"Put the priests up against the wall!"

Bocholt historian Dr. Marius Lange will present results of his doctoral thesis on the Austrian Legion on Thursday, November 17, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bocholt Media Center (Alter Bahnhof). Attendance at this lecture on urban history is free. Registration with the Adult Education Center Bocholt-Rhede-Isselburg is requested by phone 02871 953-697 or vhs(at)bocholt(dot)de.

The Austrian Legion included around 1,400 National Socialists who had emigrated from Austria, for whom a barracks camp was set up in early 1935 in what is now the Bocholt Stadtwald. Over the next three years, these "full time" Nazis made no secret of their anti-church and violent attitude. They desecrated church symbols and did not shy away from attacks on Catholics.

As the fledgling Nazi leadership sought to consolidate its power, the Reich government seemed to fail in the eyes of the population as a state power providing security and order. In the end, not even interventions by the NSDAP Reich leadership or the Reich Minister of the Interior succeeded in putting a stop to the violence-prone legionnaires.

Speaker Marius Lange will show how much the lives of the people of Bocholt were changed by the stationing of these Nazis and what conclusions can be drawn from the behavior of the Nazi leadership about the functioning of the Nazi dictatorship. Following the lecture, there will be an opportunity for discussion.

The lecture series "Gesprächskreis Bocholter Stadtgeschichte", organized by the VHS and the city archives, takes place in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für historische Landeskunde des westlichen Münsterlandes e.V..