Else Jahn (resistance fighter)

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Memorial plaque on the house at Berliner Allee 23, in Berlin-Weißensee

Else Jahn , née Gerichow , (born September 17, 1901 in Berlin ; † April 26, 1945 there ) was a German worker and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Else Jahn became a member of the Communist Youth Association in the 1920s and a member of the KPD in 1924 . In the years of the global economic crisis she worked actively for the establishment of an anti-fascist united front against the increasing fascist danger. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 , she went underground and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 . In the subsequent trial, she was sentenced to three years in prison . After her release in 1939, she continued her illegal activity.

On April 20, 1945, the Red Army units advancing on Berlin reached Weissensee . The illegal resistance group, to which Else Jahn and her brothers Willi and Fritz belonged, contacted the Soviet troops in order to counter unnecessary bloodshed and further destruction through senseless resistance. Else Jahn made herself available to the fighting Red Army as a pilot through the sea of ​​houses in the big city. Because of her local knowledge, she showed the way to an advance party. She was standing on a T-34 tank that was making its way through the borough. During one of these missions of the units advancing on the Berlin city center, she was hit by a bullet on April 26, 1945 in an exchange of fire at the " Weißenseer Spitze " (crossing Gustav-Adolf-Straße / Prenzlauer Promenade) with SS units and came at the age of Killed 43 years.

Honors

  • A street in Berlin-Weißensee is named after her.
  • At the house at Berliner Allee 23 (her long-term house No. 21 had been destroyed in the war) there was a memorial plaque (made before 1952 and renewed before 1985). The board was removed in 1991. Only in 2005 was the memorial plaque replaced by a newly designed stainless steel plaque.
  • A memorial stone for the anti-fascists Else Jahn, Berthold Manzke and Frida Seidlitz can be found in the cemetery in Roelckestrasse .

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Fieber, Lothar Berthold, Günter Wehner, Michele Barricelli: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945: A biographical lexicon, Volume 3 . Trafo Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-89626-350-6 , p. 177

Web links

Commons : Else Jahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Weißensee on pankeguide.de, section From village to city , Second World War
  2. ↑ Another look at the “8. May ” . Gerhard Keiderling: Antifascist resistance during the last days of the war in Berlin . In: trend online newspaper 5/2005 (available online)
  3. ↑ Else-Jahn-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  4. ↑ April 26th - we remember the anniversary of Else Jahn's death , VVN-BdA Weißensee-Hohenschönhausen, April 21, 2015
  5. ↑ A memorial in memory of Else Jahn (pdf, p. 12) District Office Pankow, Office for Culture and Education (with a short biography)
personal data
SURNAME Jahn, Else
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerichow, Else
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
DATE OF BIRTH 17th September 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1945
Place of death Berlin