On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler (NSDAP) is appointed Chancellor of the Reich and that evening his supporters celebrate in Berlin. Meanwhile, in Bonn the communists are the first to react to the Nazi’s Machtergreifung. On 31 January, the then national-conservative General-Anzeiger reported succinctly in its "Tageschronik" (daily chronicle), in addition to a foiled shoplifting incident: "Yesterday afternoon, the communists organised a protest march through the streets of Bonn. The procession, in which many party supporters took part, was peaceful. It broke up at about 7 p.m."

The pro-centre Deutsche Reichs-Zeitung (DRZ) is more detailed: "The communists held a street rally to protest against the new government last night. About 300 men, and also a number of women, paraded through the town with music and flags, alternately singing their songs and shouting: "Down with Hitler!" or "Down with Fascism!" Short speeches against the new government were held on Stiftsplatz and Münsterplatz. There were no clashes with other parties or even with the police, who were of course present, albeit as much in the background as possible."

The GA of 1 February devotes much more space to the description of the - belated - rally held by the government side: "The Harzburgers march in Bonn" is the naive headline. Because under the name "Harzburgers" the Nazis are hidden in full sight with the Stahlhelmer and Hugenbergers trotiing along in front of them.

The report starts off in an ironic, detached manner, describing how the police keep Nazis and a parallel planned communist march apart. But the mood soon changes. It goes on: "The rally itself and the finale on Münsterplatz in particular were quite impressive. There the brown columns with their flags pushed their way in rank and file through streets that were densely packed with crowds [...] and behind the steel helmet band a handsome field of military grey moved in time to the music." And it went on: "The old war flag and the black-white-and-red fluttered in the evening wind. Military marches roared through the streets [...] and battle songs rose from a thousand throats into the evening. Add to this the glow of a thousand flickering torches. [...]. Then finally, on Kaiserplatz, the troops marched past the leaders of the "Stahlhelm" (Steel Helmet) and the National Socialists (Nazis), and the columns marched onto Münsterplatz." After the speeches, the leaders of the National Socialists and the Stahlhelm symbolically shook hands.

The communists appear once again on 1 February, probably in response to the 31 January torchlight procession, and this time with greater vigour: "Yesterday afternoon, the Bonn communists again held a public demonstration against the new course of government. About 500 men and a number of women marched through the city. A short speech was given on Münsterplatz", the papers say.

The following day, the Beuel Nazis also become active; in the evening, they organise a torchlight procession: on the banks of the Rhine in front of the war memorial, the torches are thrown together, the crowd sings the Deutschlandlied, then the procession disperses. A few days later, on 8 February, the Horst Wessel song (a traditional soldier's song) resounds from strong male throats in the Beethovenhalle.

There is a local Nazi chapter even in the small town of Ollheim in Swisttal. The men of the NSDAP and Stahlhelm, who have gathered there in the Hansen Hall on 29 January for a "German Evening", listen to a prominent guest: the high-ranking NS functionary Friedrich Christian Prinz zu Schaumburg-Lippe. The day before, he had spoken on the occasion of the upcoming municipal elections in Mehlem. According to the press, Friedrich Christian "castigated in sharp words the unfortunate influence of international Jewry on the spiritual and economic development of Europe. [...] In Germany there should be only one fight: the fight against the international Jew who is behind Bolshevism."

In the night of the 31st of January, several men shoot at the windows of the house Talweg 106; according to former friends in 1973, the KPD members Thiel and Kisselbach used to live there. The SA is also said to have attacked the residents of the barracks at the beginning of Dransdorfer Weg several times at night during this period.

On 2 February the flats of KPD functionaries and the office in Brückenstraße are searched by the police, but nothing is confiscated. On the night of 6th of February, several SA men are shot at in Friedrichstraße as they walk home from an event organised by the National Socialist German Student Association (NSDStB) in the Beethoven Hall. The police arrest three men shortly afterwards; one of them has a "multi-loading pistol" from which shots had been fired shortly before.

Bonn university already had fanatical Nazis before 30^th January 1933, namely professors Hans Naumann, Eugen Lüthgen and Andreas Antropoff, and the university remains quiet for the time being. The rector's report for the winter semester 1932/33 only says: "Deputies of the university, led by the rector and prorector, took part in the festive events of the city of Bonn on the occasion of the victory of the national movement." In the elections to the "Allgemeine Studenten-Arbeitsgemeinschaft" (Students’ Union) on 7 February, the NS students lose five mandates and with 14 mandates are only the second strongest faction behind the Catholic corporations with 15 mandates.

In the ensuing period, the first professors are dismissed: Alfred Philippson (geography), Wilhelm Levison (history), Felix Hausdorff and Otto Toeplitz (both mathematics). The Orientalist Paul E. Kahle, who held "Exercises in the Scientific Grammar of Hebrew" until the winter semester of 1934/35, described the individual stages of the Nazi regime in "Bonn University in Pre-Nazi and Nazi-Times (1923-1939)", a private publication published in London in 1945.

Besides the KPD, where were the other opponents of the National Socialists? In 1973, Otto Rose, then trade union secretary in Bonn, remembers that in those months the "Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold", consisting of Social Democrats and trade unionists, was trained by officers of the Bonn police school in the Phoenix Hall, the trade unionists' local pub (Verkehrslokal) in Kölnstraße, to protect the Republic against the Nazis "in case of emergency".

While many trade unionists were of the opinion that things would not turn out too badly, the "crisis" did occur on 30 January. Paul Niedermair, then a member of the local executive of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB), probably already had an inkling of what was to come. After the seizure of power, he went into hiding for 14 days as a precaution. On 1 March he too was arrested. Hans Höfs, a businessman in the old town, had already warned in 1929: "When fascism comes - see Mussolini - then everything is over, then there will be severe persecution." Even before the Machtergreifung, he helped vulnerable anti-fascists to get abroad.

Otto Renois, spiritual head of the resistance in Bonn, refuses to flee. To protect him, already before 30 January his friends spread the rumour that he had absconded. In reality, he is in the back room of his brother-in-law Hans Höfs until his arrest. Only now and then does he dare to go home or to his friends' house for a short while in the evening - always in a different disguise. It was on one such occasion that he was caught on 4 April in his flat at Jagdweg 45 and subsequently shot.

Paul Niedermair later confirms in retrospect that unemployment and precarious conditions also helped the Nazis to power: with their split pea soup, which was served at the Kaiserhalle, the SA had "bought" many an unemployed person. "But those who had political backbone, who had trade union consciousness, they certainly did not vote for Nazis. [...] The Nazis basically played no role at all in the workplaces."

On 28 February, a few hours after the Reichstag fire, several Nazi opponents are arrested and taken to the cellars under the town hall, the women's prison and the prison of the regional court. The second wave follows on 1 March: early in the morning, more men, among them Willi Parsch, are taken from their beds and first interrogated in Bonn before being taken to Gestapo headquarters in Cologne's Krebsgasse. For fear of betraying the illegal printing company housed in the Mönkemöller company under torture, the gardener of this company, Beck, hangs himself in his cell while still in Bonn.

Four decades later, those who were politically persecuted at the time are reluctant to talk about what happened. When Ferdi Kolb, who spent the twelve years of National Socialism in protective custody, labour camps and Sachsenhausen concentration camp, later meets with his fellow sufferers, no one mentions those years.

For a majority of the citizens, their persecution long went unnoticed. "No, there was nothing going on here on 30 January. It only started much later," Bonners said in retrospect in the early 1970s. Some people in Bonn, including Stahlhelm members, were stirred by the photos of Otto Renois' corpse in the basement of the Institute of Forensic Medicine that Hans Höfs had secretly taken and illegally distributed. But it was no longer possible to make everyone aware: The turning point had already come on 30 January. Only the split pea soup remained for a while.

The original version of this text appeared in the General-Anzeiger on 30 January 1973. Author Norbert Flörken has now slightly revised and shortened it. The article is an early example of the reappraisal of the Nazi past in the local area. At that time, historical research began to turn to "oral history".

Translation: Jean Lennox