Blood Martyrs of the National Socialist Movement
The Year 1924
Rudolf Eck
(*16 February 1907 - † 5 March 1924 in Gehren, Thuringia)
Gau Thuringia, SA Group Thuringia
Rudolf Eck was a resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and a martyr of the Nazi movement.
During the trial, the defendant said he had beaten up the 16-year-old Rudolf Eck „because he was wearing a Hitler costume“. He was referring to the windbreaker with a swastika armband, which was still common in the SA at the time, and a canvas cap with the Nazi Party insignia. The prosecution had asked for only three months’ imprisonment for the murderer. The court, however, went much further and sentenced him to three years in prison.
Rudolf Eck was born in Erfurt on 16 February 1907, the son of Oswald Eck, a mechanical engineer, and his wife. In April 1910 the family moved to his father’s home in Langewiesen, a town east of Ilmenau in Thuringia that attracted many ‘summer visitors’ in the 1920s.
Rudolf Eck attended primary school there from Easter 1913, leaving after eight years with good grades to learn his father’s trade.
As there was no local branch of the NSDAP, he joined Jungsturm „Späher“ 155 Ilmenau-Thüringen in Ilmenau, Thuringia, and did as much as a 15-year-old boy could to promote the Nazi cause. Because of his zeal for service, the Bund appointed Rudolf Eck as a Jungsturmwart.
The young man had already been attacked several times by political opponents. Two days before his death, the young mechanical engineer took part in the German Day in Jena. There was an altercation and Eck was attacked with a knife, which he took home as a trophy.
Comrades stand by the bier in front of the body of the fallen.
On 5 March 1924, a political evening was held in the town hall of Gehren, which Rudolf Eck attended with his comrades. Already during the event there were mobs of dissidents. Shortly after midnight, the sixteen-year-old was on his way home. As he was leaving Gehren in the direction of Langewiesen, three left-wing opponents attacked him and beat him to the ground with a strong fence rail. After the boy collapsed, the attackers kicked him. An investigation revealed that the blow to the back of his head was fatal.
The Ilmenau newspaper ‘Henne - Amtsblatt für den Gerichtsbezirk Ilmenau’, in its issue no. 56 of 6 March 1924, wrote that three persons were possible perpetrators who had already confessed. In the following issue of 7 March, a letter to the editor clearly attributed the crime to political motives: „[...] On his way home, some members of the Communist Party ambushed him [Rudolf Eck, author’s note], attacked him under cover of night, and he was knocked down in a very mean way by several of these cowardly murderers, so that death followed after a short time. [...]“
The deceased was first laid out in the Gehren morgue and the next day transferred to Langewiesen.
The funeral took place on 8 March 1924 and was well attended.
The „Henne“ reported briefly, but with the pathos of the spirit of the times: „Langewiesen, 10th March. The funeral of Jungdo-Mann Eck, which took place on Saturday, was, as was to be expected, very solemn and went off without any disturbances. There were about 3,000 participants, not all of whom could be accommodated in the cemetery, including three colour-bearing associations from Ilmenau with their banners, and also Jungdo. Delegations from other districts with banners, so that eleven banners were counted. The Langewiesen Warriors’ Association also took part, and one of the local choirs sang funeral songs. There were tears in everyone’s eyes during the impressive eulogy given by the priest.
„From the Jungsturm come so many heroes...“ is a line from the poem „Heil Jungsturm“, written in 1924 by the almost seventeen-year-old Rudolf Eck from Langewiesen in Thuringia. Rudolf Eck is one of the boys who make the German people proud. He belonged to the oldest German youth movement, the Jungsturm, and was leader of the Jungsturm section in Langwiesen. Even at the time when Adolf Hitler was languishing behind the walls of the Landsberg fortress, Rudolf Eck was marching behind the swastika flag, a champion of the former victory. He took part in the „German Day“ in Jena on 2 and 3 March 1924, which became the confession of many thousands of Germans to a free Greater Germany. After the 9th of November 1923, which brought the betrayal of Munich to the National Socialist movement, Marxism was revived all over Germany, feeling strong and believing that it had destroyed the enemy. Their rage was therefore tremendously inflamed when they saw the swastika banner unfurl powerfully on the day of Jena. Rudolf Eck, the enterprising young striker with a passionate love of the Fatherland, did his part to strengthen the movement wherever he could. The Reds knew this and hated him. On 5 March 1924, at one o’clock in the morning, as he was returning home from a „German spinning workshop“ he was attending in the neighbouring town of Gehren, three Communist assassins ambushed him, beat him with a fence rail with unbelievable brutality and then left him unconscious by the side of the road.
He was found in the morning, still unconscious, from which he never woke. His parents found him pale and still. He fell as one of the first fighters for the Third Reich. A Red prosecutor requested three months’ imprisonment for the murderers, and the court sentenced them to three years’ imprisonment.
Das Rudolf-Eck-Denkmal in Gehren
During the trial, the defendant stated that he had beaten up the 16-year-old Rudolf Eck „because he was wearing a Hitler uniform“. He was referring to the windbreaker with a swastika armband, which was still common in the SA at the time, and a canvas cap with the NSDAP insignia. He had never met the dead man before.
Willy Dreyer
(* 11.9. 1900 - † 21.3. 1924)
Gau Berlin, SA Group Berlin-Brandenburg
Illness, deprivation and maltreatment still characterise Dreyer in death.
„The first time I saw Dreyer was when he could no longer walk. With his face turned towards the wall, he stood in the courtyard during the walk in storm, weather and wind. [...] He was forced to leave the protective roof and the warming bed, solely in order to prevent the representative of the German government from becoming more familiar with the interior conditions of the depot. As we crossed the courtyard, Dreyer, wrapped in blankets, stood in front of the office of the Surveillants chief with his face turned towards the wall and the cold, wet rain pelting down on him. [...] When Legation Councillor Grabowsky came to us as a second visitor on 14 December, I saw Dreyer for the last time. Once again, the depot management forced the dying patient to leave his bed. Resembling a walking skeleton, completely starved, he dragged his feeble body across the yard, leaning on an attendant. His face was swollen. Dr. Hemette had pulled out a tooth in the crudest manner and injured his upper jaw, so that he could now only eat very thin soups as his only food. The bitter cold had turned Dreyer’s face blue, and his body, shaken by fever, made his teeth chatter. From now on, Dreyer was chained to his bed,“ says fellow prisoner on the so-called Devil’s Island, Gustav Ritter und Edler von Oetinger, in his book „In Ketten vom Ruhrgebiet nach Saint-Martin de Re“.
Willy Dreyer was born on 11 September 1900 in Berlin-Neukölln. At the age of eighteen, he took part in the last battles of the First World War. After the end of the official hostilities, Dreyer first fought as a member of the Iron Division in the Baltic States. His military path then led him via the Lützow Jaegers to the Neisse Battalion Oberland, where he was deployed in the Upper Silesian border guard. On 30 May 1921, he received a severe wound during the storming of Kalinow.
In 1923, like many of his peers, the young man saw his homeland in the West threatened and made himself available for the Ruhr struggle. It is unclear when Willy Dreyer joined the Frontbann, one of the organisations that later merged into the Sturmabteilung of the NSDAP. He was also a member of the Bismarck Order „Marckschaft Hitler“.
He was arrested on 15 May for preventing French soldiers from using a railway. Whether this was an act of sabotage can only be conjectured. Like many others, Dreyer had fallen into the hands of the occupying forces through treason, who sentenced him to death for sabotage in a court martial in Mainz on 29 June 1923. In October, Dreyer, who was already ill, was pardoned to serve a prison sentence. Immediately after his conviction, the prisoner had to serve two weeks in a damp cellar cell, which triggered or at least accelerated the illness. Already ill, prisoner Dreyer was dragged through various prisons within France until he finally arrived on the death island of St. Martin de Re as a prisoner with severe kidney disease.
German officials took great care of the prisoners and especially of Willy Dreyer, who was already dying. The conditions on the island are vividly portrayed in the following two reports:
„The embassy had approached the director of the depot with the request that the sick Dreyer be given a healthy and strong diet, pointing out that the German Embassy would bear all the costs of this special diet. During my visit the deputy director said that the prisoner Dreyer was getting so much to eat that he had even given a fellow prisoner some of his food, although this was strictly forbidden. However, he had refrained from punishing him. Since I was forbidden to speak to the prisoner Dreyer himself, I pointed out the case to the parents and asked them to question their son about it. After their visit they explained to me that their son had given a piece of herring and a piece of cheese to a fellow prisoner in the station room, because he could not eat the things. For the rest, their son had never eaten meat. During my meeting with the deputy warden on Tuesday, I remarked to him that it was strange to give herring and cheese to a seriously ill person. [...] The warden did not answer my question as to what kind of special food and medical treatment had been given to prisoner Dreyer so far. [...] The sick Dreyer told his parents that the doctor only came twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. During his visits, the doctor only passed by his camp and asked him how he was. He was rarely given any medication, but the doctor told him how little he was interested in the German prisoners - with the words, ‘French good, Germans nothing: ‘French good, Germans no good’. This remark was probably characteristic of the entire medical treatment in the depot. [...] With regard to the sick Dreyer, I got the impression that the doctor and the prison administration have given up on him and will no longer do anything to bring about a possible cure or relief of his suffering. The constant answer to all ideas was: I can’t do anything, the regulations forbid it.
Paris, 28 February 1924“.
Dreyer died on St. Martin de Re on 21 March 1924. On the occasion of the transfer from Devil’s Island to Germany, a funeral service was held in Berlin with the participation of the Reich government. Willy Dreyer was buried on 6 April. General Goltz spoke at the grave on behalf of the Baltic fighters.
Ten years after his death, a memorial service was held in Eichwalde near Berlin, during which Dreyer-Allee was named after him.
On the gravestone were carved the words: „He died for the Rhine and Ruhr“.
Rudolf von Henke
(* 1906, † 1. Juli 1924)
Rudolf von Henke was a resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and a Blood martyr of the National Socialist movement.
Eighteen-year-old Rudolf von Henke from Hindenburg in Upper Silesia was one of the first in his homeland to proudly wear the Hitler cap. In the Reichstag election campaign of 1924, he campaigned for Adolf Hitler. Wherever German-conscious people met, the young Rudolf von Henke was there. On 29 June 1924, a large march of the patriotic associations took place in Hindenburg on the occasion of the dedication of a memorial stone for the fallen heroes of the World War. Rudolf von Henke marched along, and before the heroes’ banquet, an oath flared up in his young heart to be a fighter for the fatherland, like those two million soldiers who died in enemy territory in defence of Germany.
On his way home he was attacked by three communists. They tried to tear off his Hitler cap, and when he resisted, they shot him down. And even as he lay defenceless, hit on the ground, the murderers continued to shoot at him. On 1 July 1924, Rudolf von Henke gave his young life as a champion of the Third Reich.
Artur Prack
(* 4 October 1896, † 5 December 1924 in Pirmasens)
A
Artur Prack was a resistance fighter against the Weimar Republic and a Blood martyr of the National Socialist movement.
Pg. Artur Prack is married on his deathbed in Pirmasens, death before his eyes. During the Bavarian state parliamentary election campaign, Reichsbanner people had attacked a National Socialist meeting in a planned manner. When the National Socialists fought back, Prack was shot in the stomach and died on 5 December 1924. The perpetrator has since disappeared.
An obituary by his comrades said:
He fought for Germany in the World War
He suffered for Germany in captivity,
He remained strong and defiant in shame and disgrace
And he died for Germany, so that it might live!
