Erich Lindstaedt

Erich Lindstaedt (born November 5, 1906 in Rixdorf near Berlin , † February 29, 1952 in Hanover ) was a full-time functionary of the workers' youth movement in the Weimar Republic , a political emigrant, 1st federal chairman of the SJD - Die Falken after 1945 and deputy chairman of the German Federal Youth Association .

Life and activity

Youth and early career

Lindstaedt was born in Rixdorf near Berlin (today Berlin-Neukölln ). His father died early, Lindstaedt had to become financially independent as a teenager. At the age of 14 he started a commercial apprenticeship. He founded a group of apprentices, which he led into the organized labor youth movement. Lindstaedt became secretary to the main board of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), responsible for the "hiking" department (chairman was Erich Ollenhauer since 1928 ). On March 2, 1930 he was elected chairman of the Berlin SAJ, but lost this office on March 1, 1931 in a vote against Erich Schmidt , the representative of the left, and then went to the Hamburg Workers' Youth Association as a full-time secretary.

Nevertheless, Lindstaedt took an active part in the “Berlin youth conflict” between the left-wing SAJ board in Berlin and the SPD party board. Schmidt, who at that time was already a member of the "Org.", The later group Neu Beginnen , prepared the Berlin SAJ as early as 1932 for work in the underground. A system of conspiratorial groups of five was created and after January 30, 1933 the work of the association was switched to conspiratorial communication.

"In March, the Berlin SAJ let the conventional group operation expire and brought their money, at least 12,000 Reichsmarks, to safety"

The party executive and the SAJ Reich leadership did not want to provoke the new rulers and forced these steps to be reversed, especially the surrender of the funds. The party alone decides on the question of the transition to illegality. Although the Berlin board gave in, Schmidt and six other SAJ functionaries, u. a. Fritz Erler expelled from the party. Lindstaedt supported this line out of conviction. On April 5, 1933, the Hitler Youth (HJ) occupied the office of the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations, the forerunner of the Federal Youth Association, which was banned on June 22. A few months later, Lindstaedt and his Hamburg comrades were faced with the same problem as the Berliners before. The Hamburg SAJ also initially tried to continue its activities in illegality.

emigration

After the SAJ and the SPD were banned, he joined a Hamburg resistance group, but was arrested by the Nazis in 1933 and imprisoned for a few months. He escaped a second arrest by fleeing to Czechoslovakia . There he worked under the name Erich Ernst in the Socialist Youth Association of the German minority as a sect. He maintained contacts with illegal workers' youth groups in Nazi Germany and became youth secretary in Karlsbad and editor of the magazine “Junge Volk”. After the Munich Agreement of the autumn of 1938 he had to leave Czechoslovakia and went into exile in Sweden to Malmö, where he worked as an unskilled worker and temporary worker in a pastry shop. He made connections with the Swedish Socialist Youth Association SSU and tried to get in touch with underground activities in Germany. During his exile, Lindstaedt was a member of the SoPaDe and the trade union group. The German police authorities classified him as an enemy of the state: The Reich Main Security Office - which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain - put him on the special wanted list GB in the spring of 1940 , a list of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British island by the Wehrmacht SS special commandos who were supposed to follow the occupation troops were to be located and arrested with special priority.

Work after 1945

At the request of his friend Erich Ollenhauer , he returned to Germany. In May 1946 he took over the management of the central secretariat of the new social democratic youth movement in Hanover. In the following years he arranged for the support of the rebuilding of the Socialist Youth in Germany through the Swedish Socialist Youth Association SSU and paved the way for it to be accepted into the Socialist Youth International IUSY . The Socialist Youth Movement of Germany - Die Falken was the continuation of the Weimar Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinderfreunde and the SAJ. Lindstaedt and the former Kinderfreunde functionary Hans Weinberger from Munich were at the 1st association conference on 7./8. April 1947 in Bad Homburg elected chairmen of the association with equal rights. As Erich Lindstaedt proudly noted, the falcons were the first of the newly founded or resurrected youth movements that elected an entire board in democratic elections through delegates who represented the members. Conceptually, Lindstaedt asserted himself as a representative of the earlier SAJ, which was influenced by youth politics, against the youth-driven Weinberger. In addition to the educational work in children's and youth groups and the large summer tent camps, Lindstaedt considered representing the interests of children and young people in the pre-parliamentary area to be a central area of ​​work for his association. Weinberger, on the other hand, had a political-remote socialist educational organization in mind. With regard to the structure of the organization, Lindstaedt also prevailed against Weinberger, who was aiming for a decentralized organization with strong regional associations from Bavaria. At the central falcon conference in Herne in 1948, Lindstaedt was elected sole chairman.

He was actively involved in the run-up to and then in the founding of the Federal Youth Association (DBJR). When the latter gave himself a politically balanced leadership at its founding meeting in Altenberg in October 1949, Josef Rommerskirchen of the Federation of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ) became chairman and Lindtstaedt his deputy. He held this post until his early death in 1952.

During the workers' youth day in Hamburg in 1951, he unexpectedly had to be admitted to a hospital. Just over six months later he died in the Josephstift in Hanover-Linden. He is buried in Hanover-Ricklingen. Shortly after his death, the Falken Federal Executive moved to Bonn; The new federal chairman was Heinz Westphal from Berlin , who politically continued Lindstaedt's line.

The state capital of Hanover has named the Erich-Lindstaedt-Hof in Hanover-Wettbergen after him, and in autumn 2012 the city council will decide on the dedication of the grave as a city grave of honor.

Fonts

• With horde pot and backpack . Verlag Schaffende Jugend, Bonn 1951
• The new time moves with us. A contribution to the history of the German workers' youth movement . Verlag Schaffende Jugend, Bonn 1954

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 1904–1954 50 years of the youth workers' movement. Verlag Schaffende Jugend, Bonn [1954], p. 59. - SJD-Die Falken, Federal Executive, worksheets, Erich Lindstaedt on the 10th anniversary of his death.
2. ^ Brigitte Seebacher-Brandt : Biedermann and Patriot. Erich Ollenhauer - A Social Democratic Life. Dissertation 1984, p. 79.
3. ↑ Kay Schweigmann-Greve: Erich Lindstaedt 1906-1952. With a horde pot and backpack as a functionary of the workers' youth movement in the Bonn Republic , published by the state capital Hanover, Department of Education and Qualification, Urban Remembrance Culture, Karljosef Kreter and Julia Berli-Jackstien, Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung 2015
4. ↑ Roland Gröschel: Between Tradition and New Beginning , Hamburg 1986, p. 238 f. - SJD-Die Falken, federal executive, worksheets, Erich Lindstaedt on the 10th anniversary of death.
5. ↑ Falkonpedia: Erich Lindstaedt Falconpedia article about Erich Lindstaedt
6. ^ Entry on Lindstaedt on the special wanted site GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London).
7. ↑ Kay Schweigmann-Greve: Between workers' youth movement, British re-education and modern youth association work: Social democratic youth work in the post-war years in Hanover. Hanover history sheets
8. ↑ Forward In spite of all that. The Falken Socialist Youth Movement in Germany, report on the 2nd Central Annual Conference from May 6 to 9, 1948 in Herne / Westphalia, p. 69
9. ↑ Deutscher Bundesjugendring (Ed.): Social engagement and political interest representation - youth associations in the responsibility. 50 years of the German Federal Youth Association, Berlin 2003, p. 231
10. ↑ Deutscher Bundesjugendring (Ed.): Social engagement and political interest representation - youth associations in the responsibility. 50 years of the German Federal Youth Association, Berlin 2003, p. 428