Bernhard Almstadt

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Bernhard Almstadt (born August 23, 1897 in Linden ; † November 6, 1944 in the Brandenburg-Görden prison ) was a German KPD functionary and resistance fighter .

Life

Bernhard Almstadt was born as the thirteenth child in the family of the shoemaker Wilhelm Almstadt. While attending elementary school, he was already helping to support the family as a delivery boy and lifeguard assistant. He then completed a commercial apprenticeship and worked as an employee. In 1913 he became a member of the workers 'youth movement and the workers' sports club "Fichte". In 1916 he was called up for military service and deserted from his unit in France in August 1918. He returned to Hanover , joined the anti-militarist Spartacus group and lived illegally until the November Revolution. When the International Communists of Germany and the Berlin Spartacus Group merged to form the KPD , he became a founding member. As early as 1918, together with Karl Fugger, he founded the “ Free Socialist Youth ” in Hanover, from which the Communist Youth Association of Germany emerged. He worked at Hanomag in the first post-war years and was a youth representative there from 1920 to 1922. In 1922 he attended the 1st Reich party training course of the KPD in Berlin and then became a full-time KPD functionary, from autumn 1923 as head of the KPD district for the state of Braunschweig. In 1924 he became managing director of the KPD newspaper Tribüne in Magdeburg . In 1927 he was sent to Hagen as managing director of the KPD newspaper and had other political and administrative functions in the Ruhr area.

In 1930 Almstadt was brought to Berlin by the KPD headquarters as managing director of Arbeiter-Sport-Verlag . He became a member of the secretariat of the Reich leadership of the combat community for red sports unit . From 1933 he was part of their illegal Reich leadership. Bernhard Almstadt was, together with Paul Zobel, one of the leading organizers of the workers' athletes in the anti-fascist resistance. In October 1933 he was arrested and to two years' imprisonment convicted. After his release from Luckau prison he became head of the purchasing department at the German rubber boat factory and reactivated his old contacts, as well as those he had made in Luckau , such as those with Robert Uhrig and Wilhelm Guddorf . During the Second World War he was in contact with several communist resistance groups. This also included the groups around Anton Saefkow and Franz Jacob .

Together with his wife Erna (born December 28, 1898 in Hanover; † March 9, 1990 in Berlin), Almstadt took part in the distribution of the illegal newspaper Die Innere Front , provided courier services between Berlin, Hanover and the Ruhr area and looked after those living in illegality with food and quarters.

By a Gestapo - spy the environment of the contacts was Anton Saefkow early July 1944 betrayed . Bernhard Almstadt was arrested on July 12, 1944, sentenced to death by the People's Court on September 19, 1944 together with Erwin Nöldner and Arthur Weisbrodt , and executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison on November 6, 1944.

Honors

  • In Berlin-Mitte , Almstadtstraße is named after Bernhard Almstadt
  • In 2002, the connection between the Dornröschenbrücke and Spinnereistraße in the Hanover district of Linden-Nord Almstadtweg was named after "[...] one of the leading resistance fighters" and his wife Erna .

literature

  • Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters 1933–1945. Biographies and letters. Volume 1, Dietz-Verlag: Berlin 1970, page 42ff
  • Günther Fuchs: hours of probation. In memoriam Bernhard Almstadt, Fritz Lesch, Ernst Schneller, Heinz Steyer ; Berlin 1971
  • Red athletes in the anti-fascist resistance. Volume 1. Biographical information about Ernst Grube, Bernhard Almstadt, Werner Seelenbinder, Fritz Lesch and Paul Zobel. Federal Executive of the DTSB of the GDR (publisher); Berlin 1978
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Small encyclopedia of physical culture and sport . Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig, Leipzig 1960, p. 595 .
  2. ↑ a b Helmut Zimmerman : Hanover's street names - changes since 2001. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series Volume 57/58, 2003/2004, pp. 277–286; here: p. 277
personal data
SURNAME Almstadt, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD functionary and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Linden trees
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1944
Place of death Brandenburg-Görden prison