Christian Mahler (resistance fighter)

Christian Mahler (born November 12, 1905 in Hamburg , † May 30, 1966 in Oranienburg ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was a police officer, party functionary ( SED ) and the first director of the Sachsenhausen National Memorial in the GDR .

Life

The son of a working-class family completed an apprenticeship as a shipbuilder after attending primary school . In 1924 he became a member of the KPD and the Red Front Fighters League (RFB), was a functionary of the KPD and the RFB in Hamburg and an employee of the military apparatus (M-Apparat) of the KPD district leadership Wasserkante. After anti-fascist resistance, he was arrested in August 1933 and sentenced to five years in prison in April 1935 "for preparing for high treason in the act of a serious breach of the peace and violating the Firearms Act" . After serving his sentence, he was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp from October 1938 to 1943 . He then went to the Falkensee satellite camp , where he was liberated by the Red Army in April 1945 .

In May 1945 he joined the German People's Police (DVP) and held leading positions in the VP state authority of Mecklenburg until 1952 . In April 1946 he became a member of the SED . After attending the university of the VP in Berlin in 1949 he was from 1950 to 1953 head of the protective police in Mecklenburg and in the district authority of the German People's Police (BDVP) Schwerin with the rank of VP inspector (colonel). After his partner's “contacts with the West” became known, he was dismissed from the police force in November 1953.

From December 1953 to February 1955 he acted as 2nd secretary of the SED works party organization (BPO) of the Elbe shipyard Boizenburg , from March 1955 as BPO secretary of the SED in the VEB Klement-Gottwald-Werke in Schwerin. In 1959/60 he was briefly a member of the Schwerin District Council and head of the Interior Department. From 1960 until his death he was the first director of the Sachsenhausen National Memorial and Member of the Central Management of the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR .

Awards

• 1959 Medal of Merit of the GDR
• 1965 Patriotic Order of Merit

literature

• Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 3: Lexicon of functionaries (= rororo manual. Vol. 6350). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16350-0 , p. 216.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 505.
• Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Mahler, Christian . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .