Adolf Buchholz (economic functionary)

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Adolf Buchholz (born July 5, 1913 in Spandau , † March 9, 1978 in East Berlin ), called Appel , was the first chairman of the FDJ in the Czech and British emigration. In 1947 he was the first editor-in-chief of Junge Welt, which initially appeared as a weekly newspaper . He also held managerial positions in the iron and steel industry in the GDR .

Life

Adolf Buchholz came from a social democratic family. The father was a bricklayer, the mother a housewife. Buchholz learned the profession of iron former in the German industrial works . In 1926 he became a member of the Young Spartakusbund , in 1929 he joined the KJVD and in 1932 the KPD . At times he was active in the youth leadership of the communist union of metal workers in Berlin (EVMB).

Shortly before the onset of National Socialism , Buchholz became the head of the KJVD for the Berlin-Brandenburg region. After the factual ban on the KJVD in the course of the Reichstag Fire Emergency Ordinance at the end of February 1933, he worked in the illegal structures of the communist youth organization. For this he also traveled abroad. Buchholz was arrested in March 1934. After six months of pre-trial detention, the Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced him to two and a half years in prison on September 22, 1934, which was to be served in prison. From March 1934 to November 1936 he was imprisoned in Luckau prison.

After his release, he managed to emigrate to Czechoslovakia in June 1937 . On May 8, 1938, a "Free German Youth", the forerunner of the later FDJ , was founded under his leadership . Buchholz took over the chairmanship of the organization. Members were anti-fascist emigrants in the ČSR. After German troops marched into the Sudeten area (see Munich Agreement ), he managed to escape via Poland to Great Britain in November 1938 . There he had many discussions with representatives of political organizations as well as welfare and refugee associations in order to guarantee guarantees for the financing of the maintenance of further German refugees from Czechoslovakia. In June 1939 the founding conference of the FDJ took place in London, to which a number of Jewish emigrants belonged and which again elected Adolf Buchholz as chairman. He held this position until the end of 1941, when there were internal disputes about the further work of the FDJ. From 1942 he took on various party functions in the KPD state leadership in England, including as youth representative.

From July to August 1940 he - like numerous other German emigrants - was interned on the Isle of Man as an " enemy alien " . From 1941 to 1944 he worked as a moulder in a British arms company.

In autumn 1944 he was recruited by the US secret service OSS and trained for use in Germany. The operation was coordinated with the Moscow GRU headquarters via the Soviet agent Ruth Werner . On April 10, 1945, he jumped off the parachute as "Dolf" near Berlin, but was no longer able to carry out his assignment due to the fighting over Berlin. He made contact with the Red Army and was later transferred to the American military authorities.

In September 1946 he returned to Germany. He became a member of the SED , the FDJ and the Free German Trade Union Federation .

From February to August 1947 he was editor-in-chief of the newly founded weekly newspaper Junge Welt , the establishment of which he had been preparing since October 1946. He then worked as a journalist in the Soviet News Office (SNB) until March 1949. Afterwards he was appointed by the Central Committee of the SED as head of personnel in the main metallurgy administration in the former German Economic Commission (DWK), a forerunner of the GDR government. At the beginning of the 1950s he was active in the development team of the newly emerging Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost (EKO). He then was director of the Maxhütte steelworks in Unterwellenborn from 1952 to 1960 .

From 1952 Buchholz was a member of the district assembly and member of the Gera district council. 1960 to 1961 he was sector manager in the State Planning Commission , 1961/62 provisional department head, from 1962 department head for black metallurgy in the economics council of the GDR and finally head of the VEB Rationalisierungsmittel in Berlin.

literature

  • Gottfried Hamacher . With the assistance of André Lohmar: Against Hitler: Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement: short biographies . Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin. Volume 53. ISBN 3-320-02941-X ( PDF )
  • Peter Rau: Our first. In Junge Welt on February 12, 2002
  • Andreas Herbst :  Buchholz, Adolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Stefan Heinz : Adolf Buchholz (1913–1978) , In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (Eds.) With the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Emigrierte Metallgewerkschafter in the fight against the Nazi regime (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 3). Metropol, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-210-7 , pp. 471-477.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Heinz: Moscow's mercenaries? The "Unified Association of Berlin Metal Workers": Development and Failure of a Communist Union , VSA, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3899654066 , p. 151
  2. ↑ Alfred Fleischhacker (ed.): That was our life, memories and documents on the history of the FDJ in Great Britain 1939-1946. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1996. p. 192 ISBN 3355014753
  3. ↑ Alfred Fleischhacker (ed.): That was our life, memories and documents on the history of the FDJ in Great Britain 1939-1946. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1996. S. 214 f. and Stefan Heinz: Adolf Buchholz (1913–1978) , In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (Eds.) with the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Emigrierte Metallgewerkschafter in the fight against the Nazi regime (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 3). Metropol, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-210-7 , pp. 471–477, here p. 474
  4. ↑ The Legacy of US Captain Joseph Gould, Junge Welt, March 29, 2005
personal data
SURNAME Buchholz, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Appel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economic functionary of the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Spandau
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1978
Place of death East Berlin