Erich Rutha

Erich Rutha (born March 30, 1905 in Berlin ; † August 3, 1980 ) was a German KPD and SED functionary, resistance fighter against the Nazi regime and FDGB functionary.

Life

Rutha, the son of a working-class family, attended elementary school and completed an apprenticeship. He was employed as a machine worker. In 1930 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became head of the International Workers Aid (IAH) in Berlin-Moabit . From 1932 he was a member of the Reich Executive Committee of the IAH.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Rutha took part in the communist resistance. He was arrested in March 1933 and taken to the Columbia-Haus concentration camp . He was arrested and detained again in September of the same year. After his release, he continued his illegal work for the IAH and the KPD.

Rutha made contact with Richard Gyptner in Saarbrücken in 1934 and also traveled once to Paris to see Willi Münzenberg and Erich Birkenhauer . After the IAH's illegal extractors and typewriters were discovered and confiscated in Berlin in 1934, it was decided to continue publishing the newspaper Solidarity in Prague . Rutha drove to the Czechoslovak capital and organized the publication of the newspaper. Together with the solidarity , the counterattack and the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung were then sent to the German Reich. In March 1935 Rutha took part in a course for German IAH officials in Petzer ( Riesengebirge ). Then Rutha returned to Germany. At the end of 1935 the IAH was dissolved and the active members transferred to the party. Rutha was arrested again in 1937 and arrested in 1938 by the “ People's Court ” for five years in prison. He was imprisoned in Celle and Hameln . After his release he worked as a revolver turner.

In 1945 Rutha rejoined the KPD and in 1946 became a member of the SED. He was a full-time functionary in the SED district committee Berlin-Wedding (French sector). From 1949 he acted as first secretary of the SED district leadership Berlin-Wedding. Later he was second chairman of the regional executive committee of IG Metall Groß-Berlin. From 1957 to 1968 he worked as a secretary in the federal executive committee of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) in Berlin, later as an employee in the western department of the FDGB federal executive committee. Most recently he was an employee of the district union management of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in West Berlin.

From 1950 to 1954 Rutha was also a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED .

literature

• Andreas Herbst , Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan, Jürgen Winkler (eds.): The SED - history, organization, politics. A manual . Dietz, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-320-01951-1 , p. 1063.
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : The “other” capital of the Reich, resistance from the workers' movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945 . Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-94-1 , p. 342.