Bruno Dickhoff

Bruno Dickhoff (born October 27, 1885 in Cottbus ; † before 1968 ) was a German politician ( SPD / USPD / KPD / SED ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism . Together with Georg Dix , Albert Förster and Josef Thomas he was a member of the resistance group around Willy Jannasch .

Life

Early years

Bruno Dickhoff was born in Cottbus. His father Ferdinand was a shunting foreman . Bruno Dick Hoff trained as a clothier and worked in the textile factory Grovermann . At the age of 18 he became a member of the free trade unions and joined the SPD a year later . Due to his political commitment, he was dismissed in 1909 and did not get a new job in Cottbus. That's why he then worked in Luckenwalde . After the First World War he left the SPD and joined the USPD . In 1922 he became a member of the KPD . From 1928 he worked again as a weaver in Cottbus, where he was involved, among other things, in the Red Aid of Germany and the revolutionary trade union opposition .

Resistance to National Socialism

In 1933, 25 members of the Cottbus KPD were arrested, including Michael Bey . Bruno Dickhoff escaped these arrests, however. In 1934 he was able to join the resistance group around Willy Jannasch . This formed subgroups, the members of which did not all know each other, in order to prevent a discovery. Bruno Dickhoff formed one of these subgroups together with Albert Förster and Willi Jarauke, of which he was also the leader. As such, he attended meetings with the other subgroup leaders. One of the main activities of the resistance group was the reorganization of Red Aid . On the other hand, it also distributed socialist and communist publications to the population and inmates of Reich labor camps . Among these publications were editions of the Rote Fahne , the Inprekorr , the Junge Garde , as well as the Brown Book about the Reichstag fire and Hitler terror . These were organized through contacts with emigrants in Czechoslovakia and members of the KPČ , as well as another group from Forst .

In January 1936, Bruno Dickhoff was arrested along with twelve other members of his resistance group. They were initially held in Cottbus until March and then transferred to Berlin. In May they received their indictment, accusing them of preparing "the highly treasonable undertaking of forcibly changing the constitution of the empire" .

The hearing took place on June 29th and 30th in the Berlin Superior Court . Bruno Dick Hoff was to three years and six months in prison convicted. He was also deprived of his civil rights for three years . The other defendants were also sentenced to prison or prison terms of at least one year. With the exception of co-defendant Willi Graf, all of them had to begin their prison sentences. Instead, he was released after a few days. This raised suspicions that he had betrayed the group. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Willi Graf was arrested by the SMAD and shortly afterwards committed suicide.

Bruno Dickhoff was initially taken to the Brandenburg-Görden prison together with six of his colleagues . He was later imprisoned in Waldheim Prison. He was released from captivity in January 1939. Due to his political convictions, he was not used in the Volkssturm in the last days of the war .

Time after 1945

Bruno Dickhoff became politically active in Cottbus after the end of the war. He was involved in the re-establishment of the KPD in Cottbus in July 1945 and, as a member of the district leadership, was responsible for propaganda and propaganda material. He later headed newspaper sales for the newly formed SED and was secretary of the housing party organization Süd II. In December 1945 he married his long-time partner Luise Lehmann. According to the court records, he was married once in 1936. Bruno Dickhoff died a few years before 1968.

Honors

For his political commitment he received the medal for participating in the armed struggles of the German working class from 1918 to 1923 . In 1968 a street in the Sandow district of Cottbus was named after Bruno Dickhoff. In 1969, an adjacent street was named after Dickhoff's companion Georg Dix. Both roads were after German reunification again in 1991 renamed . In the same residential area there is also a Willy-Jannasch-Straße and an Albert-Förster-Straße , which were allowed to keep their names after 1991.

literature

• Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The KPD's anti-fascist resistance struggle in Cottbus from 1934 to 1936 . Committee of the Antifascist Resistance Fighters of the German Democratic Republic, District Committee Cottbus City and Country, Cottbus 1985.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bruno Dickhoff. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . October 27, 2005, accessed October 5, 2017 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 34 ff.
3. ↑ Otto Rückert : On the history of the first Cottbus communist trial . Committee of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters of the German Democratic Republic, District Committee Cottbus-City and -Land, Cottbus, p. 22 ff.
4. ↑ ^{a b} See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 13 ff.
5. ↑ See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 20 ff.
6. ↑ See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 15 ff.
7. ↑ See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 18 f.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} See Roeber et al. 1985, p. 22 ff.
9. ↑ See Roeber 1985, p. 54
10. ↑ Georg Dix. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . January 17, 2007, accessed October 5, 2017 . 
11. ↑ In the resistance against the fascists. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . September 23, 2015, accessed October 5, 2017 . 
12. ↑ Albert Förster. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . January 9, 2008, accessed October 20, 2017 .