Camillo Hölzel

Camillo Hölzel (born December 6, 1908 in Sebnitz , † September 11, 1974 in Munich ) was a German political activist ( KPD ).

Life

Hölzel was one of four children of a laborer and a flower worker. During the First World War , the von Sebnitz family moved to Tautewalde near Bautzen. After attending school, Hölzel learned the trade.

Hölzel became a member of the KPD around 1928. For this he took over tasks as a functionary for the party from 1930, including as a lecturer. From 1932 to 1933 he was the KPD division manager in the Bautzen sub-district .

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Hölzel was taken into so-called protective custody and locked up in the Bautzen camp in Kupferhammer. After his release he moved to Czechoslovakia . Together with other communists in exile such as Gerhard Donath , he organized the smuggling of illegal literature from Czechoslovakia to Berlin and other cities in the Reich until 1935 : The import of forbidden literature (e.g. the Brown Book on the Reichstag fire ) was successfully carried through by removing this disguised as transporting vegetables.

In 1935, Hölzel was given the task of managing the Niedereinsiedel border section on the German-Czechoslovakian border by the leadership of the KPD in exile , i.e. he was entrusted with the supervision of the illegal border work of the KPD in this area (intelligence surveillance of the area, organization of border crossings of couriers in or from Germany, organization of the border crossing of communist refugees from the Reich territory into Czechoslovakia, smuggling of propaganda material, establishment of a liaison network, etc.), where he operated under the code name Hans . He carried out this task until 1938.

Around 1935, Hölzels was targeted by the National Socialist police forces: his mother was temporarily taken into custody to find out where he was. Around 1936 a poison attack was carried out on him by German agents in Rumburg .

On the occasion of the German occupation of the Sudeten areas in September 1938, Hölzel fled to Prague , from where he was flown to Great Britain on January 14, 1939.

By the Nazis Hölzel, meanwhile, was considered public enemy: In the spring of 1940 that put the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin it on the special wanted list GB , a list of persons in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the armed forces following the occupation forces details of the SS should be located and arrested with special priority.

literature

• Heinz Ruscher, Heinz Senenko: Antifascists are never forgotten: biographical sketches of anti-fascist resistance fighters on both sides of the border and activists creating the foundations of the socialist rebuilding , 1987, pp. 32–34.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Hölzel on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .