Arno Behrisch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arno Erich Behrisch (born June 6, 1913 in Dresden ; † September 16, 1989 in Hof ) was a German politician ( SPD , SAP , DFU ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Behrisch learned typesetter. He became a member of the SPD and its youth organization, Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) . With the rise of National Socialism he left the SPD and in 1931 joined the more left-wing Socialist Workers' Party (SAP) .

After the seizure of power , after working underground in Dresden, he fled first to Czechoslovakia in 1934 , then to Sweden via Poland and the Baltic States in 1938. There he was active in the national group of German trade unionists and in the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). He was able to work as a typographer in Sweden in his learned profession. In 1940 he was convicted of sabotage on behalf of Great Britain and a collaboration with the British Military Intelligence Special Operations Executive . As a member of a group around the British agent Alfred Frederick Rickman (Rickman League), he tried to obstruct ore transports destined for Nazi Germany in the port of Oxelösund . From 1940 to 1944 he was imprisoned in Långholmen Central Prison in Stockholm and in Falun in northern Sweden . There was Herbert Wehner , a functionary of the KPD in exile in Sweden, his cell mate.

In January 1945 he went to Denmark, where he was German representative in the Danish resistance movement until the end of the National Socialist era . Then he returned to Germany. In Franconia he participated in the reconstruction of the SPD, which he rejoined in 1944 together with most of the members of the SAP group in Sweden around August Enderle , Stefan Szende and Willy Brandt , and in the 1950s he was sub-district chairman in the Bavarian court and at times deputy State chairman of the Bavarian SPD. In 1949 he won the directorship of the Bundestag in the constituency of Hof.

Behrisch became the opponent of the reorientation of the SPD as envisaged by the Godesberg program . In it he saw a commitment "to NATO, to the altar and to the moneybag" and in Wehner the "main initiator of the policy of the commitment to NATO". In 1961 he left the party after opening proceedings against him and became a member of the German Peace Union , of which he was a member of the board of directors until 1968.

When, in an extraordinary session of the Bundestag on August 18, 1961, the various party representatives condemned the building of the Berlin Wall , Behrisch was the last speaker to blame the West for closing the border under almost tumultuous conditions. The Berlin crisis is based on a “monumental misjudgment” of the “politics of strength” practiced by the West since 1952. One should have shown willingness to compromise early on.

In order to counteract Wehner and the party line he represented, in 1963 he worked together with the investigative journalist and publisher Hans Frederik with GDR agencies and, for this purpose, undertook trips there with Frederik. Behrisch was one of the initiators of the Easter march movement in Germany.

Behrisch was editor-in-chief of the Oberfränkische Volkszeitung until 1961 and also wrote for the Deutsche Volkszeitung . His relationship with Heinrich Giegold , the editor-in-chief of Frankenpost, was fraught with conflict .

Behrisch was married twice.

MP

From 1946 to 1949 Behrisch was a member of the Bavarian state parliament , then until 1961 of the German Bundestag . From his transfer to the DFU until the end of the legislative period a few months later, he was the only member of the Bundestag for this party.

Publications

  • Upper Franconia in a stranglehold. A summary and supplement to the relevant memoranda and speeches , Hof 1950
  • SPD and the political alternative. 1964.
  • Stop the right course, strengthen the democratic opposition. 1968.

literature

  • Guido Knopp : Why didn't you prevent Hitler? Questions to the powerful and the powerless. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983
  • Lars Rosander / Lennart W. Frick, Bakom hemligstämpeln. Hemlig verksamhet i Sverige i vår tid, Historiska media: Lund 2004
  • Rudolf Vierhaus , Ludolf Herbst (eds.), Bruno Jahn (collaborators): Biographical manual of the members of the German Bundestag. 1949-2002. Vol. 1: A-M. KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-23782-0 , pp. 52-53.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HP of the city of Stockholm, Stockholmskällan, Förhör med Arno Erich Behrisch våren 1940 [interrogation of Arno Erich Behrisch in spring 1940], see: [1] .
  2. ↑ Michael F. Scholz, Herbert Wehner in Schweden 1941-1946, Munich 1995, p. 71.
  3. ↑ Michael F. Scholz, Herbert Wehner in Schweden 1941-1946, Munich 1995, p. 169.
  4. ↑ Historical debates (3): Protest against the building of the wall . German Bundestag. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  5. ↑ Michael F. Scholz, Herbert Wehner in Schweden 1941-1946, Munich 1995, pp. 171f.
  6. ↑ Memory of Arno Behrisch . District association "Hof - Wunsiedel". July 28, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Behrisch, Arno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Behrisch, Arno Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL, MdB
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1989
Place of death court