Altona Bloody Sunday

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Altona Bloody Sunday (German: Altonaer Blutsonntag) was the name given to the bloody confrontation among the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS), the police, and Communist Party (KPD) supporters in Altona, Hamburg on 17 July 1932. In a policy of making concessions to the Nazi Party, the Franz von Papen government on 28 June 1932 lifted a ban that had been placed on the SA and SS in April. This action rekindled political street fighting, which had reached a peak in April, and which Papen had used as an excuse for his Prussian Coup. The SA and the SS had announced a propaganda march through the workers' quarter of Prussian Altona that had been approved by the Social Democratic police president, Otto Eggerstedt, despite warnings by the KPD. Eggerstedt himself was on an election trip, and his deputy was on vacation. Predictably, it came to blows between the near-military invasion of some 7,000 National Socialists and Altona's Communist residents, leading to massive police intervention. Eighteen people, including two SA men, were killed, most by stray police bullets. After the Nazis seized power in May 1933, 15 Communists who had been arrested were tried for murder. In addition to prison terms, four of the accused were sentenced to death, carried out by beheading on 1 August 1933.

See also

• The Axe of Wandsbek, a 1951 film by Falk Harnack related to the confrontation

Bibliography

• Christian Zentner, Friedemann Bedürftig (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Macmillan, New York. ISBN 0-02-897502-2

Coordinates: 53°33′06″N 9°57′11″E / 53.5517°N 9.953°E / 53.5517; 9.953