Eisenberger Circle

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The Eisenberger Kreis was a resistance group against the SED regime founded by high school students in 1953 in the small town of Eisenberg in eastern Thuringia . In the fall of 1958, 24 young people in the group were Gera to a total of 116 years ' imprisonment convicted. With around 30 members, it was one of the largest resistance groups in the GDR.

founding

When, in the spring of 1953, several pupils were expelled from the Eisenberger Oberschule because of their membership in the Young Community , classmates, under the guidance of their FDJ class secretary Thomas Ammer, unsuccessfully campaigned for the expelled pupils to remain. In retrospect, this is considered to be the founding date, although the group did not appear as such until later. As in many places in the GDR , the general dissatisfaction of the population in Eisenberg also erupted in the form of protests and strikes in the summer. As a reaction to the suppression of the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 and the apparent fraud of the SED in the Volkskammer elections in 1954, Thomas Ammer, Reinhard Spalke, Günter Schwarz, Ludwig and Wilhelm Ziehr and Johann Frömel decided to found a political group. This group, known as the "Eisenberger Kreis", set itself the task of drawing attention to cases of political arbitrariness. They also called for free elections, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the GDR , the release of political prisoners and the admission of opposition parties. However, a written ten-point program like the one that the State Security constructed for the trials in 1958 did not exist. The group was highly heterogeneous in its political views. The spectrum ranged from social democratic , Christian and liberal to national conservative ideas. The only connecting element was the rejection of the SED dictatorship and the goal of German unity as well as basic democratic demands for free elections, freedom of the press, travel and assembly, reprivatisation of the expropriated small and medium-sized enterprises, the dissolution of the state security and the exit from the Warsaw Pact . Overall, the circle saw itself in the tradition of youth resistance groups , such as the White Rose .

organization

The Eisenberger Kreis was one of the largest resistance groups in GDR history. The resistance group had no fixed organizational, member or leadership structure. It consisted at the top of about 18-24 schoolchildren, students and apprentices from Eisenberg and the surrounding area, most of whom came from the discriminated or disadvantaged social classes (church environment, medium-sized companies, expellees from the eastern regions). With the exception of the founding members, very few members were fully informed about the group. Some of the members only kept in contact with individual like-minded people and therefore had no overview of the existence of the entire group. That is why some members were only added to the group afterwards. Even when there were no meetings or votes, the informal core of the group was usually interviewed before an action was taken. In most cases, it was Thomas Ammer's vote that made the difference. Other founding members like Johann Frömel took care of the procurement of forbidden literature in West Berlin , or like Reinard Spalke and Günter Schwarz the practical implementation of the actions. There were hardly any contacts with West German information centers.

Actions of the circle

They made leaflets , provided walls, bridges and freight wagons with slogans or removed symbols of the SED . The group renamed the passenger ship “Stalin” to “Bavaria”. In November 1954, the group tried to obtain weapons by breaking into the Eisenberg-Friedrichstanneck local history museum. With the exception of a few muzzle-loading rifles from the 19th century, however, they could not capture any weapons. As Ammer 1955 graduated from high school completed and a study of medicine at the University of Jena recorded, the group tied more contacts outside Eisenberg. At the end of 1955, the high school students joined a group founded by Peter Herrmann, Rudolf Rabold, Ludwig Götz and Roland Peter in 1953, but operated partly separately for tactical reasons. The group was joined by Eberhard Metzel, Friedhelm Fröhlich and Walter Träger. The founding of further groups in other cities in the GDR failed, however. To send a signal against the remilitarization of the GDR , members of the Eisenberger Kreis set fire to a shooting range of the Society for Sport and Technology (GST), the People's Police and the SED combat groups on January 21, 1956 . A 1957 planned appeal to professors at the universities of Jena , Halle and Leipzig , against the increasing DC circuit rebel, was for fear of possible fingerprints discarded on the 400 already-made hand throwing leaflets. In addition, the leaflets would not have reached their addressees anyway, since the Ministry for State Security (MfS) had already ordered the postal control for the district at that time.

Surveillance, arrest and ransom

Outwardly, the group behaved inconspicuously and rather chose a strategy of infiltration. The head of the group, Thomas Ammer, was even the FDJ secretary for his class. Nevertheless, the group came under the focus of state security through the betrayal of a student who had been asked for recruitment. In 1957, a ministry spy disguised as a West German editor managed to get in touch with the group.

Due to the high level of conspiracy within the district, it took the State Security six months to get an overview of the entire group. After nine months of surveillance, the Ministry of State Security began a wave of arrests in February 1958. By April 1958, around 40 young people had been arrested. Five others were able to flee to West Berlin before they were arrested. The Stasi used the opportunity to arrest other unwelcome students from the University of Jena. The District Court of Gera passed a total of 24 judgments in September / October 1958, with sentences ranging from one and a half to 15 years. The total imprisonment totaled 116 years. Ammer, as the head of the group, received the highest penalty. On September 27, 1958, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the recently introduced criminal offense of “treason” . Frömel and Herrmann each received 14 years, Ludwig Götz and Friedhelm Fröhlich each received eight years and Günter Schwarz received seven years. Just a few months later, the prison sentences would probably have been much lower due to a judicial correction. They served their imprisonment in Brandenburg-Görden , among others . The large number of arrests and long prison sentences meant the end of the Eisenberger Kreis, although the "Stasi" was convinced that it would continue. The MfS planned the kidnapping of those members who had evaded their arrest by moving to West Berlin, but this failed because of logistical problems. Ammer was released to the West on August 14, 1964 as part of a prisoner ransom . Until 1989 he was also monitored there by the Stasi. The members of the Eisenberger Kreis who remained in the GDR were harassed until the end of the SED dictatorship. The members of the Eisenberger Kreis were awarded a medal from their city for their “commitment to freedom”.

literature

  • Patrik von zur Mühlen : The Eisenberger Kreis. Youth opposition and persecution in the GDR 1953–1958 , Bonn 1995
  • Patrik von zur Mühlen: Eisenberger Kreis . In: Hans-Joachim Veen / Peter Eisenfeld / Hubertus Knabe / Ehrhart Neubert u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon of opposition and resistance in the SED dictatorship , Berlin 2000, pp. 111–113
  • Patrik von zur Mühlen: Thomas Ammer , in: Karl Wilhelm Fricke / Peter Steinbach / Johannes Tuchel (eds.): Opposition and Resistance in the GDR , Munich 2002, pp. 152–156
  • Patrik von zur Mühlen: The "Eisenberger Kreis". Opposition and protest against the SED regime in the early 1950s , in: Ulrich Herrmann (Ed.): Protestating Youth - Youth Opposition and Political Protest in German Post-War History, Weinheim 2002, pp. 107–149

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Ammer on Jugendopposition.de
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Falco Werkentin : Law and Justice in the SED State , Berlin 2000, p. 44f.
  3. ↑ a b c cf. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : The eventful decade - history of the GDR from 1949 to 1961 . Bonn 2003, p. 82f.
  4. ↑ See Patrik von zur Mühlen: Eisenberger Kreis . In: Hans-Joachim Veen, Hans Michael Kloth, Peter Maser, Thomas Schrapel et al. (Ed.): Lexicon Opposition and Resistance in the SED dictatorship , Berlin 2000, pp. 111–113, here p. 112.