Alfred Menger

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Alfred Menger (born October 12, 1901 in Bromberg ; † July 31, 1979 in Berlin-Tempelhof ) was a German resistance fighter and politician ( SPD ), holder of the Federal Cross of Merit and city ​​elder of Berlin .

Life

He was the son of the Reichsbahn chief inspector Karl Menger and his wife Marie, née Bohm.

After the family moved to Berlin, Menger attended the Fichte Realschule in the Schöneberg district. He then attended several semesters at the business school. In 1927 he found employment as an industrial clerk at Siemens-Schuckertwerke . When he was dismissed for economic reasons in 1931, he opened a lending library in Neuköllner Weserstraße 83, not far from Hermannplatz .

Menger has been involved with the SAJ and the SPD since his youth , but only joined the party as a member after the Second World War. He was a union member of the Central Employees' Association. His membership in the workers' sports club "Fichte" was a further expression of his closeness to the political left.

In the summer of 1933 Menger came into contact with the Red Strike Troop and the Proletarian Press Service, possibly serving as a liaison between the two resistance groups. For the Red Shock Troop, he placed the resistance pamphlet of the same name in his lending library between the books and also acted as a major distributor in Berlin-Britz and Neukölln. During his illegal activity, Menger was in direct contact with Willi Strinz , an organizer of the Red Strike Troop. In addition, Menger brought another distributor to the group with Erich Kierstein .

He was arrested on October 17, 1933 and interrogated at the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz. He said he was badly mistreated there. After only nine days he was released from police custody - as he himself suspected in order to use him as “bait” to expose other resistance fighters. At the beginning of February 1934 Menger was taken into protective custody and, after he was briefly released again, taken to Berlin-Moabit remand prison. On February 12, 1934, charges were brought against him and 25 other members of the Red Strike Troop before the Berlin Superior Court. According to the indictment, Menger was only officially in pre-trial detention from February 28, 1934, so his previous imprisonment would have been arbitrary.

On May 24, 1934, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, including two months of pre-trial detention, in a high treason trial against “Bruno Senftleben and others”. He spent his imprisonment in Berlin-Plötzensee and Brandenburg-Görden . A pardon on October 28, 1934 was rejected, so that Menger was released from custody on March 24, 1936.

In the years to come, he had to undergo several examinations and interrogations. He joined the German labor front and, through the placement of the employment office, got a job at the German gasoline clocks GmbH (DBU). At that time the DBU was classified as an armaments company and produced aircraft parts, among other things. This employment apparently only came about because Menger's new employer was unaware of his previous imprisonment. He was transferred to the Elsässische Armaturenfabrik GmbH in St. Ludwig, but had to return from there to Berlin in 1942, since his condemnation had become public in the meantime and he was no longer considered acceptable as an "agitation communist".

On June 26, 1943, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and trained as a driver in the Air Force , then deployed in the office of the paratroopers at Marienborn Airport . He remained in this post until the end of the war.

After the liberation he opened the Menger bookstore on Berliner Straße (today Tempelhofer Damm ), which still exists under this name. Menger was recognized as a victim of fascism and later also as a politically persecuted person by the Nazi regime. In July 1945 he joined the SPD. From 1946 to 1971 he was a member of the Tempelhof District Assembly. There he was chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and head of the district assembly for several years. In 1970 Menger received the Federal Cross of Merit First Class for his services in building Berlin-Tempelhof. Two years later he was appointed city elder of Berlin.

Menger had been married to Gertrud, nee Giese, since 1936. They have a daughter together.

tomb

Alfred Menger was buried in the Heidefriedhof in Berlin-Mariendorf , his grave site HI 229 is designated as an honorary grave of the State of Berlin .

literature

  • Rudolf Küstermeier : The Red Assault Troop. German Resistance Memorial Center. Berlin 1982. 1st edition.
  • Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-274-4 , p. 463 f.
  • Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : The “other” capital of the Reich. Resistance from the labor movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. Lukas-Verlag. Berlin 2007 (pp. 76-84) ISBN 3-936872-94-5 . ISBN 978-3-936872-94-1 .
  • Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Kreuzberg. Volume 10 of the series of publications on the resistance in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. German Resistance Memorial Center. Berlin 1997. p. 53.
  • Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Neukölln. Volume 4 of the series of publications on the resistance in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. German Resistance Memorial Center. Berlin 1990. p. 58.
  • Siegfried Mielke (Ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers, Stefan Heinz , Matthias Oden, Sebastian Bödecker: Unique - Lecturers, students and representatives of the German University of Politics (1920-1933) in the resistance against National Socialism. Berlin 2008. pp. 144-189. ISBN 978-3-86732-032-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Archives Berlin NJ 5315, p. 126.
  2. ^ Alfred Menger compensation file in the Berlin State Archives, C Rep. 118-01, No. A3874
  3. ^ Alfred Menger compensation file in the State Office for Regulatory Affairs, Berlin, No. 14248
  4. ↑ PrV card no.07048
personal data
SURNAME Menger, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters and politicians (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1979
Place of death Berlin