaganda paper “Völkischer Observer” reported: “Not long ago, the stronghold of the BVP seemed unassailable. Regensburg is known far and wide as the ‘blackest’ city, but just as the darkest night brings a morning that then shines all the brighter, so too does Regensburg experience its awakening.” In 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power in Berlin, the NSDAP also succeeded in largely taking over the city council, the police and the media in Regensburg.
However, how Regensburg’s city administration and local politics developed between 1933 and 1945 and what role the individual representatives of the city’s top staff played in this process has so far only been partially researched. The newly initiated research project will now shed light on this. “With this research project, we are finally taking a scientific approach to the long-needed coming to terms with the city administration under National Socialism and we have the right partner for this in the University of Regensburg. The insights gained will form the backbone for a sustainable culture of remembrance and commemoration in Regensburg in the future,” says Regensburg Mayor Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer.
“Against historical forgetfulness and historical revisionism”
The project at the Center for Remembrance Culture in Regensburg is intended to examine, among other things, finances, the behavior of the mayor and city council, urban planning and construction, law, security, police and order, healthcare and education during this time. What is conceptually important is that “it is less about individual people than about the larger context, about cross-connections, about an exemplary, typological and comparative interpretation of the connections,” explains historian Bernhard Löffler from the University of Regensburg.
The initiators of the project also emphasize the topicality of the research subject: “We all want to know how an urban society, how a city administration deals with radicalization, we also want to get to know the tactics of resistance,” says Ursula Regener, Vice President for Internationalization and Diversity at the University of Regensburg . Udo Hebel, President of the University of Regensburg, adds: There should be no gaps in memory, especially not institutionally and collectively: “We have to fight against historical forgetfulness and historical revisionism and, with projects like these, ensure that the future is not influenced by false knowledge, ignorance, etc even counter-knowledge is dominated.” The first results in the form of scientific publications are expected in 2028.
Source: University of Regensburg