Ernst Braun (politician)

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Ernst Braun (born February 21, 1909 in Saarbrücken ; † 1994 in Gera ) was a German youth association functionary ( SAJ ), Spain fighter , concentration camp prisoner in Buchenwald , local and state politician (BDS / SPD / SED ), head of the Thuringian police and cultural functionary .

Life

Braun was born into a working-class family in Saarland . After attending primary school, he learned the trade of tailor. In 1923 he joined the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), and in 1925 he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1929 he was the secretary of the SAJ Saarland and in 1935 he was committed to a united front of the SAJ and KVDJ to oppose National Socialism in Saarland.

After the Saar referendum , he emigrated to France in 1935 and took part in the struggle of the International Brigades against the Franco dictatorship from December 1936 to February 1939 . In June 1940, after the occupation of France by the Wehrmacht, he was arrested and extradited to the Nazi authorities. Initially he was in Gestapo custody in Paris and was imprisoned in Saarbrücken for "high treason" from October 1940 to June 1942. He was then transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was given prisoner number 881. Braun was deployed in Buchenwald with the construction team, the tailor's shop and the post office and was part of the illegal camp resistance . After the liberation of the prisoners in Buchenwald by the 3rd US Army , he was one of the signatories of the Buchenwald Manifesto .

In June 1945 he became a member of the management team of the Federation of Democratic Socialists and the Weimar branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the same time he was appointed police director of Weimar and after the compulsory merger of the SPD and KPD into the SED in 1946 he was the equal SED chairman in Weimar. From 1947 he was deputy chief of the Thuringian police. After being removed from office, he was cultural director of the Olympia-Werke in Erfurt from 1950 . His last professional function was that of a secretary for the Gera Chamber of Commerce . In the 1970s he headed the district committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters in Gera.

On June 27, 1987 he was appointed Colonel of the VP a. D. to major general a. D. appointed. During his state visit to Spain on October 5, 1988, Erich Honecker honored the victims of the Franco regime in Barcelona and welcomed former Spain fighters from the GDR, among them the former political commissioner and then Major Ernst Braun.

Awards

literature

  • Max Hewer: From the Saar to the Ebro. Saarland as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. 2nd, corrected edition, Blattlausverlag, Saarbrücken 2016, ISBN 978-3-945996-08-9 .
  • Steffen Kachel : A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 . Publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, Small Series Volume 29, p. 542
  • Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 , Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937-1945 , Wallstein-Verlag, 2000, p. 276
  2. ↑ Steffen Kachel: A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 , = publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, Kleine Reihe Volume 29, p. 542
  3. ^ New Germany of October 6, 1988.
personal data
SURNAME Braun, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German local and state politicians (SPD, SED)
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarbrücken
DATE OF DEATH 1994
Place of death Gera