Seeshaupt: Church Councilmen with Civil Courage

Action was also taken in Seeshaupt on Starnberger See against residents regarded as Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws during the November Pogrom in the night of November 9 to 10, 1938. Three members of the Protestant parish, a subsidiary of the parish in Penzberg, were affected. Two farm boys, who had joined the SS, had the job of arresting and taking them to Munich.

Neighbors noticed the young men loudly pounding on the front door of one of the targeted residents in the early morning and notified the Penzberg church councilmen living in Seeshaupt. Dr. Max Schröer, former mayor of Hildburghausen, Georg Veitinger, a farmer, and Johannes Lang, a coachman, went to town hall and declared to the mayor that they would not permit the expulsion of the parishioners under any circumstance. This was no way to treat a human being (H. Rössler, Es hat sich Unerhörtes ereignet, 139). They themselves would also go along to Munich if the action were continued.

Their success was short-lived, however, because the SA then threatened to round up all Jewish residents by force if they did not leave the district within three days. This was supposed to make the district “Jew-free”.

Church councilman Max Schröer displayed great courage once again. Together with Vicar Christoph Simon, who had come to the Penzberg parish as Karl Steinbauer’s replacement, he pleaded the affected residents’ cause with the district NSDAP leader in Bad Tölz. Schröer and Simon announced that would go to the residences of the threatened members of the Protestant parish for their protection. Although the district leader threatened to break this rebellion against the state by every means, the mayor notified Vicar Simon shortly afterward that the SA would not carry out its mission.