Albert Fritz (resistance fighter)

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Stumbling block for Albert Fritz in Heidelberg

Albert Fritz ( January 18, 1899 in Hornberg - February 25, 1943 in Stuttgart ) was a German iron turner , communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was executed by the Nazi regime .

Life

Albert Fritz worked as an iron turner after completing his apprenticeship. In 1921 he became a member of the KPD and took part in the Central German uprising . After that he had to go into hiding, but from 1925 he was regularly registered in Heidelberg. He then lived continuously in Haus Steinäckerweg 52 in the Kirchheim district , married his wife Barbara and worked for the agricultural machinery manufacturer Heinrich Lanz AG in Mannheim. Until the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he was a member of the Heidelberg Citizens' Committee, and from 1931 to 1933 also secretary of the KPD for the Baden-Palatinate district.

In 1933 he was arrested by the National Socialists as one of the first labor functionaries in the district and spent 13 months in the Ankenbuck and Kislau concentration camps . After his release he continued his political work undeterred, distributed pamphlets and supported the Red Aid . Albert Fritz was arrested again at the end of 1934. In March 1935 he and ten other communists were tried and sentenced to 15 months in prison. After his release he worked in a Mannheim shipyard and was also able to gather like-minded people there. He joined the resistance group around the Mannheim typesetter Georg Lechleiter , which consisted of social democrats and communists and was represented in numerous large companies in the Mannheim area. Other Heidelberg members of the group were Albert Fritz, the social democrat Philipp Brunnemer , his daughter Käthe Seitz and her husband Alfred Seitz . Under Lechleiter's direction, four issues of the illegal newspaper Der Vorbote appeared from September 1941 under the greatest of secrecy and under the most difficult of circumstances . Sources of information were primarily the news broadcasts on the London and Moscow Radio, which had been illegally monitored. After the attack on the Soviet Union, the aim was to educate as many workers as possible about the falsehoods from Goebbels' propaganda apparatus and to strengthen their will to resist.

Before completing the fifth edition of the Harbinger , the group was betrayed. From February 26, 1942, a total of 32 members of the Lechleitner group were arrested, including Lechleitner himself and Albert Fritz. In October 1942 Fritz was sentenced to death by the People's Court in Mannheim Palace along with Richard Jatzek , Ludwig Neischwander , Bruno Rüffer and Henriette Wagner . A number of other co-defendants were sentenced to long prison terms. A total of 19 of the 32 group members arrested were sentenced to death. The first 14 executions took place in Stuttgart on September 15, 1942, another five - including Albert Fritz - on February 24, 1943. In a letter to his wife, Albert Fritz wrote: “I will die as I lived. My death is a sacrificial death that is conditioned by time. "

Commemoration

Albert-Fritz-Strasse in Heidelberg

Three streets bear his name:

  • On July 11, 1945, the former Adolf-Hitler-Strasse in Walldorf was renamed Albert-Fritz-Strasse.
  • In 1946 the Steinäckerweg in the Heidelberg district of Kirchheim , named in 1921 after the Steinäcker and Lange Steinäcker winners , was renamed Albert-Fritz-Straße. This street renaming was the first in Heidelberg to honor a victim of National Socialism. At its meeting on January 3, 1946, the Heidelberg city council approved the KP's motion without a dissenting vote. The tram stop for line 26 located there also bears the name.
  • Finally, in 1984 a whole group of streets in a new building area in Mannheim-Schönau was named after members of the Lechleiter group, including the Albert-Fritz-Weg.
  • On November 15, 2012, Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in front of the house on Albert-Fritz-Straße 52 in Heidelberg, the last residence he chose himself, in his memory.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heidelberg History Association , accessed on December 16, 2017.
  2. ↑ Heidelberg History Association ; Räther, The Heidelberg Street Names , p. 24.
  3. ↑ Meinhold Lurz: Public memory in the years 1945 and 1946. In: Jürgen C. Heß, Hartmut Lehmann, Volker Sellin (Ed.): Heidelberg 1945. (= Transatlantic Historical Studies. 5). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06880-5 , p. 248.
  4. ↑ Ulrike Puvogel, Martin Stankowski : Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein. (= Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. Volume 1). With the assistance of Ursula Graf. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Federal Agency for Political Education , Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 , p. 58; PDF online
  5. ↑ Memorial for the Victims of National Socialism , website Via Monumentum - Denkmalpflege Heidelberger Friedhöfe e. V.
  6. ^ Initiative Stolpersteine ​​Heidelberg: Relocations from November 15, 2012 . accessed on December 16, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Fritz, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ironworkers and resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Hornberg
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1943
Place of death Stuttgart