Alfred Fitz
Alfred Fitz (born November 3, 1879 in Dresden , † July 17, 1947 ) was a German trade unionist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .
Life
Fitz attended elementary school and then learned the job of a laboratory assistant in the chocolate industry. A few years after completing his apprenticeship, he joined the confectioners' association and the SPD . The former had the negative effect that he was reprimanded several times and had to change employers more often. The last station before he switched to full-time employment in 1906 was the Bahlsen company in Hanover .
After the merger of his association with the baker's association, he was sent to Leipzig as a district manager and after the First World War elected the second chairman of this union. In 1927, the free unions of the food industry merged to form the Association of Food and Beverage Workers . Fitz was re-elected as 2nd chairman. In addition, he served as a member of the Reich Economic Council from 1928 and as an assessor in the Reich Labor Court in Leipzig.
time of the nationalsocialism
Like many other union officials, Fitz was initially imprisoned when the National Socialists came to power . But after 14 days he was released again and from then on took care of setting up an illegal shop steward organization for his association. He was supported - like many other trade unionists active under National Socialism - by his international professional association, in this case the International Union of Organizations of Workers in the Food and Beverage Industry (IUF) . In contrast to other resistance groups, he and his colleagues were less concerned with distributing pamphlets or leaflets, but rather with creating a network for collecting and exchanging information. According to his own statements, he maintained numerous contacts with (emigrated) trade unionists at the diplomatic missions abroad as well as with individual resistance cells in various companies. He also met several times abroad with representatives of the top international trade union organizations, including Jean Schifferstein , the secretary of the IUF.
The Gestapo succeeded in dumping individual cells again and again - for example in 1936 the resistance group in the “Germania” bread factory - and thus hindering Fitz's work, but initially they did not track down the former chairman of the association. As he himself stated after 1945, the Gestapo only got their hands on copies of his letters through the cooperation of a spy at the diplomatic mission of the German trade unions (ADG). On July 11, 1939, he was arrested and placed in solitary confinement for 11 months. He had to survive a few months in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In the high treason trial before the People's Court, however, he was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Reconstruction from 1945
The damage to health suffered during the imprisonment did not prevent Fitz from campaigning for the establishment of the union for food, restaurants and enjoyment (NGG) in the Soviet occupation zone after Germany surrendered .
literature
- Willy Buschak : Work in the smallest circle: Trade unions in the resistance against the National Socialist dictatorship, clear text, Essen 2015. ISBN 978-3-8375-1206-9 and Results-Verlag, Hamburg 1993 ISBN 3-87916-017-1
- Arnd Groß: Fitz, Alfred (1879–1947), in: Siegfried Mielke (Ed.): Trade unionists in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographisches Handbuch, Vol. 1, Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2002, pp. 147f., ISBN 3-89468-268-X
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fitz, Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German trade unionist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 3, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dresden , German Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 17, 1947 |