Ernst Bertram (resistance fighter)
Ernst Bertram (born March 24, 1909 in Solingen ; † October 29, 1938 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was a German KPD functionary and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
The commercial employee Ernst Bertram got in touch with the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) through the Friends of Nature . In February 1929 he became head of the Lower Rhine KJVD district management . On the XI. Association congress of the KJVD in September 1929 he was elected to the Central Committee of the KJVD, from July 1930 he was a member of the closer Reich leadership of the KJVD and was editor of the newspaper Junge Garde in Berlin . In 1931/1932 the Central Committee of the KJVD delegated him to Moscow for study purposes , until July 1932 he was secretary of the delegation of the KJVD to the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International . After his return from the Soviet Union , Bertram first worked as a functionary of the KJVD in Erfurt , then he was deployed in Leverkusen by the KPD district leadership in Düsseldorf .
On the following day of the Reichstag fire (February 28, 1933), Bertram was arrested in Leverkusen, taken into “ protective custody ” and imprisoned in Lüttringhausen prison and in Börgermoor concentration camp until December 23 of the same year . In March 1934, the district leadership of the now illegal KPD appointed him political leader of the sub-district of Hagen , where he remained active until May 1934 under the code name "Karl". After several arrests in Hagen, Bertram switched to the sub-district Wuppertal as an instructor in the district leadership , in order to rebuild the party organization there together with Wilhelm Reeks from Solingen .
Due to the strong anchoring of the communists in the Bergisch industrial companies, Bertram initially had great success and succeeded in organizing illegal trade union groups in various companies. At the beginning of January 1935, however , the Gestapo gained insight into the illegal activities of the KPD in Wuppertal. This resulted in a large number of arrests; according to the Gestapo, more than 1,300 people had been arrested in Wuppertal alone by November 1935. Bertram avoided the wave of arrests by taking over the political leadership of the KPD district of Bielefeld .
In May 1935 an accident led to his arrest: a Gestapo officer recognized him on the Berlin-Düsseldorf express train . On November 22, 1935, Bertram was sentenced in Wuppertal as the main defendant in the “ Wuppertal Trade Union Trials ” to 15 years imprisonment by the First Senate of the People's Court for “ high treason ”.
The lung sick Bertram was taken to the Münster prison, where he had to work in the dusty mat weaving shop. He was later transferred to the Brandenburg-Görden prison , where he died on October 29, 1938 of pulmonary tuberculosis .
A stumbling block at Altenhofer Strasse 76 in Solingen has been remembering him since April 2007 .
literature
- Inge Sbosny, Karl Schabrod : Resistance in Solingen. From the life of anti-fascist fighters . Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main 1975, pp. 70ff.
- Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
Web links
- Short biography and portrait of Bertram on the website of the Solingen city archive
- Procedure “Bertram ua” on the Wuppertal trade union processes page
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bertram, Ernst |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German KPD functionary and resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 24, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Solingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 29, 1938 |
| Place of death | Brandenburg on the Havel |