Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen Group

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The Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen-Gruppe was a resistance organization led by KPD members Bernhard Bästlein , Franz Jacob and Robert Abshagen , which fought against the National Socialist regime from 1940 until the end of the war in 1945 . With around 300 members in over thirty Hamburg companies, it was the largest regional resistance group in Hamburg .

resistance

In 1940 Bernhard Bästlein, Franz Jacob, Robert Abshagen and Gustav Bruhn , all shortly before released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , came to the conclusion after secret deliberations that a resistance organization should be built up from the scattered groups of the KPD and a large number of smaller resistance groups. This should mainly be anchored in the large Hamburg companies and contribute to promoting the overthrow of the National Socialist regime and the end of the war. Through extensive contacts, a conspiratorial network in over thirty companies, mainly in the Hamburg shipyards, was created. The declared goals were the mobilization of the workers, the support of foreign forced laborers and Soviet prisoners of war and the sabotage of arms production. The group consisted mainly of KPD members, some social democrats and non-party members, as well as some foreign forced laborers. In leaflets, which were usually distributed internally, the group promoted a socialist Germany on the side of the Soviet Union. The supraregional connections included contacts via Wilhelm Guddorf with the resistance network of the Red Orchestra in Berlin and via Leo Drabent and Hermann Böse to Bremen.

persecution

In October 1942 the activities of the group were uncovered by the Hamburg State Police Headquarters, more than 100 of its 200 members at that time were arrested. Franz Jacob escaped to Berlin, where he and Anton Saefkow established a new network of illegal cells. After the heavy air raids on Hamburg in July and August 1943, over 50 imprisoned resistance fighters of the group unexpectedly received prison leave. Many of them immediately tried to rebuild the group. Bernhard Bästlein made contact with Franz Jacob in Berlin. After a few months, however, most of the refugees were caught again. In the so-called Hamburg communist trials from May 1944 onwards, numerous death sentences were passed. A total of 70 members of the group were executed between 1942 and 1945. Nevertheless, the group managed to maintain its activities until the last days of the war and to advocate the surrender of the city of Hamburg to the Allies without a fight.

Public honors and commemorations

Memorial plaque at the entrance of the Thalia Theater

On September 8, 1946, 27 urns of murdered Hamburg resistance fighters were buried in a grove of honor in the Ohlsdorf cemetery , including Bernhard Bästlein, Franz Jacob and Heinz Priess. Later the urns of Robert Abshagen and other members of the group were also transferred.

The council of Blohm & Voss had erected in 1953 on the premises of a plaque in memory of murdered eleven workers of the shipyard, including eight from the Bästlein-Jacob Abshagen group.

In 1964, the GDR's Oberpostdirektion issued a series of stamps to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deaths of Saefkow, Jacob and Bästlein. Before that, a series of athletes had issued a stamp commemorating Walter Bohne.

At the Thalia Theater (Hamburg) , a memorial plaque from the program of the Hamburg Monument Protection Office, Sites of Persecution and Resistance, has been attached since the theater was one of the group's bases.

Other members

People from the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group

literature

  • Ursula Puls : The Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen Group. Report on the anti-fascist resistance struggle in Hamburg and on the water's edge during the Second World War . Dietz, Berlin, capital of the GDR 1959
  • Ursel Hochmuth : resistance organization Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen . In: Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer (ed.), Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933-1945 , Frankfurt a. M. 1969, p. 342ff
  • Ursel Hochmuth: Nobody and nothing is forgotten. Biograms and letters from Hamburg resistance fighters 1933-1945. A Ehrenhain documentation , ed. from the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten eV Land Hamburg, VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89965-121-9 .
  • Herbert Diercks : Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Werner Skrentny (Ed.): Hamburg on foot. 20 city tours. Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-619-8 , page 20 and memorials in Hamburg (PDF; 1.1 MB), accessed on January 1, 2010