"We'll show those in Little Moscow," is the slogan of the men from Hitler's SA and SS. On July 17, 1932, 7,000 Nazis from all over northern Germany march through Altona. The demonstration of power by the browns in the red Altona ends in a terrible shootout. 18 people died on this day, which went down in Hamburg history as "Bloody Sunday". At that time, a few months before the National Socialists seized power, Altona still belonged to Schleswig-Holstein. Above all, workers live there - Altona is considered a stronghold of the communists and social democrats.
Was the escalation foreseeable?
Actually, the responsible authorities could have thought at the time that the Nazi demonstration could take a bad turn - but the action is not prohibited. So the SA people and NSDAP sympathizers march through Altona - in the middle of the heated Reichstag election campaign in 1932. They shout their slogans and sing anti-Semitic songs, passers-by are beaten up. Does it come as it should? There are serious clashes between left-wing residents and right-wing demonstrators. At some point shots are fired - two men from the ranks of the National Socialists are lying on the street covered in blood. The police later claimed that the march and the officers securing it were shot at from roofs and windows. Police officers fire into the surrounding houses - the law enforcement officers are said to have fired more than 5,000 shots. It's bloodshed. 16 residents die.
Four death sentences against communists
Only decades after their execution are four alleged rebels rehabilitated - in the meantime, a memorial commemorates the four show trial victims.In a show trial after the seizure of power in 1933, the Nazis had four communists sentenced to death. They are said to be to blame for what happened on "Altona Bloody Sunday". The men are executed. But there is no real evidence that they were the ones who fired on the demonstrating Nazis and the police officers accompanying them. And there are even doubts that it was the political opponents of the Nazis who first shot at the demonstration. Because the two SA men apparently died from bullets from carbine rifles - and such weapons are said to have had only the police at the time. However, the 16 residents who died in the skirmish that followed were killed by police guns. Police Lieutenant Schieritz, who gave the order to shoot, later admitted this. "We were shot at too." However, it is questionable how much the police officers really saw themselves in danger. And how many of them aimed at the houses of the "Communists and Socialists" because they were politically closer to the Nazis themselves.
"Blood Sunday" plays into the hands of the NSDAP
In any case, the "Bloody Sunday" serves Hitler's NSDAP very well. A few days after the massacre, Chancellor Franz von Papen relieved the Prussian social democratic minority government, to which Altona belongs, of its power in a coup d'etat. She was responsible for the escalation on July 17th. This cleared one of the last hurdles for the National Socialists on their way to power.