Diethelm Scheer

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Diethelm Scheer (* 6. March 1909 in Berlin , † 18th February 1996 ibid ) was a German ichthyologist , university teachers , communist resistance fighters against the Nazis , victims of Nazi justice and concentration camp prisoner .

Life

Origin, studies and career entry

Diethelm Scheer was the son of an insurance employee and bookseller. In 1928 he finished his school career in Berlin-Tegel with the Abitur . He then completed a degree in zoology with a focus on fisheries science at the Agricultural University in Berlin and was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD . From 1933 he worked as a volunteer assistant at the Prussian State Agency for Fisheries in Berlin-Friedrichshagen with Wilhelm Schäperclaus .

At the time of National Socialism , the politically inconspicuous communist applied for funding from the German Research Foundation in May 1935 for his research at the Prussian State Institute for Fisheries. This application for funding was received positively by the lecturer at the Agricultural University in Berlin because Scheer's father was a Nazi official. The following assessment can be found in the report:

“As the son of a long-time political leader of the NSDAP in the Tegel local group, Scheer was brought up in the National Socialist spirit. He is a non-party member, which is probably related to his low level of political activity. Since 1933 he has been a member of the Glider Pilot Storm 1/21 in Bln-Friedrichshagen, today he is a squad leader "

- The lecturer at the Agricultural University in Berlin in a report on Scheer on May 19, 1935

Anti-fascist activity, arrest and condemnation

In contrast to his National Socialist father, Scheer belonged to the Socialist Student Union from 1927, to the Communist Youth Association of Germany from 1928 and to the Berlin workers' sports club "Fichte" from 1929. In 1930 he joined the Communist Party of Germany . Scheer was also a member of the Reich leadership of the communist student groups. In 1931/32 he gave lectures at the Marxist Workers' School . He had a close friendship with the student Liselotte Herrmann , who was later executed by the Nazi regime. As Dietrich Helm, he and Herrmann wrote down critical theses on Nazi racial theory.

Finally Scheer came into the sights of the Gestapo . In September 1935 he was imprisoned in the Gestapo prison at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 and then in the Columbia-Haus concentration camp for illegal “communist activities” . After his pre- trial detention , Scheer was charged with six other accused in the “Boy and Others” trial before the People's Court . The other accused were the chemical technician Martin Hirschberg, the postal worker Kurt Laskowsky , the shorthand typists Hildegard Boy and Erika Havemann as well as Havemann's husband and the printer Arthur Grüneberg. The accused had been accused of “preparing a highly treasonable enterprise” and “betraying state secrets”. In mid-April 1937, Scheer to five years in spite of insufficient evidence taking into account his previous prison term of imprisonment sentenced.

Detention in Nazi detention centers and concentration camps

Scheer was imprisoned one after the other in the Brandenburg penitentiary , the Rosslau external command and the Berlin police headquarters . In December 1940 he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from there transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of March 1941 , where he was given prisoner number 11,111 as a political prisoner . Concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höß instructed Scheer to manage the pond management at the farms of Auschwitz concentration camp . As part of this task, he led a group of around ten prisoners, whose living conditions were much better than in other parts of the camp. At the Harmense poultry and fish farm , Scheer carried out accompanying scientific research on fish farming ; the ichthyology laboratory he directed was housed in the house of a displaced Polish farmer. On July 27, 1942, Scheer was officially released from the camp with the approval of the camp commandant, but had to continue his activities in Auschwitz for a salary until the war-related evacuation of the camp in mid-January 1945. During this time, in October 1944, he was able to publish an article on the subject of a new parasitic fungus from the intestine of the water isopod (Asellus aquaticus L.) in the magazine for parasite science .

End of war

After his final dismissal and return to Berlin, he was employed as a research assistant at the Institute for Inland Fisheries in Berlin-Friedrichshagen from the beginning of March 1945. As a result of the facility, which was destroyed by war damage, he was no longer able to carry out a war economic research contract on the subject of sea ​​plankton as a potential source of food. During an air raid he suffered serious injuries from bomb fragments at Berlin's Helmholtzplatz .

Career as a functionary and scientist in the GDR

After the liberation from National Socialism , he worked in the fisheries office of Greater Berlin from June 1945 to early 1946 and soon afterwards joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Scheer then worked as an assistant at the University of Greifswald , acting as head of the local fishery institute and habilitated there in 1949 with a paper on the parasites of fish feeding animals. From 1949 to 1953 he was responsible for inland fishing in the Ministry of Industry of the GDR . From 1953 to 1956 he was director of the newly founded Institute for Deep Sea Fishing and Fish Processing in Rostock. As early as 1950, he taught part-time at the Humboldt University in Berlin , where he worked at the Institute for Fisheries from 1956 as a private lecturer , from 1958 as a professor with a teaching assignment and from 1961 as a full professor (successor to Wilhelm Schäperclaus ). In 1962 he became head of the institute. From 1964 until his retirement in 1969, Scheer was director of the Berlin Institute for Inland Fisheries of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin. He published in fisheries science journals.

Scheer, who remained scientifically in the shadow of his mentors Wilhelm Schäperclaus and Hans Helmuth Wundsch , was entirely in line with the SED. According to Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk , he took part in the party campaign against Robert Havemann in 1964 . As unofficial collaborator redfish of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR but he delivered from 1957 to 1963 no important information. Scheer was questioned as a witness in the course of the second Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt .

Scheer was married and the couple had four children.

Honors

Fonts

  • The colorants of the chironomid larvae , Swiss beard , Stuttgart 1934. In: Archive for Hydrobiology, Volume 27, 1934 (also dissertation at the University of Berlin)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 338
  2. ↑ a b c d Lothar Mertens: “Only politically worthy people”. DFG research funding in the Third Reich 1933–1937 . Berlin 2004, p. 141.
  3. ↑ Quoted in: Lothar Mertens: “Only politically worthy people”. DFG research funding in the Third Reich 1933–1937 , Berlin 2004, p. 141
  4. ↑ a b Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 338f.
  5. ^ Lothar Letsche: In the resistance against the war preparations of the Nazis. The Berlin student Lilo Herrmann . Press portal of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 2009.
  6. ↑ a b c Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 339.
  7. ^ A b Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The “other” Reich capital: Resistance from the workers' movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945 . Berlin 2007, p. 408 f.
  8. ↑ Andrea Rudorff: Harmense . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 248.
  9. ^ Danuta Czech: Calendar of the events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 1939–1945 . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-498-00884-6 , p. 258.
  10. ↑ a b Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 341.
  11. ↑ a b Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 344.
  12. ↑ a b Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Berlin 2003, p. 345.
  13. ^ Public prosecutor's office at the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court: Finding aid 2. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, criminal case against Burger u. a., 4 Ks 3/63, main files: Vol. 1 - Vol. 124, list of the persons questioned in the preliminary and main proceedings, published by the Fritz Bauer Institute
personal data
SURNAME Scheer, Diethelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ichthyologist, university professor, communist resistance fighter against National Socialism, victim of the Nazi justice system and concentration camp prisoner
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1996
Place of death Berlin