Alfred Weiland

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Alfred Weiland (born August 7, 1906 in Berlin ; † September 18, 1978 in Berlin ( West )) was a resistance fighter against National Socialism and part of a resistance group against the leadership of the GDR and was a victim of Stalinist repression.

Life

Weiland became a member of the NSDAP for a short time in the mid-1920s , but then joined the Communist Workers 'Party of Germany (KAPD) and the General Workers' Union (AAU) and became an author for the newspaper Kampfruf . After the National Socialist seizure of power , he was imprisoned in the Hohnstein concentration camp under the pretext of protective custody until 1934 . From 1934 until he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1944, he organized the establishment of council communist groups despite police supervision.

From June 1945 Weiland worked for the salvage center for scientific libraries (Berlin) and subsequently participated again in the rebuilding of communist groups, for example he created the Network Groups Internationaler Socialists (GIS) and published the illegal magazine Neues Beginnen (place of publication allegedly Zurich , actually Berlin), in which he opposed the Soviet regime and called for a "free" socialism. Weiland not only kept in contact with the communist scene in East and West Germany, but also sought talks with organizations such as the East Office of the SPD and the Combat Group against Inhumanity .

Weiland had been observed by the Soviet secret police since 1946, and on November 11, 1950, he was abducted from West Berlin to the central remand prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . After torture and a failed espionage charge, he was handed over to the Ministry for State Security , which indicted him and several other members of his group for incitement to war and boycott before the Greifswald district court . Despite the revocation of his torture-extorted confession, the trial ended with a sentence of 15 years in prison . Weiland served his imprisonment in the Bützow-Dreibergen prison and in the Brandenburg-Görden prison . In 1958 he was released early and returned to West Berlin, where he was involved in helping those persecuted in socialist countries. Weiland became a member of the SPD, criticized the extra-parliamentary opposition and the recognition of the GDR by social democratic Ostpolitik . In the later years of his life, Weiland became increasingly critical of his left-wing radical youth.

In 1967, Weiland suffered a heart attack that was not immediately diagnosed, resulting in poorer health over the long term. He died on September 18, 1978 in West Berlin.

Publications

  • Partisan of Freedom. A factual account of the kidnapping chapter of Cold War history. Berlin 1959

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ The rescue center for academic libraries , joint project of the Berlin State Archives (LAB) and the Berlin Central and State Library (ZLB)
  2. ↑ Werner Schroeder : The libraries of the RSHA: Structure and whereabouts (PDF; 92 kB), print version of the lecture Weimar September 11, 2003, page 8
personal data
SURNAME Weiland, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and part of a resistance group against the leadership of the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1978
Place of death Berlin ( West )