Ernst Tschickert

Memorial stone for Ernst Tschickert

Ernst Tschickert (born August 29, 1889 in Berlin , † December 24, 1951 in the Siberian prison camp in Tajschet ) was a German resistance fighter.

Life

Ernst Tschickert attended a community school in Berlin-Kreuzberg from 1897 to 1903 and then learned the trade of an art fitter. At a young age he became a member of the SPD and an active trade unionist . At the age of 18 he joined the German Metal Workers' Association (DMV). He also took part in courses at the Berlin workers' training school. Tschickert joined the USPD during the First World War . He had previously resigned from the SPD in 1916 because of criticism of the truce policy .

After the end of the war, after the November Revolution, he moved from Berlin to Cottbus to organize trade union work among metalworkers in Lusatia . At the same time Tschickert took on functions in the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) in Cottbus . In 1922 Tschickert rejoined the SPD . He had previously run for the USPD for the Reichstag (1921) and for the Prussian state parliament, but was not elected. Around 1929 Ernst Tschickert moved to Spremberg with his wife Martha Tschickert, née Küster, and their daughters, Ella and Irma from their first marriage . Here too, as in Cottbus, he worked for the local SPD association and the free trade union DMV, in which he took on several functions.

On May 2, 1933, Tschickert had to give up his position as workers secretary in connection with the break-up of the trade unions. Tschickert was actively involved in illegal resistance against National Socialism from 1933 . On June 22, 1933, the police arrested Tschickert and transferred him to the Sonnenburg concentration camp , from which he was released in August 1933. Further short imprisonment periods on suspicion of "preparation for high treason" followed in October 1933 and January 1934. Tschickert continued to participate in the resistance in a resistance group called "Lausitz" and "Scout". Above all, the group distributed illegal social democratic leaflets in which there was agitation against the Nazi regime.

On October 16, 1935, Ernst Tschickert and his wife Martha were arrested by the Gestapo in connection with their resistance work and sentenced on February 10, 1937 to two and a half and five years in prison , respectively . After he was initially imprisoned in Plötzensee prison for a short time, Tschickert was in the Brandenburg prison from March 1937 to the end of September 1938 and in the Amberg prison from the end of September 1938 to November 1940 . From February 20, 1941, Tschickert was taken into protective custody in Sachsenhausen concentration camp under prisoner number 36197 . In April 1945 he and other prisoners who were on a so-called death march in front of the advancing Allied troops were liberated in Mecklenburg. The wife Martha was also in several detention centers, including the Lichtenburg and Ravensbrück concentration camps .

After the end of the Second World War , Ernst Tschickert was in the city administration of Spremberg and from May 31, 1945 head of the local city police. Tschickert was one of the founders of the new SPD local association Spremberg in June 1945 and also became its first chairman. In March 1946 the SPD and KPD were forced to merge to form the SED . Tschickert did not make himself available to chair the newly created SED . He also turned down an offer to take on the position of district administrator .

From June 1, 1946 he was head of the newly created district labor court in Spremberg Castle . With the local elections on September 15, 1946, he became Spremberg city councilor and chairman of the city's administrative and financial committee. On October 20, 1946 Tschickert became a member of the district council and took over the duties of chairman of the SED faction and became a member of the district council .

In the following months, Ernst Tschickert often visited Berlin because of his professional activity, but also because of his private connections, where SPD local associations still existed, protected by the four-power status.

On the night of September 30, 1949, Ernst Tschickert was arrested in his apartment on false accusations by employees of the Soviet Ministry for State Security ( MGB) . According to these accusations, Tschickert is said to have used his trips to Berlin to establish connections with the branch office of the SPD East Office in Berlin-Charlottenburg . After the forced unification of the KPD and SPD, this branch was viewed by the Soviet occupying power as the espionage center of the West.

Tschickert was brought to the MGB prison in Potsdam for remand and transferred to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1950. On June 28, 1950, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the Siberian labor and reformatory camp number 7 Ozernyj in Taichet and used for forced labor. There he died due to the prevailing conditions, officially from an accident, on December 24, 1951 at the age of 62.

On June 11, 2002, Ernst Tschickert was fully rehabilitated by the Russian Military Prosecutor, represented by Colonel of Justice Leonid P. Kopalin .

On August 29, 2009, at the request of the SPD parliamentary group of Spremberg city councilors in honor of Ernst Tschickert, part of the Spremberg castle district was renamed Ernst-Tschickert-Platz and a boulder with a memorial plaque was inaugurated at this location.

Others

• In accordance with the circumstances at the time, there were no records whatsoever of the events surrounding Ernst Tschickert in the city archives or in the archives of the city administration.
• His burial place is still unknown today.

Literature / sources

• Local calendar 2010 of the city of Spremberg and the surrounding area, Ernst Tschickert - Victims of National Socialism and Stalinism in Spremberg by A. Lemke
• Publication in Spremberger Wochenkurier on October 7, 2009
• Corinne Kaszner: Ernst Tschickert (1889–1951). In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (eds.) With the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Trade unionists in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographical Handbook, Volume 4 (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 6). Metropol, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-148-3 , pp. 234–249.