August Stötzel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

August Stötzel (born September 9, 1898 in Eickel or Wanne , † August 17, 1963 in Berlin ) was a German miner , communist resistance fighter against National Socialism , prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp and party functionary ( KPD / SED ).

Life

Stötzel came from a working class family in the Ruhr area . His father was a miner. After attending elementary school, like his father, he learned the profession of miner, in which he worked with interruptions until 1929 in Herne . In the last two years of the First World War he had to do military service. In 1919 he was one of the co-founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the Ruhr area. From 1927 to 1930 he worked on the works council . In 1929 he took on a full-time party function in the KPD district leadership of Hesse . In 1930 and 1931 he attended the International Lenin School in Moscow . After his return to Hesse he became district leader of the Hessian KPD, then secretary of the KPD sub-district of Duisburg .

After the transfer of power to the NSDAP in 1933, he continued illegal party work in the Ruhr area . On January 20, 1934, he was taken into “ protective custody ” in Dortmund and imprisoned in the prisons in Dortmund, Berlin-Moabit , Hamm , Werl and Bochum . 1935 Stötzel was charged with "preparation for high treason to three years' prison convicted, he in prison in Herford was serving in the police and prison Dortmund. In 1937 he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was assigned to the " prisoners clothing chamber " work command. He also worked as a roofer . From 1942 to 1945 he was a camp elder , kapo and foreman in the Weimar Gustloff Plant I, where he had to instruct hundreds of prisoners of war and forced laborers . Stötzel belonged to the illegal KPD leadership in the camp and organized the prisoner resistance through various acts of sabotage , about which he wrote a detailed report in 1947.

When the Nazi rule was eliminated, he returned to the Ruhr area in 1945 and became secretary of the KPD district association of Herne. Then he became district secretary of the KPD in Dortmund. He later moved to the GDR, joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and became a member of the SED Central Committee . From 1950 to 1963 he was an employee of the Central Party Control Commission (ZPKK). From 1953 he acted as a sector manager. He was also a member of several special control commissions for social groups. In 1956, he was criticized within the party for taking illegal measures in connection with the handling of the "case" of Fritz and Lydia Sperling . But he remained an employee of the ZPKK as well as the party control commission of the KPD.

Honors

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Author collective: Buchenwald. Reminder and obligation. Documents and reports. Berlin 1983, p. 467
  2. ↑ Daniel Stern: In the dungeon of the Stasi . In: Die Wochenzeitung , issue of April 24, 2008, accessed June 28, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Stötzel, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German miner, party functionary (KPD / SED)
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Eickel or tub
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1963
Place of death Berlin