Etkar André

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Etkar Josef André , incorrectly also Edgar André , (born January 17, 1894 in Aachen , † November 4, 1936 in Hamburg ) was a German resistance fighter and KPD politician.

Life

André was the son of a businessman. His father Bernhard was of Jewish faith, and his mother also joined the Jewish community after the wedding. At the age of five he lost his father who died of pulmonary tuberculosis. His mother, who was also suffering from tuberculosis, was only able to provide for the three children with great difficulty. Belgian relatives eventually brought the family to Liège , where Etkar and his brothers were temporarily placed in an orphanage. After leaving school, he went to a bookstore as a commercial apprentice and came into contact with political literature. However, he broke off this training and completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith apprentice.

In 1911 he became a member of the Socialist Party of Belgium and two years later he was secretary of the Socialist Youth Workers in Brussels . In 1914 he took part in the congress of the Socialist Party of Belgium. During the First World War he volunteered in the Rhineland and was taken prisoner by the French at the end of 1918 , from which he was not released until 1920. He later viewed voluntary participation in the war as a mistake.

After returning to Germany , he first went to Koblenz , where he joined the Socialist Workers' Youth and the SPD . In 1922 he moved to Hamburg because he got a job there as a showman . At times he also worked as a construction worker and became a member of the German Construction Workers 'Association and later the German Transport Workers' Association. There he mainly looked after the needs of the unemployed. During the post-war crisis, André got into a strong conflict with the policies of the SPD, as they were not radical enough for him, whereupon he broke away from the party at the end of 1922 and joined the KPD on January 1, 1923. He soon belonged to the inner circle around Ernst Thalmann . As a member of the district leadership Wasserkante of the KPD (1926 to 1930) and member of the Hamburg citizenship (1928 to 1933) as well as the city council of the then Hamburg city Cuxhaven (1931 to 1933), where he had a second residence, he became one of the most popular Hamburg workers leaders. He emerged as a spokesman for the Hamburg unemployment movement as well as a co-founder (1924) and head of the Red Front Fighters Association on the Wasserkante (1924 to 1929), which earned him the nickname “the gainfully unemployed”. After attending the Imperial Party School of the KPD "Rosa Luxemburg" , André worked as an instructor and propagandist in the International Union of Seamen and Harbor Workers in 1931/1932 , most of which he spent in Belgium and France. His French language skills were an advantage.

After the Red Front Fighters Union was banned in Prussia (and soon afterwards in other countries) in May 1929 , André led the “Combat Committee against the RFB Ban”. In March 1931, in an attack on André, his party friend , the member of parliament Ernst Henning , was murdered by SA men. Etkar André led the funeral procession, in which around 35,000 people took part, from Jarrestadt to Ohlsdorf cemetery .

Etkar André had had a relationship with his party colleague Martha Berg, who was mainly active in the KPD women's group, since 1926. Since she had not yet divorced her husband, both were charged with adultery, which prevented a later wedding after Martha's divorce in 1928. He lived with Martha Berg first on the Grindel and later in Barmbek and the Neustadt .

"Edgar Andre", Ehrenhain Ohlsdorf
Stumbling stone in memory of Etkar André in front of the Hamburg City Hall
Stumbling stone in memory of Etkar André in Hamburg-Barmbek-Nord

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists and the fire in the Reichstag , Etkar André was arrested on March 5, 1933 and tortured while he was in custody for three and a half years. The charge was on preparation for high treason in unity with the jointly completed and attempted murder of the SA troop leader Heinrich Dreckmann in Hamburg. After all, he could only walk on crutches and temporarily lost his hearing. When his trial began in Hamburg on May 4, 1936, the public prosecutor's office was unable to produce sufficient evidence of his guilt. The trial lasted 32 days and attracted considerable international attention, as there were many foreign journalists in Berlin due to the Summer Olympics . Despite the thin evidence, the public prosecutor applied for the death penalty (possibly even on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler ) . On July 10, 1936, the court followed this request with its judgment. In his defense speech he had previously accused the National Socialist regime:

“Your honor is not my honor, because worldviews divide us, classes divide us, a deep gulf divides us. Should you make the impossible possible here and bring an innocent fighter to the execution block, I am ready to take this difficult step. I don't want mercy! I lived as a fighter and as a fighter I will die with the last words: Long live communism. "

Despite an international protest movement, André was beheaded on November 4, 1936 in the presence of 75 other political prisoners. A few hours later, the 5,000 inmates of the Fuhlsbüttel prison went on strike to protest. Fearing further protests as a result of the execution Andrés ordered the secret police to the burial make "quietly and strengster secrecy".

Honors

literature

  • Willi Bredel : The antifascist Edgar André threatened with death. Ed. Prométhée, Strasbourg 1936.
  • Bodo Uhse : The first battle. About the development and the first battles of the Edgar André battalion. Ed. Prométhée, Strasbourg 1938.
  • I. Hildebrandt: André, Etkar Josef . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag 1970, pp. 9-10.
  • Joachim Priewe : Meeting Etkar André. A picture of life. East Berlin 1986.
  • Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933 to 1945. Berlin 1970, volume 1, p. 51ff.
  • Frank Müller: Members of the Citizenship. Victim of totalitarian persecution. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Published by the citizens of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Hamburg 1995, DNB 944894100 , pp. 11-14.
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
  • Andreas Seeger: André, Etkar . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 24-25 .

Web links

Commons : Etkar André  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g Erika Draeger, "Etkar Josef André", in: Stolpersteine ​​in Hamburg-Barmbek and Hamburg-Uhlenhorst. A search for biographical traces , State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 2010, pp. 57–65, ISBN 978-3-929728-53-8 .
  2. http://www.jungewelt.de/2011/10-29/009.php
  3. ^ Committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters in the GDR (ed.): SS in action - a documentation about the crimes of the SS. 4th edition. Berlin 1958, p. 48f.
  4. Etkar-André-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  5. Stumbling blocks for murdered MdHB final inscriptions City Hall Hamburg (PDF; 16 kB)