In Germany about 400 streets are still named after the former Reich President Paul Hindenburg and only about 100 streets after the former Reich Finance Minister, Democrat and Central Politician Matthias Erzberger.

History has answered the question of who was the enemy and who paved the way for democracy.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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100 years ago, Erzberger was murdered on Kniebisstrasse near Bad Griesbach in the Black Forest by two former naval officers on behalf of the right-wing extremist "Organization Consul". It was the successor organization of the "Marine Brigade Ehrhardt", whose members had participated in the 1920 Kapp Putsch. Doctors later found eight bullets in Erzberger's body. From 1921 until the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, a wooden cross on the street commemorated the politician. In 1951 the memorial stone with the brief inscription ("Here Matthias Erzberger died - Reich Finance Minister"), which still exists today, was erected there. On this Thursday, a plaque will be set up next to the memorial stone to explain Erzberger's life. It was financed by Meinrad Schmiederer, owner of the Hotel Dollenberg.

The politicians of the young Federal Republic found it difficult to remember the successes of the Weimar democracy and deserved democrats. The names of Theodor Heuss, Friedrich Ebert and Reich Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau of the DDP, who were also murdered in 1922 by members of the "Organization Consul", were occasionally mentioned as democratic models, but Erzberger was not for a long time. His birthplace in Buttenhausen, a village in Lautertal on the Swabian Alb, has been a memorial since 2004. In Bad Griesbach there is next to the memorial stone a chapel consecrated in 1931. The chapel, financed by donations from Catholics and Protestants, was actually supposed to be built on Kniebisstrasse at the site of Erzberger's murder.But in the politically heated mood at the beginning of the 1930s, the initiators feared the band would be desecrated by right-wing extremists so much that they preferred to build on the grounds of the Kurhaus. Because it is a private property, the chapel is currently not open to visitors; This Thursday, the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl and the former Finance Minister Willi Stächele (both CDU) want to lay a wreath on the memorial stone, and in the evening there will be a memorial service in Bad Griesbach.This Thursday, the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl and the former Finance Minister Willi Stächele (both CDU) want to lay a wreath on the memorial stone, and in the evening there will be a memorial service in Bad Griesbach.This Thursday, the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl and the former Finance Minister Willi Stächele (both CDU) want to lay a wreath on the memorial stone, and in the evening there will be a memorial service in Bad Griesbach.

Critic of Colonial Policy

As a signatory of the Compiègne ceasefire agreement and a critic of colonial policy, Erzberger was, in the words of the theologian Ernst Troeltsch, the "most hated of all German politicians". In the Federal Republic it took decades to find an adequate appreciation. In the early 1970s, then Federal President Gustav Heinemann suggested that the memory of the democratic tradition of the first German republic should not be left to the GDR. In some cities, historical societies researched the social democratic defense association "Reichsbanner", in some places they erected memorial plaques with the names Ebert, Rathenau and Erzberger as representatives of the Weimar coalition. Alex Möller, the Federal Minister of Finance of Willy Brandt's social-liberal coalition from the SPD in Baden-Württemberg,remembered the central politician with a small book, and a postage stamp in his honor was also issued. But these first tentative efforts met with little response. In Münsingen, a few kilometers from Buttenhausen, the teachers of the grammar school spoke out against naming their school after the politician in 1988 and 1991.

Christopher Dowe, curator of the Erzberger exhibition in Buttenhausen, gives several reasons for the late recognition: “The Nazis managed to successfully suppress and eliminate the positive traditions of the Weimar Republic. The role of the center and the Reich banner was forgotten, and after 1945 it was difficult to continue with it. In the post-war period there was also no significant social group that campaigned for Erzberger. The newly founded CDU saw itself as a non-denominational party, it did not want to appear too close to the center, the Protestant-conservative and the national-liberal tradition were added. Thus, Erzberger was not a figure of integration for the future at the time. ”For biographers and historians there was an added difficultythat large parts of the estate - with the consent of his wife - had been destroyed in 1933 for fear of the Nazis; the historians have to reconstruct a lot from the sources of his opponents, there are only a few documents for exhibitions.

When Erzberger's birthplace in Buttenhausen suddenly went up for sale at the turn of the millennium, the state government at the time seized the opportunity to finally create a memorial. The state bought the house, the black and yellow state government led by Erwin Teufel (CDU) stipulated in the coalition agreement to set up a memorial for Erzberger in Buttenhausen and one in Stuttgart for the resistance fighter Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. There were already memorial sites for Friedrich Ebert and Theodor Heuss in Heidelberg and Stuttgart, as well as for the Hitler assassin Georg Elser.

The memorial site in Buttenhausen is only open on Sundays, it is looked after by a local history initiative, the “House of History” in Stuttgart and the community. In the exhibition, Erzberger's political life is traced as a documentary piece. There is no event there on the day of death, but Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) wants to visit Erzberger's house at the beginning of September.