Belter group

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The Belter group was part of the student resistance in the GDR at the University of Leipzig . The head of the group was Herbert Belter , who was executed in 1951 . Another nine members were arrested in 1950 and sentenced to several years in a prison camp.

Resistance at the University of Leipzig

The increasing co-ordination of social institutions in the Soviet Zone from 1946 did not stop at the universities either. Critical students and lecturers were increasingly excluded from work in the universities, arrested or forced to flee to the western zones.

Pressure was exerted on the remaining students to join the Free German Youth (FDJ). A final point for the possibility of free political activity at the University of Leipzig was the dissolution of the elected student council in November 1948 and its replacement with FDJ members. Democratic opposition work was only possible underground.

From the winter semester of 1949/50 a small group of democratically minded students gathered around the economics student Herbert Belter who tried to organize a counter-public against the SED's information monopoly with leaflets . In 1950 they created and distributed leaflets on the university campus that were directed against the manipulated People's Chamber elections and the communist dictatorship. In addition to the company's own materials, RIAS (radio in the American sector) leaflets were distributed and information about the political reprisals in the “Zone” was sent to the broadcaster.

arrest

On the night of October 4th to 5th, 1950, Belter and du Mênil distributed leaflets in Leipzig. After failing to show their IDs during a routine police check, they were taken to the police station and searched. Belter was arrested because West money and a letter from West Berlin were found on him. Du Mênil was released and fled to the west. On October 5, while searching Belter's home, police found leaflets and a notebook with names on them. The other comrades-in-arms were then arrested. They were handed over to a Soviet military tribunal which pronounced the death penalty for Herbert Belter and imprisonment between 10 and 25 years for the other defendants.

All convicts were taken to the Soviet Union. Herbert Belter was executed in Moscow on April 28, 1951. Only after the fall of the Wall in 1989 was it possible to use the Soviet archives to determine the circumstances and date of death. The other members of the group were sent to Soviet labor camps. They had to serve some of the draconian sentences until they were released to West Germany in 1955.

reception

The public in the West in the 1940s and 1950s saw the building of a communist dictatorship and the democratic resistance against it with great sympathy. The Belter group, however, was only one of many initiatives and therefore did not become very well known. After the victims were released, the history of the Belter group as part of the history of the resistance in the GDR was scientifically processed. The public interest was only of short-term nature. From the beginning of the policy of détente , criticized Werner Gumpel , he was even branded as a "Cold Warrior" when he reported on the crimes in the GDR.

After the fall of the Wall, a process of coming to terms with the history of the GDR began. The resistance against the GDR and its victims were re-explored and the memory of the events revived. As part of a traveling exhibition "Shot in Moscow ...", the fate of the Belter group was presented. Under the title “Student Resistance at the University of Leipzig 1945–1955”, the resistance (including the Belter group) was thematized in an exhibition at the University of Leipzig that was developed by the University Archives. The University of Leipzig honors Herbert Belter together with other victims of the two German dictatorships in their book of honor.

The five surviving members of the former “Belter Group” were honored with the Federal Cross of Merit in June 2007 for their democratic commitment . The Saxon Prime Minister Georg Milbradt (CDU) said in his laudation that the members of the group “bravely fought against the rape of the spirit” and endangered their lives in order to fight for a better society.

Members

Members of the group were

literature

  • Hans-Dieter Scharf: From Leipzig to Vorkuta and back. A fate report from the early years of the first German workers 'and peasants' state 1950–1954 (testimonies to life - suffering paths, page 2). Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny, Dresden 1996, ISBN 3-9805527-1-3 .
  • Gerald Wiemers, Jens Blecher: Student Resistance at the University of Leipzig 1945–1955. Edited by the University of Leipzig and the Association of Patrons and Friends of the University of Leipzig. Sax-Verlag, Beucha 1998. 144 pp.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Wiebke Schönherr: Resistance at GDR universities: We wanted a normal student life. Spiegel-online, May 17, 2014, accessed May 17, 2014 .
  2. ^ Citizens Committee Leipzig eV
  3. ↑ Honoring Herbert Belter by the University of Leipzig ( memento of the original from October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. / @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / db.uni-leipzig.de
  4. ↑ http://www.bwv-bayern.org/attachments/012_FuR%202007%203.pdf