Ernst Torgler

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Ernst Torgler (before 1933)
Memorial plaque , Liepnitzstraße 46, in Berlin-Karlshorst

Ernst Torgler (born April 25, 1893 in Berlin-Kreuzberg ; † January 19, 1963 in Hanover ) was a German politician ( KPD ) and co-defendant in the Reichstag arson trial .

Life

Ernst Torgler, son of a city worker, became a commercial clerk. He joined the SPD in 1910 . After his military service in the First World War , he switched to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and became a member of the KPD when it merged with the KPD in 1920.

In 1921 Torgler was elected city councilor in Berlin-Lichtenberg , which he remained until 1930. In 1924 he was elected to the Reichstag for the KPD . In 1927, the parliamentary group members elected him deputy chairman and in 1929 finally chairman of the KPD parliamentary group, which made him an influential communist. In this capacity he gave several speeches in parliament, including the one on February 25, 1932, where he stood directly against Reich Chancellor ( Brüning ) and Reich President ( Hindenburg ):

“Under Hindenburg, all of these measures of open reaction, political, economic and social reaction were carried out. [...] Mr. Brüning is the representative of the leading party of the German bourgeoisie. He is the executor of the will of finance capital. [...] Mr. Brüning and the center are also the main whip in the Hindenburg election and the Hindenburg front. This includes, as it goes without saying at the center , that one has an excellent knowledge of, how should I put it, Jesuit demagogy. "

From 1932 to 1933 he edited the magazine of the KPD parliamentary group together with Wilhelm Pieck .

Against the will of the KPD leadership, Torgler surrendered to the police on February 28, 1933 after the Reichstag fire , in order to protect himself against suspicions about his involvement. He was arrested without charge until July 1933, followed by charges of arson and high treason in July . Despite many attempts by the family, no party-affiliated defense attorney could be found for him, so that he consented to a defense by a Nazi lawyer. He was defended by the lawyer Alfons Sack, who was known from numerous trials against National Socialists during the final phase of the republic . In the trial from September 21 to December 23, 1933, the Oberreichsanwalt applied for the death penalty for him , but Torgler was acquitted for lack of evidence, but was held in " protective custody " until 1935 . The KPD excluded him from the party at the Brussels conference in 1935 because he had voluntarily submitted to the Nazi judiciary and accepted a Nazi defender.

In 1941 he was employed as a property auditor in the main trust center East in Graudenz , and later in Trebbin . After the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Torgler remained unmolested. According to his own statements, personal intervention by Goebbels prevented his imprisonment. With his office he reached Bückeburg in 1945 on the retreat . After 1945 he found a job in the local city administration as a representative for refugee matters. In 1949 he became an employee of the ÖTV trade union in Hanover.

After the end of the Second World War, Torgler tried in vain to re-join the KPD. In December 1945 he justified his position during National Socialism in a personal letter to the KPD chairman Wilhelm Pieck , who was his deputy in the KPD parliamentary group until 1933. He received no answer, but Pieck informed the KPD district leadership in Bückeburg in November 1946 that a resumption was out of the question. As recently as 1970, the SED was of the opinion that Torgler's behavior had contributed to "concealing the truth about Nazi terror in Germany".

In 1949 Torgler became a member of the SPD. He died in Hanover in 1963.

See also

Honor

On November 26, 2014, a memorial plaque was unveiled in front of his former home at Liepnitzstrasse 46 in Berlin-Karlshorst . The Lichtenberg district is reminiscent of a politician who was persecuted and abused by National Socialism and who was cast out by his party.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ernst Torgler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Podewin: The day on which his faith broke . In: Neues Deutschland , February 23, 2013.
  2. ↑ Press release from the Lichtenberg district office on the inauguration of the memorial plaque ; Retrieved Nov. 28, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Torgler, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (USPD, KPD, SPD), MP and co-defendant in the Reichstag fire trial
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1963
Place of death Hanover