Alfred Ziehm

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Alfred Ziehm (born February 10, 1896 in Dresden ; † unknown) was a German trade unionist and politician.

Life and activity

Ziehm, who had learned to be a mechanic, had been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) since 1918 . During the Weimar Republic he became a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold .

Before 1933 Ziehm was a member of the city council of Leipzig . In addition, from 1927 to 1933 he was chairman of the general works council of all municipal plants and administrations in Leipzig.

In May 1933, a few months after the National Socialists came to power , Ziehm fled to Czechoslovakia. There he settled in Graupen near Teplitz, where he ran a small trade. Politically, he made himself available to SOPADE , the exile organization of the SPD, which was banned in Germany, for which he became the Sopade base manager in Brüx-Katharinenberg. Together with a few other social democratic emigrants, Ziehm also formed the opposition group "Ziehm and Comrades", which endeavored to work against the Nazi regime from Czechoslovakia.

The activities of Ziehm's group did not go unnoticed by the National Socialist surveillance organs: For example, a report by Gestapo officer Wilhelm Krichbaum about the group has been preserved in which its "state-disruptive activities against Germany" are recorded. According to this, it was dedicated to smuggling in documents directed against the Nazi regime, maintaining ties to party members who remained in Germany, and buying weapons and distributing them to emigrants. "In summary," said Krichbaum, "that Ziehm is at the forefront in the fight against National Socialist Germany and has thus violated the duty of loyalty to the Reich and the people," which is why the expatriation measure appears justified. The expatriation was actually carried out.

In January 1939 Ziehm moved to Great Britain. There he was interned after the outbreak of the Second World War - despite his expatriation in Germany - as a member of a hostile power. He later worked as a mechanic again.

Still regarded by the National Socialist rulers as a dangerous public enemy, Ziehm was placed on the special wanted list by the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin in the spring of 1940 , a directory of people who, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of Great Britain by the German Wehrmacht, automatically and primarily from special commandos the SS should be taken into custody.

literature

  • Jan Foitzik: Between the Fronts: on the politics, organization and function of left political small organizations in the resistance 1933 to 1939-40: with special consideration of exile. Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn 1986, ISBN 3-87831-439-6 , p. 335.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Bornschein: Offenders in secret: Wilhelm Krichbaum between the Nazi field police and the Gehlen organization. Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86189-832-0 , p. 36.
  2. ↑ Joachim Bornschein: Offenders in secret: Wilhelm Krichbaum between the Nazi field police and the Gehlen organization. Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86189-832-0 , p. 37.
  3. ↑ Michael Hepp, Hans Georg Lehmann: The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger . Volume 1, Saur, Munich et al. 1985, ISBN 3-598-10538-X , p. 10.
  4. ^ Entry on Alfred Ziehm on the special wanted list GB on the website of the Imperial War Museum
personal data
SURNAME Ziehm, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists and politicians (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH 20th century