Carl Burmester (resistance fighter, 1901)

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Carl Burmester (born March 12, 1901 in Hamburg ; † September 17, 1934 there ) was a German ship's carpenter and communist resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was arrested and tortured several times and fell down a flight of stairs after an interrogation at the Gestapo headquarters in Hamburg in 1934 and died shortly afterwards from his injuries. Several prominent Hamburg Social Democrats emerged from his circle of friends after the war , and his widow was later married to Herbert Wehner .

Life

Carl Burmester comes from a working-class family and trained as a ship carpenter. He was active in the socialist youth movement. Through his relationship with Charlotte Clausen, whom he later married, he joined the KPD . He was also in contact with the painter Heinrich Vogeler from Worpswede . The children regularly spent their summer holidays at the Barkenhoff , a children's home run by the Red Aid . There was also a friendly relationship with Paul Nevermann and his family.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists Carl Burmester worked illegally for his party. He distributed illegal pamphlets. In March 1933 he was taken into " protective custody " for a while. After his release from prison, he refused the conditions imposed by the National Socialists and continued his resistance work as a “submarine”. Charlotte Burmester was then taken hostage and so badly mistreated that even years later she "was sick so often that her daughter Greta gave up her job as a family carer".

Carl Burmester was the head of an illegal KPD organization in the field of seafarers and dock workers. In the summer of 1934 he was arrested after treason by a Gestapo spy. About two months later, as before, he was tortured during interrogation in the town hall and then fell down the stairs and injured so badly that he died while being transported to the port hospital . In the family memories it is said that his father, who rushed there, could "only see him dead".

His wife was later able to flee to Sweden with their daughter Greta and son Jens-Peter . There she met Herbert Wehner , whom she married in 1944. After Charlotte Wehner's death in 1979, Wehner married her daughter Greta Burmester, his stepdaughter, in 1983. This made Carl Burmester formally the father-in-law of Herbert Wehner.

Carl Burmester lived with his family in the early 30s in an old cottage from 1826 in the center of Fuhlsbüttel , later they lived on Wiesendamm in Hamburg-Winterhude .

Honors

Stumbling blocks for Gustav Schönherr , Carl Burmester and Wilhelm Prull

In 2009, the city of Hamburg laid a stumbling block in memory of Carl Burmester in front of the main entrance of the Stadthausbrücke 8 building, the former Gestapo headquarters in Hamburg and later the seat of the authority for urban development and the environment . The inscription on the stumbling block reads: CARL BURMESTER, JG. 1901, GESTAPOHAFT 1934, TORTURE, FALL IN THE STAIRCASE, DEAD 17.9.1934

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Speech by Anke Fuchs on June 26, 1996  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / library.fes.de  
  2. ↑ Peter Burmester in: "That the question of reparation has become a public scandal" (2.52 MiB)
  3. ↑ "We were always there for each other"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wdr5.de  
  4. ^ Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann : The Gestapo: Myth and Reality. Darmstadt 2003, p. 114
  5. ↑ The children of the resistance (96.1 KiB; PDF)
  6. ^ Carl Burmester, a Fuhlsbüttler communist in the resistance, Willi-Bredel-Gesellschaft , Rundbrief 2009, pp. 21-22
  7. ↑ Press release from the City of Hamburg
personal data
SURNAME Burmester, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH September 17, 1934
Place of death Hamburg