Wilhelm Sül

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Memorial plaque at the former Rummelsburg power station , Rummelsburger Landstr. 2, Berlin-Oberschöneweide

Wilhelm Sält (* 1888 ; † April 2, 1921 in Berlin ) was a trade unionist and an active member of the KPD . In the early years of the Weimar Republic he was considered the "most popular communist company functionary in Berlin". However , he was "a thorn in the side" of the Berlin magistrate and entrepreneurs because of his strong influence on the Berlin electricity workers.

On March 30, 1921, police officers from Department IA “took him into protective custody” from a shop stewards meeting and two days later he was fatally wounded by a gunshot in the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz .

Life

Sult was chief machinist at the Rummelsburg power station , elected works council and chairman of the union shop stewards of the Berlin electricity works. From March 1919 he was one of the three chairmen of the working group of workers' councils at the Berlin magistrate and between 1918 and 1921 he was a leader in all major strikes of the Berlin electricity workers. On the eve of November 9, 1918 , Sält arranged for the turbines of the Rummelsburg power station to be switched off and subsequently led the strikes during the January uprising , the March fighting and the Kapp Putsch .

During the March fighting in Central Germany , Sält tried to organize solidarity strikes in Berlin and to collect money. He was arrested on March 30, 1921, but no specific allegations were made. Following an interrogation, he was gunned down from behind on April 1st in the stairwell of the Berlin police headquarters by the crime operations assistant Albert Jannicke. According to the information he had given on his deathbed, Jannicke had Sält go a few meters up the stairs, then called "Halt!" According to a witness was allowed to serious injuries for prolonged periods without the help lying on the ground, a police officer came in to him and shouted, "Verrecke, you carrion" As Sült in the Charité arrived, he had, according to the treating physician already 1 1 / 2 liters of blood lost. He died at 4:00 a.m. on April 2nd. The investigation against the perpetrator was discontinued on February 18, 1922, since his statement that Sül had attempted to flee was "credible, but in any case could not be refuted". The fact that, according to the shooter, Süle fled upstairs in the middle of the police headquarters appeared to be "in itself highly unbelievable" in the opinion of legal experts, but this was not taken into account in the proceedings; just as little as the fact that "after the shot, a criminal act (killing by unlawful omission) was committed by the police officers involved."

Honor

On the inside of the ring wall of the memorial of the socialists , Sült's name was carved into a porphyry plate ( murdered in the department during the Weimar Republic ).

Since January 31, 1952, a street in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg has been called Sältstrasse. It runs from Küselstrasse to Ostseestrasse .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Sühlt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Brandt , Richard Löwenthal , Ernst Reuter : A life for freedom . Munich 1957, p. 158.
  2. ^ Annemarie Lange: Berlin in the Weimar Republic . Berlin 1987, p. 387.
  3. ^ A b Emil Julius Gumbel: Four years of political murder . Berlin 1922, p. 66.
  4. ^ Emil Julius Gumbel (ed.): Memorandum of the Reich Minister of Justice on "Four Years of Political Murder" . Berlin 1924, p. 34.
  5. ^ Emil Julius Gumbel (ed.): Memorandum of the Reich Minister of Justice on "Four Years of Political Murder" . Berlin 1924, p. 64.
  6. ^ Emil Julius Gumbel (ed.): Memorandum of the Reich Minister of Justice on "Four Years of Political Murder" . Berlin 1924, p. 63.
  7. ↑ Sultstrasse. In: Street name dictionary of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Sält, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist
DATE OF BIRTH 1888
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1921
PLACE OF DEATH Berlin