Ernst Mittelbach

Ernst Mittelbach

Ernst Friedrich Ludwig Mittelbach (born December 31, 1903 in Hamburg ; † June 26, 1944 there ) was a German trade teacher in Hamburg and resistance fighter against National Socialism. He was executed for his opposition to National Socialism .

Life

Ernst Mittelbach grew up as the eldest son of a total of five children. From 1932 to 1935 he lived at Rübenhofstrasse 26, then Langestrasse 26, from 1937 to 1938 at Moorreye 94 in Hamburg-Langenhorn , where a stumbling block for his brother Walter Mittelbach was laid, and later at Wellingsbütteler Landstrasse 186 in Klein-Borstel .

After the state examination to become a trade teacher in 1934, he first worked as a designer at Ottensener Eisenwerk, where he was dismissed without notice on January 11, 1935 for “behavior that was harmful to the company”. He had opposed collective participation in the National Socialist memorial service on November 9, 1935.

Since then Mittelbach has worked as a teacher at the trade school IX for automotive and aircraft technology in Hamburg, where he met the communist Heinz Priess (1920-1945) as his student in 1936 . The two shared a personal friendship and a clear rejection of National Socialism.

On October 7, 1938, he married the Englishwoman Katie Davis and moved with her into the newly built house at Wellingsbütteler Landstrasse 186. Their only daughter Margret was born in July of the following year.

As a teacher, Mittelbach was approached several times by the school board because of his non-membership of the " NSDAP ". Mittelbach rejected the request, referring to a letter from the school authorities that no “pressure should be exerted on civil servants, employees and workers to join the NSDAP and that no one will be disadvantaged by not joining”.

On October 20, 1942, Ernst Mittelbach was arrested because "according to the results of the state police's findings, his behavior endangers the existence and security of the people and the state by acting highly treasonable for the illegal KPD ."

Memorial plaque with grave tray

According to the indictment of the People's Court of January 31, 1944, “(he) got involved with communists to a considerable extent ... Communist Heinz Priess frequented his house ... took Priess's mother into his house ... met with illegal communist Reincke, Priess said Money available ... listened to enemy radio stations . "

Even if the documents of the Gestapo and the People's Court as well as his friendship with Heinz Priess suggest it, Mittelbach was never a communist and rejected communist ideology. Ernst Mittelbach's passive resistance to National Socialism was Christian-humanistic and based on his sympathy with social democracy .

Ernst Mittelbach was executed on June 26, 1944 in the Hamburg remand prison on Holstenglacis and buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery .

Honors

Stumbling block for Ernst Mittelbach in front of the house at Wellingsbütteler Landstrasse 186 in Ohlsdorf .

On June 22, 1981, the Niendorf local committee recommended that the district assembly advocate naming 11 streets after people who had lost their lives in the resistance against the Third Reich with regard to the naming of traffic areas in the Niendorf 37 development plan . “The district assembly considers such a group of motifs in this closed new building area, in which approx. 950 apartments are being built, mostly for young families, to be particularly suitable.” The naming of the streets, including the Ernst-Mittelbach-Ring, was on October 30, 1982. Am October 31, 1984 was commemorated on the eve of anti-war day in the Ohmoor grammar school because streets in the Niendorf-Nord development area were named after 11 resistance fighters.

On April 22, 1987, a name plaque was placed on the memorial table with 12 chairs in honor of the resistance fighters in Hamburg-Niendorf. On February 14, 1992, the State Trade School for Manufacturing and Aircraft Technology (G15) was given the name Ernst Mittelbach. On May 24, 1993, on the occasion of the award of the name affix, a commemoration of the now state trade school for manufacturing and aircraft technology - Ernst Mittelbach . In the meantime, the name of the school has been changed to Vocational School Health Aviation Technology (GELUTEC) (BS10) .

On October 11, 2006, the inauguration of the Stolpersteine ​​in front of the Ernst-Mittelbach-Gewerbeschule and in Wellingsbütteler Landstrasse 186 took place.

literature

• To commemorate means: not to be silent, to inform students of the Ohmoor high school , page 45–47, Hamburg 1984.
• Benjamin Herzberg: Helpers become persecuted. Life and death of Ernst Mittelbach , in: Help for persecuted people during the Nazi era, young people research on site . Edited by Johannes Rau, pages 245–259, Hamburg 2002.
• Klaus Timm: The murder of the teacher Ernst Mittelbach . From the series: Stories from Klein-Borstel , Volume 20, Hamburg 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gravestone at genealogy.de
2. ^ Stumbling block for the trade teacher Ernst Mittelbach ( Memento from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )