Benno von Heynitz

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Benno von Heynitz (born December 22, 1924 in Dresden ; † October 29, 2010 in Weilburg ) was a co-founder of the Bautzen Committee and the initiator of the foundation of the Bautzen Memorial . After the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR in 1989, Benno von Heynitz initiated the founding of the Bautzen Committee, the association of former political prisoners in the Bautzen prisons , to which he himself belonged.

"Yellow misery": Part of the building complex of the Bautzen prison facility

Life

origin

Benno von Heynitz was born on December 22, 1924 in Dresden. His parents were the lawyer Aurel von Heynitz and Ilse, née von Wuthenau . He received the baptismal name Benno, which is traditional in the von Heynitz family . He first spent his childhood at the Weicha manor in the Bautzen district , which his brother Wichard, three years older than him, had inherited in 1927 from a branch of the family. The father was responsible for the management of the property.

1933-1945

The conservative-oriented von Heynitz family was very reserved towards National Socialism . Benno von Heynitz was not an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth from the start . The initial aversion to the Third Reich grew into opposition as the family increasingly came into conflict with the regime . In 1935 the manor was dissolved under massive pressure from the Sächsische Bauernsiedlung GmbH, so the property was expropriated. Benno's brother Wichard von Heynitz was slightly mentally handicapped and, on medical advice, had been placed in various nursing homes since 1937. On May 8, 1941, the 19-year-old was transferred to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing center as part of the so-called Aktion T4 and was murdered there despite an attempt to rescue the family. Benno von Heynitz acquired a political education in terms of human rights and democracy as a youth during the Nazi era. He listened to what was strictly forbidden from foreign radio stations, collected and passed on information leaflets (chain letters with anti-regime content) in confidence. In order to bypass the Reich Labor Service , he volunteered for the Wehrmacht in September 1942 , which at that time seemed less National Socialist to him. In the Ukraine he suffered a serious wound, which was followed by a lengthy hospital stay in Berlin from September 1943 to March 1944 . Having had a lung injury, he was often able to recover alone in the Grunewald, where he picked up leaflets dropped by the Allied Air Force . He used the content not only for his own information, but also for political argumentation and agitation against the Nazi regime. After his healing, von Heynitz was deployed as a soldier in replacement troops in Austria and Hungary .

1945-1956

Immediately after the end of the war, Benno von Heynitz returned to Weicha near Bautzen in May 1945 and was able to work as a teacher in the Bautzen district on September 1, 1946 after an eight-month course for young teachers. He had been able to attend the course because it was known how much his family had suffered under the Nazi regime. In 1945 he joined the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany to get involved in democratic reconstruction. He criticized the violation of human rights and the elimination of the SPD in the Soviet zone of occupation , or the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD , and participated in building a network of resistance. In 1947 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Soviet military tribunal . For his voluntary commitment he atone for ten years as a political prisoner in the camps and prisons of the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR , including in the Yellow Misery in Bautzen and in the correctional facility in Brandenburg ad Havel . As part of the return of the last prisoners of war from the Soviet Union in 1956, almost all were SMT convicts released into the wild and so Benno was in the Heynitz of that year BRD leave. His mother had lived in Marburg since 1954 .

1956-2010

Benno von Heynitz first attended a seminar for late returnees in Göttingen , which he finished in March 1957 with the Abitur. After studying law in Göttingen, Heidelberg , Bonn and Marburg, which he graduated with the first state examination in 1963, he completed his legal preparatory service as a court trainee . In 1961 Benno married von Heynitz. The marriage resulted in a son in 1963 and a daughter in 1965. After the second state examination, he was appointed assessor in April 1967. Benno von Heynitz became a civil servant in the representation of the state of Hesse at the federal government . In Bonn he worked as a ministerial official until his retirement at the end of 1986 and was involved in federal legislation as a legal specialist. Benno von Heynitz was a member of the SPD until his death, but had never sought a mandate "so that he didn't have to speak to anyone by the mouth," as he once said. Retired, he lived in the Weilburg district of Odersbach , where he died on October 29, 2010 at the age of almost 86.

Entrance area of ​​the Bautzen memorial

Bautzen committee and memorial

In 1990 Benno von Heynitz founded the Bautzen Committee, which campaigns for the rights and interests of political prisoners and for coming to terms with injustice. He was given membership number 001. As chairman of the committee for many years, von Heynitz took part in the search for the mass graves of those politically imprisoned on Bautzen's Karnickelberg. He also pushed ahead with the construction of a worthy burial site, the memorial chapel and the construction of the Bautzen memorial .

Recognitions

It was not until 1996 that he was fully rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation . For his outstanding contributions to democracy and human rights in 2007 awarded him the state of Hesse, the Wilhelm-Leuschner Medal and President Horst Koehler , 2009, the Federal Cross of Merit 1st class. Until his death Benno von Heynitz was honorary chairman of the Bautzen-Komitees e. V., for which he was committed to the end.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Angela Verse-Herrmann, The "Aryanizations" in agriculture and forestry 1938-1942, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart 1997, especially pp. 76–78 ( digitized version )
  2. ^ Andreas Hilger , Ute Schmidt, Günther Wagenlehner (eds.), The conviction of German civilians 1945–1955 (Soviet military tribunals, Volume 2), Böhlau Verlag Cologne 2003, p. 435

literature

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Heynitz, Benno von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and co-founder of the Bautzen-Komitee eV and the Bautzen Memorial
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 2010
Place of death Weilburg