Erich Gentsch

Stumbling block for Erich Gentsch in front of the house at Äneasstrasse 8 in Berlin-Mariendorf

Erich Gentsch (born August 1, 1893 in Altenburg , † August 24, 1944 in Stuttgart ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Erich Gentsch was the third of seven children of a metal cutter from Altenburg; the father was an active member of the SPD . From 1908 to 1910 Erich Gentsch learned the trade of a building fitter in Leipzig and joined the SPD in 1911. In 1913 he had an accident at work in which he lost three fingers of his right hand and was no longer fit for military service.

Already during the First World War , Gentsch was involved in the Spartakusbund in Stuttgart , became a founding member of the KPD in 1919 and chairman of the works council at Daimler AG in 1920 . In the following years he took on various full-time functions in the party, including from 1924 to 1928 he was editor of the Red Flag in Berlin . In 1925 he was sentenced to seven months in prison for insulting the government, which he served in Cottbus . From 1927 he was a member of the Red Front Fighters League . In 1930 he became first secretary and district committee leader of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) in Berlin-Brandenburg. At the end of 1932, Paul Albrecht replaced him from this position. In mid-January 1933 Erich Gentsch was elected chairman of the unified association of metal workers in Berlin . In this function he replaced Paul Peschke .

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists at the end of January 1933, Erich Gentsch was arrested for the first time, but was initially released. He was arrested again on the night of the Reichstag fire , but this time again released after a few days. The next arrest took place in April 1933, after Gentsch had been elected as city councilor for constituency 11 in Berlin-Neukölln in March. He was imprisoned in Berlin-Spandau prison and in Sonnenburg concentration camp until September 1933 . In 1934 Gentsch emigrated to the Saar area and took part in the campaign against its annexation to the German Reich . In 1935 he headed the KPD's border work from Prague and then from April 1936 to 1939, together with Paul Bertz and Hans Teubner, took over the leadership of the KPD in Amsterdam ; his wife Erna (* 1893) followed him there with their two daughters. After the outbreak of war he continued the illegal work from Amsterdam under the code name "Alwin".

After the German occupation of Amsterdam , Gentsch went into hiding under an assumed name. However, he continued to maintain contact with other communists in the underground and participated in the creation and distribution of illegal material, in particular in the distribution of the bi-monthly brochure Die Freiheit , which was printed in Brussels and mainly distributed in Holland.

After Wilhelm Knöchel's statements, extorted under torture, on April 23, 1943, Erich Gentsch and his wife were arrested by the Gestapo while they were spreading freedom . He was brought to trial for “preparing to commit high treason ” and “ favoring the enemy ”. On June 23, 1944, he was sentenced to death in Nuremberg by the People's Court under Roland Freisler and beheaded on the scaffold on August 24, 1944 in Stuttgart . Shortly before the execution, he is said to have shouted "Down with Hitler!" Gentsch's body was brought to the anatomy institute of the University of Tübingen for teaching purposes, then cremated in the crematorium of the Reutlingen cemetery "Unter den Linden" and buried in grave field X of the Tübingen city cemetery.

Gentsch's wife Erna died on February 5, 1945 in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . The two daughters Hildegard (1915–1960) and Ilse (1917–1983) supported their parents in the resistance struggle. Ilse Gentsch was arrested in 1943 and sentenced to one year in prison. After 1945 she became a full-time functionary of the Free German Youth and the SED in the GDR . Later she was a research assistant at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED in East Berlin .

Since November 17, 2008 there has been a stumbling block in front of the house at Äneasstrasse 8, one of Erich Gentsch's Berlin addresses, in memory of him. (Location of the stumbling block)

literature

• Stefan Heinz : Erich Gentsch (1893-1944). In: Stefan Heinz, Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Functionaries of the unified association of metal workers in Berlin in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 2). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-062-2 , pp. 123-134.
• Gentsch, Erich . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (Hrsg.): Emigrated metal trade unionists in the fight against the Nazi regime (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration, Vol. 3). Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-210-7 , p. 821 f. (Short biography).
• Benigna Schönhagen : Gräberfeld X. A documentation about Nazi victims in the Tübingen city cemetery. (= Small Tübingen Writings). Tübingen 1987.

Web links

• Active museum. Fascism and Resistance in Berlin . Members' newsletter 60, January 2009, p. 9. (PDF; 504 kB)