Ernst hall guard

Ernst Saalwächter (born August 18, 1897 in Neuss ; † August 8, 1968 in Wermelskirchen ) was a German politician ( KPD ), bookseller, concentration camp prisoner and co-founder and functionary of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists (VVN ).

Life

Saalwächter completed a saddlery apprenticeship after attending primary school. After the outbreak of the First World War , he took part in youth protests against the war in Düsseldorf as a member of the socialist youth movement. He was called up for military service in 1916, but remained true to his anti-militarist stance and conspiratorially distributed leaflets with anti-war slogans. A charge of high treason that followed in September 1918 was dropped in the aftermath of the war. From November 1918 he was a member of a workers 'and soldiers' council . For the KPD, he initially worked as an organizational secretary and later as a city councilor. Professionally, he reoriented himself, attended lectures at the university and founded a bookstore in the early 1920s, which he had to give up after a few years.

After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he was arrested on March 25, 1933 and sentenced by the Reichsgericht Leipzig to a two-year prison sentence for preparation for high treason, which he served in the Brual-Rhede penal camp. He was then admitted to the Esterwegen concentration camp and, after its dissolution in 1936, transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . At the beginning of June 1940 he was transferred to the newly established Neuengamme concentration camp , where he headed the carpentry command as Kapo . In this function he was able to help fellow prisoners by placing them in his command and contribute to the creation of better working conditions. He organized help for the Soviet prisoners of war in the camp. In October 1943 he was released from this position and became block elder of the penal company. He managed to improve living conditions within the punishment company. In November 1944 he succeeded Jakob Fetz as camp elder, the highest position within the prisoner hierarchy in the camp. He succeeded in promoting the influence of political prisoners against the "Greens" and in working in the camp resistance. He refused to the Rapportführer Wilhelm Dreimann , as a camp elder, to take part in executions of fellow prisoners, which had no consequences for him. Believed to be too soft, he was removed from his post at the end of March 1945 by protective custody camp leader Anton Thumann . At the end of April 1945 he and other prisoners were taken to the SS barracks in Hamburg-Langenhorn in order to do military service in the Dirlewanger special formation in the last days of the Second World War . On the way to the front he was able to break away from the troops at the beginning of May 1945 and go into hiding a few days later until he was liberated.

At first he stayed in Hamburg and worked in the testing center for persecuted Nazis until his return to Düsseldorf in August 1945. He co-founded the VVN in Düsseldorf on October 20, 1946 and, together with Peter Lütsches, assumed the chairmanship of the NRW regional association. At VVN he took on functions at the district level. He was a member of the presidium of the VVN and became honorary chairman of the NRW regional association.

Web links

• Open archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dirk Eckert: In the resistance group. In: taz . October 28, 2006