Ernst Bärtschi (escape helper)

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Ernst Bärtschi (born February 25, 1903 in Tuttlingen , † December 7, 1983 in Scherzingen ) was a Swiss escape helper .

Life

Stumbling block for Ernst Bärtschi

Ernst Bärtschi was born on February 25, 1903 in Tuttlingen, Württemberg . His father was a Swiss citizen from Dulliken in the canton of Solothurn and earned his living building the Black Forest Railway . His wife was a German from Tuttlingen.

In 1920 the family returned to Switzerland with three children. In Emmishofen , Ernst Bärtschi found work as an aluminum lathe operator in the aluminum rolling mill Dr. Lauber, Neher & Cie. Through his trade union activity and good private contacts with Constance workers, he got to know the inhuman politics of the National Socialists early on . Together with his neighbors, the German Andreas Fleig and Karl Durst, he smuggled political brochures and magazines to Konstanz from 1933. One magazine was called Der Funken , which had Frankfurt am Main as its destination . This is how the messengers were called "radio troops". When mailing within Germany became too dangerous, Bärtschi brought the spark to Frankfurt. On the way back he smuggled illegal material into Switzerland. The writings of the exile executive committee of the SPD in Prague were extremely important for the illegally active workers and trade unionists. Since Bärtschi was one of the most reliable supporters, although he was not a member of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, he received parcels with the New Forward to his home address.

Ernst Bärtschi helped numerous people to flee to Switzerland, often with his folding boat across Lake Constance or with a day pass across the border. Because of his frequent border crossings, Bärtschi was well known to the border guards and was almost never checked. The emigrants often found their first refuge in his house in Kreuzlingen .

On May 8, 1938, he and Andreas Fleig set out for Konstanz to bring the union official Hans Lutz to Switzerland. What the two did not know, that Lutz had revealed all the names of the "radio troops" under torture . Bärtschi and Fleig, like everyone else, were arrested by the "radio troops" and taken to prison in Berlin . On October 10th he stood before the People's Court and was sentenced to 13 years and 10 years of loss of honor. The prosecution accused him of wanting to change the constitution of the Reich by force . The Swiss government had given him no legal assistance during this time. He was in solitary confinement for six years, first in Ludwigsburg , then from September 1941 to May 1942 in Garsten in Upper Austria . Due to the hard work in prison , Bärtschi temporarily weighed only 48 kilos. He was subjected to additional harassment when he fell into Swiss German while speaking : Then he was beaten with a bunch of keys. Shortly before the end of the war he was transferred to Ulm . On the way to the Dachau concentration camp , he was liberated by the Americans in Aichach .

Ernst Bärtschi came back to Switzerland emaciated and a broken man. In 1950 the Nazi verdict against him was overturned and the German state paid him compensation for his forced labor . In September 1957, he also applied for compensation in Switzerland. The commission for advance payments to Swiss victims of National Socialist persecution created in the same year doubted his loyalty to Switzerland because he had campaigned for German social democrats. Bärtschi never received any financial support from the Swiss side. The German Federation of Trade Unions awarded him a small pension. In 1981 the Mayor of Constance Willy Weilhard and the SPD City Councilor Erwin Reisacher thanked him on behalf of the city of Constance for his courage and commitment in the years 1933 to 1938. The Constance SPD gave him money from a collection organized for him. Ernst Bärtsch died on December 7, 1983 in Scherzingen .

Honors

In 1986 a street was named after him in the Petershausen district of Constance . On September 8, 2013, Gunter Demnig set a stumbling block at his last place of residence.

Movie

In 1982 Mathias Knauer made a film with the Zurich film collective under the title The Interrupted Trace . The film was about the anti-fascists in Switzerland from 1933 to 1945. In this film, Ernst Bärtschi and Paul Nusch have their say. In 1936 Bärtschi made it possible for him to flee across Lake Constance to Switzerland.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ life
  2. ^ First stumbling blocks in Switzerland
  3. ↑ The broken track
personal data
SURNAME Bärtschi, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss escape helpers
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuttlingen
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1983
Place of death Joking