Ewald sword

Ewald Degen (born December 29, 1899 in Berlin , † May 18, 1983 in East Berlin ) was a German communist union official and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

After attending primary school, Degen completed a molding apprenticeship . In addition, he continued to qualify for three and a half years at a technical college for mechanical engineering. Degen joined the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) as an apprentice . After completing his apprenticeship, he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV).

Degen took part in the First World War. After he was taken prisoner by the British in 1918, he did not return to Berlin until the end of 1919. In the Berlin DMV he now took on a number of functions at the operational level, including as a shop steward. In the mid-1920s he became the Berlin DMV general assembly delegate and a leading member of the Berlin branch management of DMV-Eisenformer, in which numerous communist-oriented workers were organized.

In 1924 Degen joined the KPD , where he took on functions at the local level. From 1928/29 he was a member of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). In the Siemens group, Degen was nominated as a works council candidate for the RGO list. He was then released on political grounds.

After the founding of the Unified Association of Metal Workers Berlin (EVMB) in early November 1930, he became an employee in the administration of the association, for which he also took on other functions in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg .

After the takeover of the Nazis Degen was active in illegal reconstruction of EVMB involved. Numerous EVMB members were arrested as early as December 1933. Degen escaped the reprisals. With Max Gohl , Degen took over the new management of the illegal association until April / May 1934. Degen and Gohl came into conflict with the KPD leadership because in 1934 the party advocated a consistent dissolution of the association, which was regarded as sectarian. After all, the EVMB consistently differentiated itself from social democrats and continued to see both the SPD and the NSDAP as the main opponents. Degen, Max Gohl and Ernst Albert Altenkirch , who later functioned as the head of the illegal EVMB, were not impressed by the directives and demands of the KPD leadership and continued to pursue an independent association policy, which was differentiated from party politics.

Degen was arrested with Max Gohl and his companion Marie Juhre on March 23, 1935 in Berlin-Friedrichshain while the EVMB was exchanging illegal writings on Landsberger Allee . On July 24, 1935, the Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced Degen to a prison sentence of six years for “preparing for high treason”. Degen was then imprisoned in Luckau prison , later in Emsland camp and in Vechta.

After the end of the prison term, the Gestapo transferred Degen to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . He was imprisoned here until the end of 1944. Degen was released on parole in the Dirlewanger Penal Division . In mid-December 1944 Degen defected to the Red Army . He was then taken prisoner of war.

Degen returned to Berlin at the end of November 1945. He was involved in the trade union movement in East Berlin . He became a member of the SED and was a district councilor in Berlin- Prenzlauer Berg for years .

Degen was buried in the central cemetery in Friedrichsfelde .

Literature / sources

• Stefan Heinz , Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Functionaries of the unified association of metal workers in Berlin in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration, Volume 2). Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-062-2 , pp. 34, 39, 45 f., 54, 91-94 (short biography), 98, 143, 187, 198.
• Stefan Heinz : Moscow's mercenaries? "The Union of Metal Workers in Berlin": Development and failure of a communist union. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89965-406-6 , pp. 333, 359, 368, 373, 400, 447, 470 f., 528.
• Stefan Heinz: "Red Association" and resistance group. The unified association of metal workers in Berlin (1930–1935) , in: information - scientific journal of the study group German resistance 1933–1945, 42nd year (2017), no. 85, pp. 10–15.
• Landesarchiv Berlin , inventory C Rep. 118-01, no. 1338 (documents in connection with the recognition of Ewald Degen as a “victim of fascism”).