Alfred servant

Memorial plaque for Alfred Diener at the Holzmarkt in Jena.

Alfred Diener (born February 1, 1927 in Jena , † June 18, 1953 in Weimar ) was a German locksmith who took part in the uprising of June 17, 1953 in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), arrested by Soviet occupation forces and arrested one day later was sentenced to death in Weimar and executed .

Life

After completing primary school and an apprenticeship as a locksmith, Diener was drafted into the Reich Labor Service and then into the German Wehrmacht and fought on the German Eastern Front in World War II until the end of the war . After the end of the war he first became an employee of the People's Police (VP) in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany and a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), but tried to gain a foothold temporarily in West Germany in 1949 , but then returned to Jena and became a locksmith in one Auto repair shop. His wedding was planned for June 19, 1953, but it never happened.

On June 17, 1953 Diener took part in the storming of the district leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in Jena in the course of the GDR-wide uprising . Around 20,000 people took part in the demonstrations here . Diener was one of a group of demonstrators who had a conversation with local SED officials. At around 2 p.m. the group, to which Walter Scheler belonged, was arrested by Soviet troops.

Diener was brought to Weimar on June 18, sentenced to death and executed on the same day. The sentence was carried out in the building of the Soviet headquarters, which today houses the Weimar police station . The whereabouts of the corpse is still unclear. According to later information from the then High Commissioner of the USSR in Germany , Vladimir Semjonow , the judgment was based on a direct instruction from Moscow . On the same day the population was informed of the execution through posters and loudspeaker trucks.

In 1993 a street in Jena-Neulobeda was named after Diener and a memorial plaque was attached. In 1995, the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation declared the judgment null and void in all parts, and Diener was posthumously rehabilitated . On June 18, 1996, the Lord Mayor of Weimar unveiled another plaque on the facade of the place of execution.

literature

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Alfred Diener . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: June 17, 1953 in Thuringia. Prehistory, events, consequences . 2003.

Heinz Voigt: "Hold tight, I'll take everything on myself." Murdered on June 18: Alfred Diener from Jena. In: Gerbergasse 18 - Thuringian quarterly journal for contemporary history and politics , 29/2003.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Diener - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Alfred Diener in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education , Alfred Diener on: www.17juni53.de , Potsdam, 2014.

^ Federal Agency for Civic Education and Robert Havemann Society eV, Jena , Auf: www.jugendopposition.de , September 2008.

↑ Wladimir S. Semjonow, Von Stalin bis Gorbatschow , Berlin 1995, p. 296 ff.

↑ University of Jena, June 17, 1953 ( Memento from May 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at: www.uni-jena.de .

^ Alfred-Diener-Straße on openstreetmap.org

personal data
SURNAME	Servant, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German locksmith, victim of the uprising of June 17, 1953 in the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH	February 1, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH	Jena
DATE OF DEATH	June 18, 1953
Place of death	Weimar

[1] Federal Agency for Civic Education , Alfred Diener on: www.17juni53.de , Potsdam, 2014.

[2] Federal Agency for Civic Education and Robert Havemann Society eV, Jena , Auf: www.jugendopposition.de , September 2008.

[3] Wladimir S. Semjonow, Von Stalin bis Gorbatschow , Berlin 1995, p. 296 ff.

[4] University of Jena, June 17, 1953 ( Memento from May 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at: www.uni-jena.de .

[5] Alfred-Diener-Straße on openstreetmap.org