August Perk
August Perk (born October 25, 1897 in Lohne ; † May 12, 1945 in Braunschweig ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and, through his brief friendship with Erich Maria Remarque, had an influence on his world-famous novel “ Nothing new in the West ”.
Life
August Perk was born into an Emsland merchant family in Lohne near Lingen. At the age of 17 he was drafted into the First World War and experienced it in Russia and France .
A fateful encounter occurred when the later world famous writer Erich Maria Remarque was teaching in Perk's hometown of Lohne as a junior teacher. Remarque later described this time in his novel "The Way Back". Perk and Remarque became friends. Perk reported on his experiences in World War I and many of these stories flowed into Remarque's anti-war novel " Nothing New in the West ".
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung : What August Perk experienced terrible as a soldier in World War I, the world-famous writer Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) processed in his book “Nothing New in the West”. The work has been translated into over 50 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world, with sales estimated at between 15 and 20 million
Perk learned the trade of master blacksmith and locksmith and switched to the textile company "Rawe & Co." in Nordhorn after he was self-employed . In 1940 August Perk married Johanna Meyer. Two children, Maria (1941) and Heinrich (1942–1965) emerged from this marriage.
August Perk clashed with the National Socialists early on. After bodily harm, August Perk's parents sued the National Socialist perpetrators and won the trial. In 1934, however, the new National Socialist rulers sentenced the devout Catholic August Perk to six months' imprisonment for political reasons, which was suspended. On April 14, 1943, the Nordhorn Gestapo arrested Perk for denunciation by neighbors and work colleagues.
In Hamm , Perk was sentenced on August 11, 1943 by the Higher Regional Court to two years in a prison camp for " undermining military strength ". After the liberation by the Allies , Perk only survived the inhuman imprisonment in the notorious Wolfenbüttel prison by a few days: He died on May 12, 1945.
In addition to a political debate as to whether a street should be named in Lohne in memory of August Perk, numerous memorials and places in Nordhorn and Lohne now commemorate the fate of August Perk, for example the Nordhorn monument in memory of the victims of the First and Second World War near Jenny Holzer's “Black Garden” and photographs in the Povelturm city museum . In addition, one of Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine , for which the city of Nordhorn published a brochure, reminds of August Perk. A memorial plaque was erected in Lohne.
Web links
- official homepage
- Traces of War - Stumbling Stone
- City of Nordhorn, documentation of stumbling blocks , PDF file
Individual evidence
- ^ Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung : August Perk - Critical utterance paid for with my life , on January 18, 2008
- ↑ Called by name ... Stolpersteine in Nordhorn. "A documentation of the city of Nordhorn"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Perk, August |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German resistance fighters against National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 25, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rewards |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 12, 1945 |
| Place of death | Braunschweig |