Ernst Thape

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Ernst Thape (born May 29, 1892 in Kleinaga ; † July 25, 1985 in Hanover ) was a German politician ( SPD / SED ) who was Vice President of the Province of Saxony and later the State of Saxony-Anhalt from 1945 to 1948 .

Life

Thape, whose father was the former August Thape (* 1851), learned the trade of machine fitter at the Buckau machine factory in Magdeburg . From 1906 he became involved in the social democratic working class youth and in 1910 became a member of the SPD. From 1910 he went on a journey as a journeyman in Germany, France and Belgium. In 1913, the conscientious objector emigrated to Switzerland and attended lectures at the University of Zurich , the Technical University of Zurich and at the Technikum in Winterthur . In Switzerland he also met his future wife Ginesta Mimiola. After his return to Magdeburg in 1921, Thape worked for the SPD newspaper Volksstimme , where he became political editor in 1924. In 1933 Thape was released and arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo . After years of unemployment, he found a job as an engineer in 1938/39.

In September 1939, Thape was arrested again in the course of the A-card index action and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he remained imprisoned until the liberation on April 11, 1945. In Buchenwald he had the prisoner number 5753 and was a member of the illegal Popular Front Committee . Thape was involved in the revision of the Buchenwald Manifesto in April 1945 and was one of the signatories. The Buchenwald diary Thapes, which he kept in Buchenwald from April 1 to May 1, 1945, later became known.

After the war, Thape helped build the SPD in the Magdeburg area. In August 1945 he took over the management of the SPD provincial association that had just been formed. In July 1945 he was appointed Vice President for Economics and Transport of the Provincial Administration of Saxony. From December 1946 he was a member of the provincial government as Minister for National Education, Science and Culture. Thape had supported the forced unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED . As a partisan of the former social democratic member of the Reichstag Gustav Dahrendorf (SPD) he took a. a. in December 1945 participated in the 60s conference of SPD and KPD representatives in Berlin. After the arrest of some Social Democrats, Thape fled the Soviet-occupied part of Germany on November 28, 1948 during the Berlin blockade . Thape announced his exit from the SED and worked from 1949 to 1957 in the press office of the Lower Saxony state government. He was chairman of the SPD and councilor in Langenhagen as well as an employee of the east office of the SPD .

The Bremen Senator and Mayor Moritz Thape (SPD) was his son.

publication

  • From red to black-red-gold: the path of a social democrat , Hannover, Dietz, 1969

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Manfred Overesch: Ernst Thapes Buchenwald diary from 1945 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 29th year, issue 4, 1981, p. 635f
  2. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 , Wallstein-Verlag, 2000, p. 311
  3. ↑ Magdeburg biography
  4. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Ernst Thapes Buchenwalder diary from 1945 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 29th year, issue 4, 1981, p. 636ff
  5. ^ Jörg Wollenberg: Difficult unit in antifa 11–12 / 2012
personal data
SURNAME Thape, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD / SED)
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Kleinaga
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1985
Place of death Hanover