Ferdinand Kobitzki

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Ferdinand Kobitzki (born March 21, 1890 in Munster ; † December 14, 1944 in Neuengamme concentration camp ) was a German union leader and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Kobitzki completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and went hiking for a few years. In 1921 he settled in the textile town of Nordhorn in Lower Saxony and worked as a weaver at the B. Rawe & Co textile factory . Kobitzki belonged to the socialist union of the German Textile Workers Association (DTV) and the KPD . In 1929 he became a member of the works council and from December 10, 1929 to April 18, 1931 he was chairman of the Nordhorn KPD local group. He founded the local branch of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). He was also a board member of the Association of Proletarian Freethinkers. His candidacy in the district election in 1929 was unsuccessful, but in March 1933 he was the only communist to enter the district assembly.

In Nordhorn, near the border with the Netherlands, many Dutch textile workers worked as cross-border commuters. In 1930 there were repeated strikes, clashes with the police and clashes with textile entrepreneurs and in the trade union camp due to wage cuts . DTV and CTV on the one hand and the RGO on the other hand fought hard fights in which the Nordhorn KPD in the party organ Ruhr-Echo from Essen became a model for the communist because of their many wild strikes and their rude methods against the SPD politician and DTV union official Paul Köhler Ruhr workers was stylized.

The influence of the Nordhorn communists increased. Kobitzki was dismissed in April 1931 for “threatening workers council members and the works manager”, he and a party colleague had beaten works council member Schomakers and for “refusing to work” (= not working on May 1st). The Prussian political police had been watching him since 1929; the Gestapo continued this later. From the summer of 1932 the National Socialist factory cell organization became active among the textile workers, but was only able to gain significant support when it embarked on a national Bolshevik course in late 1932 / early 1933. After the March elections, after the “national”, it now called for a “social” revolution and massively attacked dignitaries and established trade unionists. She even used armed violence in a wage conflict, which enabled the NSBO ​​to achieve great success in the works council elections at the expense of the RGO.

On March 1, 1933, the newly elected district council member Kobitzki was taken into " protective custody " for the first time and sent to the local court prisons in Neuenhaus and Osnabrück . He stayed in various concentration camps until October 16, 1934 : in Moringen , Brandenburg and Oranienburg .

After his imprisonment Ferdinand Kobitzki lived outwardly inconspicuously, but was active as a resistance in the German-Dutch border area, distributed foreign radio news and illegal leaflets and stayed temporarily in the Netherlands, since he apparently could not find work in Nordhorn. The Hamm special court sentenced him to a prison sentence of several years for “preparing for high treason ” . After serving his sentence, Kobitzki returned to Nordhorn and found work again as a weaver at Ludwig Povel & Co.

In 1944, after the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler, he was arrested at his workplace together with the Christian and SPD- affiliated Gildehaus resistance fighter Heinrich Kloppers as part of the Gewitter campaign . The NSDAP district leadership in Bentheim ( Josef Ständer ) said: “He is still a political danger today. Detention is approved ”. Kobitzki was sent to Neuengamme concentration camp, where he died of the consequences of imprisonment.

Since October 2006 a stumbling stone has been reminding of Ferdinand Kobitzki in Nordhorn .

literature

  • Michael Dobis: Kobitzki, Ferdinand. In: Siegfried Mielke / Günter Morsch (ed.): Trade unionists in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographical manual. Volume 3, pages 394-397, Hentrich-Verlag, Berlin 2006.
  • Helmut Lensing: The National Socialist Company Cell Organization and the Nazi seizure of power in the county of Bentheim. In: Bentheimer Jahrbuch 1993 (Das Bentheimer Land, vol. 125), Bad Bentheim 1992, pp. 167–194.
  • Helmut Lensing: The works council elections in the Nordhorn textile industry during the Weimar Republic - A contribution to the history of the labor movement in the county of Bentheim. in: Study Society for Emsland Regional History (Ed.), Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 8, Haselünne 2000, pp. 41-104.
  • Helmut Lensing, Art. Kobitzki, Ferdinand Emil, in: Studiengesellschaft für Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (Ed.), Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 24, Haselünne 2017, pp. 228–243.
  • Werner Rohr: The history of the labor movement in Nordhorn. Sögel, 1988.
  • Herbert Wagner : The Gestapo wasn't alone ... Political social control and state terror in the German-Dutch border area 1929–1945. LIT-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8258-7448-3 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kobitzki, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Trade unionists and resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1944
Place of death Neuengamme concentration camp