Heinrich Jasper

Heinrich Jasper (21 August 1875 – 19 February 1945) was a German politician (SPD). During the 1920s, he served three terms as regional prime minister (Ministerpräsident) of the Free State of Brunswick. He died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Life

Provenance and early years Heinrich Jasper was born in Dingelbe, a village in the countryside to the southeast of Hanover. His father, Carl August Jasper (1822–1898), was a wealthy tenant farmer. He attended secondary school (Gymnasium) in nearby Hildesheim till 1886 when his parents divorced and his father relocated to Braunschweig, where Jasper successfully completed his schooling at the Wilhelm-Gymnasium. He went on to study jurisprudence at Munich, Leipzig and Berlin.

Politics Between 1903 and 1933 Jasper represented the SPD as a Braunschweig city councillor. In July 1915 he went off to serve in the war, having risen to the rank of a Vizefeldwebel (junior officer) by the time he arrived home from the front on 11 November 1918.

National military defeat was followed by a revolutionary eruption in many parts of Germany. In Braunschweig Ernst August, the hereditary ruler had abdicated on 8 November 1918. Jasper took a lead in the political fight against Sepp Oerter and the workers' council, which he condemned as the "dictatorship of an undemocratic minority". On the national stage, from January 1919 he is listed as a member of the Weimar National Assembly, precursor to a national democratically elected parliament, although his political focus during this period continued to be on his own region of Braunschweig.

On 10 February 1919 Jasper was unanimously elected president of the Braunschweig Regional Legislature. A week later, on 19 February 1919, he was elected chairman of the SPD (party - still sometimes during this period identified as the "MSPD / Majority SPD"), reflecting the party split in 1917) in the local Council of the People's Deputies. Between 1930 and 1933, now in opposition, Jasper continued to lead a vigorous opposition from the SPD group in the regional legislature, while the Nazi party gave Braunschweig a foretaste of life in the Third Reich.

On 9 March 1933, the Nazi party's quasi-military wing (SS) took over the "House of the Friends of the People" ("Volksfreund-Haus") which was a substantial building, built for and owned by the SPD, in the city. Among other things, the party used it for meetings and for printing their local newspaper, "Der Volksfreund". One employee was shot and several others were badly beaten up. Jasper immediately sent a telegramme to President Hindenburg in which he protested against these excesses.

On 17 March 1933, the Braunschweig SPD party leadership met in the "Hotel Monopol" in order to discuss the situation and what to do next. On the way to the meeting Jasper was arrested and taken into "protective custody" on the orders of Klagges. He was taken to the AOK (Health insurance) building, which the Nazis had commandeered, and badly mishandled. He was then taken to the "House of the Friends of the People", now under Nazi control, and subjected to further mistreatment.

Jasper later reported that Friedrich Alpers, the local SS leader, offered to guarantee Jasper's release from "protective custody" if he would surrender his seat in the Legislature (Landtag) and promise not to submit himself for re-election. Jasper refused. He was released "provisionally" on 19 April 1933. He was re-arrested on 26 June.

Between 1939 and 1942, Jasper was able to undertake historical research at the city archive. Like other surviving politicians of the Weimar Republic, his anti-Nazi past kept him under watch by the authorities. A failed assassination attempt against Hitler took place on 20 July 1944, which was followed by mass arrests. Jasper was re-arrested on 22 August 1944, under the pretext of what was termed "Aktion Gitter".

By now Jasper was 69, and the years of physical and psychological persecution had left him in poor health. On his arrest he was transferred to Hallendorf Work Education Camp ("Camp/Lager 21"); a forced labour facility on the edge of Salzgitter-Watenstedt. In September, he was moved to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. During the early part of 1945, and with the Red army approaching, preparations were made to close down this institution. In February, Jasper was moved again, to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. There, on 19 Feb, 1945, he died; emaciated and after further subjection to ill treatment. The cause of his death was listed as typhus. His physical remains were placed in a mass grave.