Franz Hering

Franz Paul Felix Hering (born April 23, 1902 in Weißenfels , † June 25, 1990 in Cambridge ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a union official. In 1933/1934 he was one of the leaders of the left-wing socialist resistance group, the Red Shock Troop .

Life

Hering lived in 1933 at Kieferngrund 9 in Berlin-Zehlendorf. The house was built in the 1920s by the Jewish building contractor Adolf Sommerfeld . Sommerfeld also had to flee the German Reich in 1933.

Franz Hering was born in 1902 in what is now Weißenfels. After attending grammar school, he trained as a gardener, then studied economics in Halle an der Saale and Kiel . Hering took his first political steps at the right-wing Rolandbund, from where he turned to political offers that were clearly further left. He became a member of the socialist student body , did his doctorate and found a job at the Institute for World Economy in Kiel. From 1930 Hering was an advisor to the union leader of the German Woodworkers Association Fritz Tarnow . According to his own statement, at that time he harbored sympathy for the left wing of the Social Democrats and gave “loan votes” to the KPD in elections . He worked as an author for the " Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus " and the trade union organ "Die Arbeit". As early as 1932, Hering founded the left-wing socialist resistance group Red Shock Troop with Rudolf Küstermeier and other young students, workers, unemployed and employees . The organization had up to 500 members in 1933 and produced a very well-informed newspaper that reached around 7500 readers every week in large parts of the German Reich.

On May 2, 1933, Franz Hering was taken into “ protective custody ” and brought to Plötzensee . After his release he had little prospect of employment as a “politically prejudiced person”. He therefore decided to bring his wife and child to safety in London and then returned to Berlin to continue his illegal resistance activities. When a wave of arrests hit the Red Shock Troop in November 1933, Hering managed to escape to Amsterdam and from there to London. From there, in cooperation with international workers 'organizations such as the International Transport Workers' Federation , the SAPD and the Socialist League, he continued to support resistance groups in the German Reich by collecting money and launching newspaper articles.

In 1935 Hering leased a farm in order to start a new life for himself and his family. In the following years he withdrew from supporting the Red Strike Force and from other political work without giving up his resistance to German fascism: Hering received British citizenship in 1939 - for Great Britain he was in the war from 1940 to 1945 . From 1948 to 1960 he worked first as a teacher in London and then until 1966 in Africa as a development worker. He worked as a teacher trainer in the Ethiopian cities of Addis Ababa and Harar as well as in Zambia . In 1972 Hering returned to Great Britain as a pensioner. He died in Cambridge in 1990 under the changed name Frank Hering.

literature

• Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-274-4 , pp. 179 ff., 423 f. and many other mentions .