Erna Dorn

Erna Dorn born Scheffler, alias Kaminski alias Brüser, Gesch. Gewald, (* according to own information July 17, 1911 or August 28, 1913 as Erna Kaminsky in Königsberg or Tilsit , East Prussia ; † October 1, 1953 in Dresden ) was a victim of political criminal justice in the GDR .

She claimed to have worked in the " Political Department " in the Ravensbrück concentration camp and to have been responsible for the deaths of 80 to 90 prisoners. She was sentenced to death on June 22, 1953 by the Halle District Court for " fascist and war incitement " against the German Democratic Republic and on October 1, 1953, executed by guillotine . The judgment was overturned posthumously on March 22, 1994 by the Halle Regional Court.

Life

The only source for the life of Erna Dorn is the court file created in Halle from 1949 to 1953. She was then born in Tilsit in 1911 as the daughter of commercial clerk Arthur Kaminsky . She attended secondary school for girls and trained in the Königsberg Chamber of Commerce and Industry. From 1932 she worked in the Königsberg Police Headquarters; whether as a typist or police assistant is unclear. From late 1934 or early 1935 she worked for the Gestapo until 1941 , after which she was assigned to the political department in the Ravensbrück concentration camp .

From 1945 there are documents that prove Dorn's life. A forged release certificate from the Hertine concentration camp dated May 12, 1945 identified her as Erna Brüser, née Scheffler. After the end of the war she moved to Halle and applied for recognition as a persecuted person by the Nazi regime , which should enable her to obtain the privileges of a former concentration camp prisoner.

In December 1945 she married the Spanish fighter and prospective People's Police officer Max Gewald and from March 1946 led the life of a housewife.

In 1948 the trial of the notorious concentration camp guard and dog handler Gertrud Rabestein took place in Halle. Dorn was supposed to testify as a witness, but evaded the invitation for two years on the grounds that he was pregnant. Her "pregnancy" enabled her to receive special awards for pregnant women.

In the following time she was caught in various minor economic crimes and was imprisoned for the first time in 1949. In January 1950, she was sentenced to 11 months in prison for fraud and economic offenses. She was expelled from the SED . In December 1949 she had been divorced from her husband, who forbade her to use the family name. Only a few weeks of freedom, she was arrested again in January 1951 for stealing a penitentiary convicted of one year and six months. She was released in November thanks to an amnesty, but was arrested again in December.

In custody, she told of alleged agents and espionage activities for the West and her Nazi past. These boasting were reported by informers of the newly established State Security . In the interrogations that followed, Dorn confirmed her stories and named her divorced husband as the back man and American intelligence officer. Her increasingly vehement self-accusations ultimately led to charges of “ crimes against humanity ”. She claimed that she was a dog handler in Ravensbrück and had several people torn by their dogs. Her husband is said to have been the camp commandant Max Baer .

Despite intensive efforts, especially by the VVN , no evidence of a Nazi past of Dorn or Gewald could be found. Witnesses who appeared from time to time revised their statements at the first critical inquiry. The real Max Baer was on trial in the Federal Republic and the cruel dog handler from Ravensbrück was Gertrud Rabestein, at whose trial Dorn was supposed to testify two years earlier. Despite the lack of evidence and the disbelief of the interrogator Lieutenant Bischoff, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison on May 21, 1953 for “crimes against humanity”.

In Halle she was imprisoned in prison II, where she was freed by the insurgents on June 17, 1953 at around 4 p.m. According to her own statement, she went to the “Evangelical City Mission” in the pasture plan to get civilian clothes, something to eat and a place to sleep. It is unclear whether she left the mission again afterwards.

Although there were no eyewitnesses for Dorn's appearance at Hallmarkt and no witness testified on the subject in the subsequent trial either, she was arrested again by noon on June 18 at the latest. All reports about Erna Dorn's actions between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. are based solely on her own statements, which she recorded during interrogation on June 21 at the Ministry for State Security . After a three and a half hour "evening session" before the Halle District Court, she was sentenced to death on June 22, 1953, without hearing any witnesses and in camera. Her request for clemency and that of her public defender to the GDR President Wilhelm Pieck were rejected because she was the main ringleader of the uprising in Halle.

On September 28, she was taken to the Dresden prison on Münchner Platz , where she was executed on October 1, 1953 in the GDR's central execution site . In order to keep the execution secret, the funeral certificate stated that the cause of death was " bronchopneumonia 431" and "acute cardiac and circulatory weakness" and the body was cremated in Dresden-Tolkewitz .

Lawsuits and convictions

Even after the Stasi archives have been opened, the case is still a mystery, because almost everything that is known about this woman comes from the interrogation protocols of the Ministry for State Security. Therefore, at least all the minutes written after the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 , are suspected of deliberate influence or falsification, as they were created under direct pressure from the regime to find key witnesses for the allegedly fascist character of the uprising. The trial for crimes against humanity appears only in the post-uprising files for the death sentence . No newspaper reported about it. In addition, given the practice of the GDR judiciary , the verdict appears to be unusually mild. It will therefore have to seriously doubted whether this first conviction has taken place as Naziverbrecherin at all, especially since Erna Dorn still on June 17 in custody was in the little stone road, which would have been virtually impossible as condemned "commanding officer". On June 21, 1953, the uprising had already been put down by Soviet tanks and the new Justice Minister Hilde Benjamin demanded exemplary death sentences that should prove the “fascist” background of the uprising. So the interrogators knew in advance what Erna Dorn had to say. And in fact the language of these last minutes is clearly formulated in party jargon, not in the somewhat clumsy language of Dorn as known from earlier minutes. The current state of knowledge clearly shows this last process as a judicial scandal and part of political propaganda. The judgment was posthumously overturned on March 22, 1994 by the Halle Regional Court.

Literature and reception

On June 20, 1953, the Halle SED organ Freedom published an article describing Erna Dorn as the SS commander and leader of the uprising.

In 1954, Stephan Hermlin's novella Die Kommandeuse appeared , in which he dealt with the case entirely in the spirit of GDR propaganda.

In his novel Sommergewitter , published in 2005, Erich Loest describes the events around June 17, 1953 in the Bitterfeld , Wolfen and Halle area from the point of view of the strikers and incorporated Erna Dorn as a character.

literature

• Jens Ebert, Insa Eschebach (Hrsg.): "Die Kommandeuse" - Erna Dorn between National Socialism and the Cold War . Dietz, Berlin 1994. ISBN 3-320-01838-8
• André Gursky, Erna Dorn: "KZ-Kommandeuse" and "Ringleader" from Halle - reconstruction of a legend , in: Hermann-Josef Rupieper (ed.): "... and the most important thing is unity". June 17, 1953 in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg , Münster / Hamburg / London 2003, pp. 350–380. ISBN 3-8258-6775-7
• Stephan Hermlin: "The commanding officer". In: New German Literature. 2 (1954) 10 pp. 19-28.
• Hans-Peter Löhn: Goatee, stomach and glasses - are not the will of the people. The popular uprising on June 17, 1953 in Halle an der Saale . 2nd corrected edition, Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003. ISBN 3-86108-373-6
• Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk:  Dorn, Erna . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• "Erna Dorn" on 17Juni53.de
• Christoph Diekmann : "The Erna Dorn case - Stephan Hermlin, the 'SS-Kommandeuse' and June 17th" , in: Die Zeit , No. 25, June 12, 2003.
• H.-P. Löhn: "The uprising in the Halle district" , BStU Halle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk:  Dorn, Erna . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
2. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann : "The Erna Dorn case - Stephan Hermlin, the 'SS-Kommandeuse' and June 17th" , in: Die Zeit , No. 25, June 12, 2003.
3. ↑ Spiegel TV Magazin : Executions in the GDR , YouTube video, uploaded on March 31, 2010.