Blood Martyrs of the National Socialist Movement
The Year 1923
Karl Winter
(* 9 September 1883 † 26 February 1923)
Dr Karl Winter was a resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and a Blood martyr of the National Socialist movement.
He was an officer in the First World War. He received the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Order of the Knight of the Lion of Zähringen for bravery in the face of the enemy.
In Munich, Dr. Karl Winter meets Adolf Hitler and becomes his follower. As one of the first members of the National Socialist movement, ‘Karl Winter recruited’ members for the party in Steinen, all of whom belonged to the first local group in Munich. With this tribe of young men and war veterans, he holds regular meetings. He teaches the thoughts of the Führer; he recognizes the doom threatening the German people from Marxism, of which he is a bitter opponent. As a national economist, he foresees not only the political but also the economic development of the November state. He captivates more and more young Germans within his sphere of influence and wins them over to National Socialism. Soon he becomes inconvenient for the preachers of Marxism. Their tried and tested weapons against him are agitation and slander. But the fighter Karl Winter goes his way, undeterred. The hatred of the Marxists fomented and incited, and when the meanness of words remained unfruitful, they resorted to their last argument, murder. When Karl Winter returned home from one of his meetings in Höllenstein (Baden) on the evening of 24 February 1923, he was attacked by the Marxist municipal councillor Rudiger from Stones and wounded by a stab in the abdomen. Two days later, on 26 February 1923, the forty-year-old succumbed to his wound. He left behind a wife and daughter.
The murderer is sentenced by the Weimar system justice to eight months in prison, three months are credited to the pre-trial detention, and after another three months the Baden Prime Minister Remmele pardons him for good behaviour.
Dr. Karl Winter thus became the first martyr of the Third Reich.
Daniel Sauer
(* 10 April 1865 † 1 May 1923)
Daniel Sauer was an SA leader, resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and Blood martyr to the National Socialist movement.
The SA leader Daniel Sauer from Sickershausen in Lower Franconia was one of Adolf Hitler’s first followers.
He fought in the first street battle in Coburg, in Würzburg.
On 1 May 1923, National Socialists wanted to return home from a May Day celebration in Michelfeld or Mainbernheim forest via the railway bridge to Kitzingen. The communists, excited by a May Day celebration in Kitzingen, wanted to intercept the SA people and ambushed themselves in a small wood west of the railway line (Würzburg - Nuremberg). When the Nazis arrived, they were attacked and driven away. The advancing SA reinforcements were led by Daniel Sauer, who tried to rush to the aid of his comrades. In the process, he was struck down by a bullet. Daniel Sauer was shot in cold blood from an ambush. He left behind six children.
After the National Socialists seized power, a monument was erected in honour of the SA’s first Blood martyr and as a reminder to the living. Afterwards, the memorial was also a popular destination for excursions.
The US occupying forces blew up the monument erected in Sickershausen in 1945.
In Sickershausen, Daniel-Sauer-Straße was named after him. After the so-called „liberation“ in 1945, it had to be renamed Florastraße.
Ludwig Knickmann
(* 24 August 1897, † 21 June 1923)
Ludwig Knickmann was a resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and a Blood martyr to the National Socialist movement.
Ludwig Knickmann from Buer in Westphalia participated in the First World War in 1916. He was a passionate opponent of the November criminals and after 1918, before the formation of the Freikorps, he fought armed with a small circle of friends against the red rulers in Buer in small partial actions. Until 1920 he belonged to volunteer and self-defence associations, and in November 1922 he became a member of the NSDAP. In the red Buer near Gelsenkirchen, his hometown, he was active in the uprising of the German people against the most severe red terror and was a faithful collaborator of his brother Heinz Knickmann in organising the active defensive struggle against the enemy occupying forces. During the Ruhr Shame, Ludwig Knickmann was the leader of a shock troop that was deployed in the defensive struggle against the French and Belgian occupation troops that had entered the Ruhr area. After numerous ventures against the strategically important rear connections of the occupying army, he was betrayed to the Belgians by a paid informer. In a clash with a Belgian patrol on 21 June 1923, he was shot in the chest after bravely resisting. His loyal comrade Karl Jackstien dragged the wounded man to the river Lippe despite being pursued by the Belgians and tried to cross the river with him. He failed. He tried to pull Knickmann, who could no longer swim, through the lip by means of a brace he had tied around his shoulder. After he had swum about three quarters of the way across the river, the band came loose and Knickmann, who was very weakened, drowned. Jackstien was unable to help him, as he himself was exhausted by the excessive effort. The flooded Lippe had become a raging torrent and swept the sore Ludwig Knickmann into the depths.
Various streets were named in honour of Ludwig Knickmann, such as Ludwig-Knickmann-Straße (Lievelingsweg) in Bottrop and Bonn. The SA-Standarte 137 Westfalen in Gelsenkirchen was given the honorary name „Standarte Knickmann“. The Reich Labour Service camp in Wulfen also bore his name. In Marl there was a monument in his honour and a school named after him. The RLB Landesgruppenluftschutzschule in Bad Godesberg was Ludwig Knickmann-Haus.
The Gelsenkirchener Zeitung wrote on 22 June 1940:
„Yesterday morning - the 17th anniversary of the death of Ludwig Knickmann, a Blood martyr who died in the Ruhr struggle on 21 June 1923 - a simple memorial service was held at the grave of the unforgotten fighter and hero in the Buerschen cemetery of honour... A guard of honour from the SA standard „Ludwig Knickmann” had taken up a position at Ludwig Knickmann’s decorated grave. SA-Obersturmführer Henkel commemorated in simple words of loyalty and gratitude the blood sacrifice that Ludwig Knickmann made for Germany’s future in the early days of the National Socialist liberation struggle, and which has now found its purest atonement through the glorious weapons of the new German Wehrmacht.
The words of remembrance were again accompanied by the vow that Ludwig Knickmann’s example and death should never be forgotten. With the salute to the Führer and the singing of the national anthem, the commemorative speech, which was framed by verses of thanks and loyalty, found its conclusion. Afterwards, wreaths were laid by the NSDAP district leadership Emscher-Lippe, the Düsseldorf Gauleiter Florian, the SA-Standarte 137 „Ludwig Knickmann,” the Lower Rhine SA-Obergrupenführer Heinz Knickmann, the city of Gelsenkirchen and the comrades of the Ruhrkampf. At the same time, wreaths of remembrance were laid at the grave of the SA man Josef Woltmann, who was also buried in the cemetery of honour and fell for Adolf Hitler in October 1933. After the memorial service at the Buer cemetery of honour, the participants went to the Ludwig Knickmann memorial in Sickingmühle, where a wreath-laying ceremony also followed as part of a simple mourning rally for the dead fighter.”
