Ernst Scheffler

Ernst Fritz Scheffler (born November 18, 1891 in Bermsgrün ; † May 9, 1954 in Aue ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED). From 1927 to 1930 he was a member of the KPD in the Saxon state parliament . From 1945 Scheffler worked as a leading local politician.

Life

Ernst Scheffler was born on November 18, 1891 as the son of a railway conductor in Bermsgrün in the Saxon Ore Mountains. After elementary school, he completed an apprenticeship as a plumber. In 1911 Scheffler became a member of the SPD . In the First World War he fought as a private on the Western Front from the start and was wounded in 1916. This wounding resulted in his discharge from military service. Scheffler returned to his homeland and in 1917 found a job in a Schwarzenberg armaments factory. During this time he established contacts with the Spartacus group and in 1918 founded the Schwarzenberg local branch of the USPD . In January 1919 Scheffler became a member of the newly founded KPD. Between 1919 and 1921 he worked again in his old profession as a plumber until he was sentenced to 16 months in prison for aiding and abetting high treason. Due to an amnesty, however, he only served nine months in Bautzen prison. After his dismissal, initially unemployed, Scheffler became a full-time sub-district manager of the KPD in Schwarzenberg in 1923. In autumn 1923 he took an active part in preparations for the uprising and was imprisoned for three months again in 1924. Scheffler was subsequently elected to the KPD district leadership in Saxony and in 1927 moved up as a member of the Saxon state parliament, where he held a mandate until 1933 with a brief interruption. After the KPD was banned in 1933, Scheffler became the organ leader of the KPD in Leipzig. He was arrested on November 20, 1933 and sentenced to three years in prison in July 1934 before the Dresden Higher Regional Court. Scheffler was not released until April 19, 1939. Then he worked again as a plumber in Schwarzenberg. As part of the action grid he was arrested again in July 1944 and to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp brought. On one of the death marches , Scheffler was liberated in Mecklenburg in April 1945. Scheffler returned to his old home and became district administrator of the Schwarzenberg district and then chairman of the council of the Aue district .

Honors

Several institutions in the GDR were named after Ernst Scheffler, such as the company vocational school in Schwarzenberg / Erzgeb. , the district hospital in Aue, the youth hostel in Rittersgrün and the LPG in Lößnitz . All designations were reversed after 1990.

literature

• Scheffler, Ernst . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .