Franz Bobzien

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Franz Bobzien (born November 17, 1906 in Hamburg , † March 28, 1941 in Berlin ) was a German socialist politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Youth and Political Socialization

Bobzien, who came from a salaried family, was active in the German Republican Boy Scout Association and initially completed a commercial apprenticeship. In 1926 he joined the SAJ and the SPD , later also the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and attended evening high school at the Lichtwarkschule in addition to work in order to prepare for the high school diploma that he successfully passed in 1927. In 1928 he began studying pedagogy, history and philosophy at the University of Hamburg as a student trainee , in 1931 he passed his teacher examination and began teaching at an elementary school.

Since 1928, the staunch anti-militarist Bobzien came into ever stronger contradiction to the SPD policy when the government pushed for the construction of armored cruisers . In 1931 he therefore left the SPD and joined the newly founded Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD) and was elected to the nationwide board of its youth association SJVD . Through his work in the SJVD he also got to know Willy Brandt , with whom he was on friendly terms and whom he often visited in Lübeck. After Bobzien unsuccessfully in April 1932 for the Hamburg state candidate, he was on 10 May 1932 under the accusation wehrkraftzersetzende to have distributed leaflets at the Hamburg University for seven months in custody arrested and removed from the school system (a first successful lawsuit against it remained largely irrelevant as he was reinstated on March 1, 1933). After the case was dropped, he was released in early January 1933.

Underground, exile and imprisonment in a concentration camp

After the NSDAP came to power , the Reichstag fire and the subsequent illegalization of the SAPD, Bobzien had to go into hiding at the beginning of March 1933, he took part in the underground party conference of the SAPD on March 12, 1933 in Dresden, where a majority of delegates voted against the resolution of the board majority and became Elected to the illegal Reich leadership, where he was responsible for converting the SAPD and SJVD in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein to underground work. At the end of May 1933, Bobzien fled to Copenhagen, where he a. a. authored several anti-fascist brochures, organized the transport of illegal literature to Germany, and carried out educational work in the Danish labor movement about the fascist danger . On February 24, 1934, Bobzien and four SJVD comrades, including Willy Brandt, took part in a conference of left-wing socialist and Trotskyist youth organizations in Laren , the Netherlands . After the conference was broken up by the police and the participants were taken into custody, Mayor HLM van Nispen van Sevenaer pushed Bobzien and all the other SJVD delegates except for Willy Brandt , who had valid Norwegian papers, because of missing visas on February 26th off to Germany, where Bobzien and his comrades in Emmerich were arrested by the Gestapo . In September 1934, Bobzien was sentenced to four years in prison for high treason , which he served in the Oslebshausen prison - where he built up resistance structures with communist and social democratic inmates like Harry Naujok - and in the Esterwegen concentration camp . After the end of his sentence, he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . There, for a time, block elder of the “youth barracks”, he organized German courses for Polish and Czech prisoners under the most difficult conditions, as knowledge of German increased the chances of survival in the concentration camp. From the end of 1940 Bobzien was obliged to carry out bomb clearance work in Berlin. He and four Communist inmates of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were killed on March 28, 1941.

In Hamburg-Lohbrügge , Bobzienweg has been named after Franz Bobzien since the 1960s .

Franz Bobzien Prize

The City of Oranienburg and the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum jointly award the Franz Bobzien Prize (formerly Oranienburg Tolerance Prize) every two years. The award recognizes projects in Berlin and Brandenburg that stand up for democracy and tolerance. Projects that deal with the coming to terms with National Socialism in Germany and thus make an exemplary contribution to a democratic society receive special attention. Naming the prize after Franz Bobzien is intended to honor his commitment under complicated and dangerous conditions. The prize is endowed with 3,000 euros. The patron is the Prime Minister of Brandenburg.

Previous winners

2010
  • Eduard-Maurer-Oberstufenzentrum Hennigsdorf and school center Alwin-Lonke-Straße in Bremen: "Learning and working in the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp"
2012
  • Georg-Mendheim-Oberstufenzentrum Oranienburg and Waidak Media eV: Film project "Life after survival - Regina and Zwi Helmut Steinitz "
  • Forum against Racism and Right-Wing Violence Oranienburg (awarded the special prize)
2014
  • Johanna-Eck-Schule Berlin Tempelhof-Schöneberg: brick project
2016
2018
  • Landesjugendring Brandenburg: Pilot project “superimposed” in the former satellite camps in Grüneberg, Königs Wusterhausen, Bad Belzig, Lieberose / Jamlitz and Schwarzheide
2020

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth: Lichtwarkschule / Lichtwarkschüler: "Hitler leads to perdition - do not greet!" , In: Ursel Hochmuth / Hans-Peter de Lorent (ed.): Hamburg: School under the swastika , articles in the "Hamburger Lehrerzeitung" (organ of the GEW ) and the State History Commission of the VVN / Bund der Antifaschisten , Hamburger Lehrerzeitung, Hamburg, 1985, p. 85
  2. ^ Jonkheer HLM van Nispen van Sevenaer (1879-1958), burgemeester van Laren (Dutch), accessed on December 3, 2018.
  3. ↑ Awarding of the Franz Bobzien Prize 2020: “Everything wasn't just fine again” , Tagesspiegel, May 5, 2020

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bobzien, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), victims of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH 17th November 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1941
Place of death Berlin