Rudolf Seiffert

This article deals with the worker athlete and resistance fighter Rudolf Seiffert. For other people see Rudolf Seifert .

Seiffert on a postage stamp from the GDR Deutsche Post (1963).

Rudolf Seiffert (born July 11, 1908 in Charlottenburg , † January 29, 1945 in Brandenburg-Görden ) was a German communist , worker sportsman and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Seiffert, son of a baker , worked as a pipelayer. As an apprentice, he was a member of the “Fichte” workers' sports club in Berlin-Wedding and was one of the most famous long-distance swimmers in the capital.

In 1926 he joined the Communist Youth Association (KJVD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In the spring of 1929 he was so badly injured by police bullets during a KJVD protest in Wedding that the 20-year-old's left leg had to be amputated. Until 1933 he worked for the KPD in Berlin-Wedding. Because of his disability, he was unemployed for a long time. It was not until 1936 that he found employment at Siemens & Halske works in Berlin-Siemensstadt, first as a laborer and then as an auditor .

Later he was head of an illegal company group there. During the Second World War , the company group belonged to the resistance organization led by the communists Anton Saefkow , Franz Jacob and Bernhard Bästlein . Seiffert was the liaison man in the company for managing the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization . With the support of the communist Egmont Schultz , Seiffert made contact with other opponents of Hitler who worked in other parts of the company. They managed to win new comrades-in-arms. Seiffert also made his apartment available for advice, supported people living illegally with food stamps and money, and helped to send the "soldiers' letters" issued by the organization to field post addresses and to distribute them to members of the Wehrmacht who were stationed in Berlin.

Seiffert was arrested on September 19, 1944. Together with Joseph Hoehn and Egmont Schultz, he was on 18 December 1944 by the People's Court sentenced to death and on 29 January 1945 in the penitentiary Brandenburg-Gorden by the guillotine executed.

Honors

• A street (from 1975) and a park are named after Rudolf Seiffert in Berlin-Fennpfuhl . During the GDR era there was also the Rudolf Seiffert Oberschule in Berlin-Lichtenberg .
• In 1963 the German Post of the GDR issued a special stamp in honor of Seiffert .
• In Genoa , Rudolf Seiffert is honored on behalf of the German resistance against National Socialism in the Museo della Resistenza Europea . The museum is located in the basement of the former Gestapo headquarters in Genoa.

literature

• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance 1933–1945: Wedding, Berlin ( series of publications on the resistance in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. Vol. 1). German Resistance Memorial Center , Berlin 1983, passim.
• Gerhard Nitzsche: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein group. Documents and materials of the illegal anti-fascist struggle (1942 to 1945). Dietz, Berlin 1957, p. 104.
• Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and letters. Volume 2. Dietz, Berlin 1970, pp. 265-268.

Web links

• Rudolf Seiffert . Short biography with portrait on the website of the Lichtenberg Museum.
• Rudolf-Seiffert-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Small encyclopedia of physical culture and sport . Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig, Leipzig 1960, p. 600 .
2. ^ Commemoration of German resistance fighters in the former Gestapo torture cellar in Genoa