Wizyta Hitlera w Szczecinie z okazji pomorskiego zjazdu partii nazistowskiej w dniu 12 czerwca 1938 roku (w świetle regionalnego organu prasowego NSDA
Hitler’s Visit to Szczecin on the Occasion of the Pomeranian Congress of the Nazi Party on June 12th, 1938 (in the Light of the Regional NSDAP Periodi

Summary/Abstract: The Prussian province of Pomerania (German: Provinz Pommern) was one of the bastions of the Nazi (National Socialist) movement. A fter J anuary 3 0th, 1933 w hen Hitler assumed power in Germany, the Nazi authorities from Szczecin (German: Stettin), capital of the Province, headed by Gauleiter Wilhelm Karpenstein, and later by Franz Schwede-Coburg, began introducing the new order based on terror and ‘standardisation’ of the social life. In order to testify to the unity of the German nation, the authorities held numerous mass rallies, where the region’s NSDAP leaders gave speeches, which were broadcast; they also staged marches with torches of the party organisations and of the SA (Sturmabteilung, English: Storm Detachment or Assault Division, or Brownshirts). Yet the most important propagandist event was Hitler’s visit to Szczecin on June 12th, 1938 on the occasion of the Congress of the Pomeranian NSDAP (German: Gautreffen Pommern). Führer’s visit has some implications even today, as many inhabitants of Szczecin believe that Hitler is still an Honorary Citizen of Szczecin. The title was conferred to him as early as April 4th, 1933, but Hitler collected the title during his visit to Szczecin five years later. Hitler’s stay in Szczecin was to elevate the status of the Pomeranian Province on the political and economic map of the Third Reich, and the status of the policy of the local authorities who promoted the image of Pomerania as a ‘bastion of the German character’, a ‘borderline province’ and the eastern granary of the Reich. The objective of the article has been to analyse Führer’s visit to Szczecin, its genesis and its political significance for the city and the province, based on the most important Szczecin’s periodical during the period of the Third Reich, “Pommersche Zeitung”. The visit was a wonderful occasion for the periodical’s agitators to blatantly disseminate the cult of Hitler in a spirit of National Socialism, which led to political indoctrination of the local Germans who were taught to be ready to sacrifice everything and to be thoughtlessly faithful to Hitler.

• Details
• Contents