Adolf Anschütz

Adolf Anschütz (born September 20, 1889 in Viernau , † January 5, 1945 in Weimar ) was a German communist and a resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Adolf Anschütz grew up in simple circumstances. After attending primary school, he learned the trade of pliers maker . From 1909 he organized himself in the German Metal Workers' Association (DMV), was a member of the SPD from 1910 to 1917 , then he joined the USPD and later the KPD . He took part throughout the First World War. In the Weimar Republic , the Suhl metalworkers entrusted him with representing their interests as managing director of the DMV from 1919 to 1933. In this position of trust, he turned against the sectarian trade union policy of the KPD, of which he had been a member since 1920, at the end of the 1920s . The KPD then excluded him from the party because he did not rely on the RGO ( Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition ), but on the common metalworkers' union.

First imprisoned in 1933, he nevertheless continued his resistance work with communists, social democrats and trade unionists. The indictment of the Jena Public Prosecutor's Office of August 15, 1944 against 21 anti-fascists from Suhl and the surrounding area described their “treasonable activity” in that they had organized themselves into small and loose groups that came together at work, in restaurants, shops and apartments . The common ground they had acquired in their political convictions held them together.

Adolf was one of the accused. From the trial files it emerges that Adolf Anschütz regarded the defeat of the Hitler Reich as certain and also spread this attitude further. He listened to the news from foreign broadcasters and passed it on, as well as leaflets produced under dangerous conditions . He never gave up the idea of solidarity , and helped collect donations for relatives of imprisoned anti-fascists.

In a series of death sentences against Social Democrats and Communists from the Suhl area, including against Adolf Anschütz, it is said of the causes of the widespread resistance that in the years 1918 to 1933 the Suhl area was a "stronghold of Marxism " After the National Socialist takeover of power, former Social Democrats and Communists retained their earlier attitudes and continued to campaign illegally for their convictions.

In a statement by the People's Court of December 14, 1944 on the conviction of Adolf Anschütz and the co-defendants Ernst König and Ewald Stübler , it says: “The convicts are all dogged communists who have never given up their thoughts and will not do so in the future would. Given the public danger of their actions in the formerly red Suhl and with the scope that their organization has assumed, they have, as leading figures, succumbed to the death penalty ”.

Adolf's sister-in-law, Emma Koburg from Viernau, sister of his wife Anna, who was also imprisoned and taken to the Ichtershausen state penal institution , had been able to see and speak to him briefly during a cross-examination in autumn 1944 . In a September 1945 record, Emma noted that after spending five months in heavy chains, he was emaciated and visibly badly damaged. But he stuck to his belief. His words were: “Hold on, it won't be long”. Adolf Anschütz and his comrades were executed on January 5, 1945 in the Weimar Regional Court Prison . A false message was entered in a registry office document that he had died of sudden cardiac death. In the files of the Reich Ministry of Justice , however, there is the official communication from the Chief Public Prosecutor of Weimar, which was sent to the Reich Minister of Justice on January 8 : “Betr. Execution of Adolf Anschütz, Ernst König and Ewald Stübler. The execution took place on January 5, 1945, it lasted 20 seconds ”.

memory

• Today there is a stumbling block for Adolf Anschütz in front of his former residence, Schmiedefelder Straße 58.
• The village square and the main street in Viernau, the birthplace of Adolf Anschütz, were renamed Adolf-Anschütz-Platz and Adolf-Anschütz-Straße in 1945. A few years later, in 1954, due to a central decision by the SED, the name was again renamed, this time to Ernst-Thälmann-Platz and Ernst-Thälmann-Straße.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerd Kaiser (ed.), Upright and strong - in spite of everything. Women and men from Suhl and the surrounding area in the resistance against fascism and war , in it Loni Günther: 'IMMORTLICHE VICTIMS'. Life pictures of murdered women and men in the resistance. Adolf Anschütz (September 20, 1889 to January 5, 1945), p. 25ff.