Berthold Cahn
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Berthold Cahn (* May 1871 in Langenlonsheim ; † May 28, 1942 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German anarchist , warehouse worker and house servant. Between 1910 and 1933 he was one of the main meeting speakers of the German anarchist movement . He became a victim of the Nazi regime.
Life
Cahn joined the anarchist movement in 1904 and from 1908 gave lectures at popular assemblies, group meetings and anarcho-syndicalist trade union groups of the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD). He was the only speaker in the 1920s who was highly valued by the groups of the Federation of Communist Anarchists in Germany , the anarchist association around Erich Mühsam and the FAUD. The range of topics of his lectures was considered to be extremely extensive: anti-militarism , the fight against human rights violations, standing up for the politically persecuted, against racism and anti-Semitism , for free upbringing, against exploitation and for a comprehensive social renewal on a liberal-socialist basis. Because of his commitment to anarchism, Cahn had to accept long periods of unemployment and numerous prison terms, and at times he lived on the subsistence level. During the First World War he was interned in protective custody for 21 months .
As an author, he published mainly in the magazine Der Freie Arbeiter , of which he was also the temporary editor. In it he published around 50 articles and ten poems marked by name. For a long time it was claimed that he was murdered on November 9, 1938 during the Reichspogromnacht. In fact, Cahn was one of the 250 Jews who were shot on May 28 and 29, 1942 after the attack by the Jewish-Communist group around Herbert and Marianne Baum on the Nazi propaganda exhibition The Soviet Paradise on Himmler's orders in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Arrests
Cahn was first mentioned in a police report in 1903 and has been observed by the political police ever since. His first two-month prison sentence he served from August 20, 1912 in Tegel after Issue 17 of the outdoor worker for invitation to disobey the laws and incitement to class hatred had been seized and Cahn had defended as responsible editor himself in court. He left detention "in poor health." The conviction for an article in issue 32 of August 10, 1912 brought him a further three months imprisonment as a sentence, and he received a further three months for a speech on December 2, 1912, in both cases for a renewed call for class hatred. He was only released on September 26, 1913. In 1915 he received mail only after prior censorship and clearance, after the beginning of the war police measures without legal proceedings were made possible by the Prussian law on the state of siege . On March 2, 1915, he was arrested without charge and was supposed to put him in protective custody for 21 months until November 2, 1916. On the day of his release he spoke about his detention in a secret meeting called by Rudolf Oestreich : “The conditions in protective custody are very sad. Nothing is OK. Bed bugs and scabies soon eat people up. The lime falls from the walls and the water drips rain-like from the ceiling. The heating doesn't work, so that last winter, for example, the window panes were covered with a five centimeter thick layer of ice. ”Due to the conditions of detention, he suffered a serious lung disease and was only able to become politically active again in February 1917.
After the handover of power to the National Socialists , Cahn and his roommate Fritz Scherer were arrested on December 2, 1933. While his roommate was released after 12 days, Cahn remained in custody and was sentenced to 18 months in prison on May 5, 1934 for preparation for high treason . He was imprisoned in Berlin-Plötzensee until March 4, 1935, apparently taking into account the period of his pre-trial detention. As his roommate Fritz Scherer testified after the Second World War, the property manager had informed him a few days after the November pogroms that Berthold Cahn had been arrested on the night of November 9, 1938. 14 days later she reported to Scherer that the caretaker had found out about the shooting of Cahn. That was the last thing Scherer heard from Cahn at the time.
The death register of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp shows that on May 27, 1942, Cahn was one of the 500 Berlin Jews who were arrested as "hostages" after the arson attack on the Nazi propaganda exhibition The Soviet Paradise and brought to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 154 of the "hostages" were shot there on May 28 and 29, together with 96 concentration camp prisoners, as a "reprisal" for the attack.
Stumbling block
The laying of a stumbling block by the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig took place on September 3, 2018 in front of Cahn's last residential address in Wadzeckstrasse (near Alexanderplatz) in Berlin. As part of the silent commemoration, some of Cahn's poems were recited.
literature
- Gustav Landauer Monument Initiative (Berlin): Berthold Cahn, a life for anarchism , brochure, 44 pages, 1st edition, Berlin, September 2018
- Döhring, Helge: Organized Anarchism in Germany 1919 to 1933. The Federation of Communist Anarchists of Germany (FKAD) , Volume 1, Verlag Edition AV, Bodenburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86841-192-8
- Döhring, Helge: Anarchists in search of meaning. The Federation of Communist Anarchists in Germany (FKAD) 1919-1933 , Volume 2, Verlag Edition AV, Bodenburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-86841-191-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Materials: Berthold Cahn, a life for anarchism. In: gustav-landauer.org. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
- ^ Library of the Free: Berthold Cahn - a life for anarchism (lecture and discussion). In: radar.squat.net. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
- ^ Peter Nowak: Stumbling block for anarchists. In: peter-nowak-journalist.de. September 29, 2019, accessed January 24, 2019 .
- ^ Gustav Landauer Monument Initiative (Berlin): Berthold Cahn, a life for anarchism , page 25ff
- ↑ Gustav Landauer Memorial Initiative (Berlin): Berthold Cahn, a life for anarchism , page 38
- ^ Günter Morsch: Speech: The murder of the Jewish hostages in May 1942 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In: guenter-morsch.de. January 27, 2012, accessed January 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Laying a stumbling block for Berthold Cahn. In: gustav-landauer.org. September 3, 2018, accessed January 24, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cahn, Berthold |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German anarchist, warehouse worker and house servant |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 1871 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Langenlonsheim |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 28, 1942 |
| Place of death | Sachsenhausen concentration camp |