Anton Saefkow

Anton Saefkow bust

Anton Emil Hermann Saefkow (born July 22, 1903 in Berlin ; † September 18, 1944 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Saefkow was born in the apartment of his parents, the tailor Anton Saefkow and his wife Fanny. Ludwig was born at Alte Jacobstraße 69. He joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) as a locksmith's apprentice in 1920 , and moved up to its Berlin line in 1922. Since 1923 he was a member of the Central Committee of the KJVD. In 1924 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). As early as 1927 he became KPD secretary in Berlin, then in Dresden . From 1929 to 1932 he headed the trade union work of the KPD district Ruhr and was head of the RGO in the Ruhr area . In 1932 he became political leader of the KPD district of Wasserkante. In December 1932 he married the RGO secretary Theodora Brey in Hamburg .

From April 1933 to April 1934 the National Socialists locked him up in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp , then for two and a half years in the Fuhlsbüttel prison for “preparation for high treason”. In 1936 he was interned in the Dachau concentration camp . There he and other communist prisoners took part in training courses, the " Red Aid " and an illegal memorial service for Etkar André . After denunciations, the public prosecutor arranged for the Hamburg special court to interrupt the prison sentence for 25 prisoners and handed them over to the police, who took them into " protective custody " at the Hamburg police station . Because of his resistance activities in the Dachau concentration camp, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court sentenced him to another 30 months, which he spent in the Fuhlsbüttel prison and in its Schülp subcamp.

In July 1939 he was released from prison; soon he was again operating illegally. He divorced and married Anna Thiebes ( Änne ) in 1941 . After the attack on the Soviet Union began in mid-1941 , he built the KPD's largest resistance group in Berlin, the KPD's operational management. In 1944, together with Bernhard Bästlein and Franz Jacob, he led the group that agitated against the war in Berlin armaments factories and called for acts of sabotage. In April 1944, the social democrat Adolf Reichwein contacted Saefkow in order to involve the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization in the conspiracy of July 20, 1944 . These efforts were made with knowledge and in consultation with Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg . The communists met with Reichwein and Julius Leber , but a Gestapo spy ( Ernst Rambow ) was present. Saefkow was arrested on July 4, 1944, sentenced to death on September 5, and executed with the guillotine on September 18 in Brandenburg-Görden prison. He left behind his wife Änne and two children. His daughter Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow (* 1943) is a historian and chairwoman of the German Peace Council. V.

"With this letter I want to thank you, my comrade, for the great and beautiful things that you have given me in our life together ... Only today, with these lines, do I have the first wet eyes after the judgment because of the thoughts of you . Because the mind holds back the pain that could tear me apart. You know I'm a combative person and I will die bravely. I always only wanted the good ... "

- Anton Saefkow to his wife Änne shortly before his death

Honors (selection)

Honorary burial place

Memorial stone in Senftenberg

Anton Saefkow on a GDR postage stamp, 1964 ; In the series: For the preservation of the national memorials and memorials ( anti-fascists and concentration camp victims)

• He was buried in the Pankower Friedhof III in Niederschönhausen (field UW-B-328), which was recognized as an honorary grave of the State of Berlin .
• In Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg , Anton-Saefkow-Straße was named after him. The Volkspark Anton Saefkow , in which there is a bust of Saefkow, has been located between this and the railway site since 1955 .
• The Paul Lincke primary school in Prenzlauer Berg, Pieskower Weg 39, was called the 2nd POS "Anton und Aenne Saefkow" until 1990.
• On February 2, 1975, a square in the Berlin-Fennpfuhl district was named Anton-Saefkow-Platz . In the same residential area, other resistance fighters such as Franz Jacob and Bernhard Bästlein were honored with street names. The responsible district office had the artist Jürgen Pansow make a bust of the communist. The Lichtenberg district library named after Saefkow was also inaugurated, in which this bust was temporarily placed.
• The National People's Army of the GDR called a Mot-Guard - Regiment (MSR 23) in Bad Salzungen after him.
• In Brandenburg an der Havel , the street in front of the Brandenburg penal institution is named in Anton-Saefkow-Allee . He is prominently mentioned in the memorial for the anti-fascist resistance fighters executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison . There was also a Polytechnic High School (POS) Anton Saefkow in the Görden district of the GDR .
• In Senftenberg , during the GDR era, the Dr. Otto Rindt High School in Calauer Strasse was called POS III Anton Saefkow. There is a memorial stone in the schoolyard.
• In 1983 in Berlin-Lichtenberg the sports association (SG) named itself Anton Saefkow 83 e. V. She has dedicated herself to recreational and popular sports.
• In Wismar (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) a street in the Wendorf district was named after him.
• In Neubrandenburg (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) a street in the southern part of the city was named after him.
• In Ludwigsfelde (Brandenburg) the street Anton-Saefkow-Ring was named after him.
• A street in Dresden was named after him during the GDR era; In 1991 it was renamed Mary-Wigman-Strasse .
• In Görlitz (Saxony), a street was named after him in the district Weinhübel.
• In Missen (Brandenburg), today's "Linden Elementary School" was called POS "Anton Saefkow" during the GDR era.

literature

• Annette Neumann, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization 1942 to 1945 , in: Hans Coppi , Stefan Heinz (ed.): The forgotten resistance of the workers. Trade unionists, communists, social democrats, Trotskyists, anarchists and forced laborers . Dietz, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-320-02264-8 , pp. 144–157.
• Annette Neumann, Susanne Reveles, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: Berlin workers' resistance 1942–1945. "Away with Hitler - end the war!" The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization. Berlin Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime - Bund der Antifaschisten und Antifaschistinnen e. V., Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-027768-9 .
• Ursel Hochmuth : Illegal KPD and movement “Free Germany” in Berlin and Brandenburg 1942–1945. Biographies and testimonials from the resistance organization around Saefkow, Jacob and Bästlein. (= Writings of the German Resistance Memorial Center . Series A, Analyzes and Representations, Volume 4) Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 1998, ISBN 3-933471-08-7 .
• Hermann Weber : The change in German communism. The Stalinization of the KPD in the Weimar Republic , European Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 1971, 267 f., ISBN 3-434-45008-4 .
• Emil Rudolf Greulich : Nobody is born a hero. A life picture from the German resistance (from the life of the communist resistance fighter Anton Saefkow) Neues Leben, Berlin 1961, DNB 451656903 , ISBN 978-3-8476-1327-5 (e-book).
• Saefkow, Anton . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration (1933–1945) (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 7). Metropol, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1 .
• Wolfgang Benz , Walter H. Pehle (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the German resistance. Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-15083-3 , pp. 288-290.

Web links

Commons : Anton Saefkow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
• Anton Saefkow - resistance fighter against fascism. at museum lichtenberg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Birth register StA Berlin IV No. 989 .
2. ↑ Marriage register StA Hamburg 3a No. 792/1932 .
3. ↑ Schülp field office of the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel prison
4. ^ Anton Saefkow group ( Memento from August 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ For details of the meeting and the consequences cf. Annette Neumann, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization 1942 to 1945 , in: Hans Coppi , Stefan Heinz (ed.): The forgotten resistance of the workers. Trade unionists, communists, social democrats, Trotskyists, anarchists and forced laborers . Dietz, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-320-02264-8 , pp. 144–157, here p. 154 ff.
6. ↑ See ibid.
7. ^ Anton Saefkow. In: German Resistance Memorial Center - Biography. Retrieved November 1, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Self-expression. Deutscher Friedensrat eV, accessed on August 22, 2020 . 
9. ↑ The history of our school. Paul-Lincke-Grundschule, accessed on August 22, 2020 . 
10. ^ SG Anton Saefkow 83 e. V.