Franz Demuth

Franz Demuth (born February 14, 1895 in Hamburg , † August 19, 1971 in Berlin ) was a German KPD and SED functionary, editor and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Demuth, the son of a furrier , attended elementary school and completed a commercial apprenticeship. In 1912 he became a member of the SPD . From 1916 to 1918 he was a soldier in the First World War . In 1917 he joined the USPD , in 1918 the Spartakusbund and in 1919 the KPD. From November 1918 he worked as a stenographer in the press department of the Hamburg Workers 'and Soldiers' Council and as Heinrich Laufenberg's personal secretary . From 1921 to 1923 he worked as an editorial secretary at the Hamburger Volkszeitung , then as an employee of the organizational division of the KPD headquarters in Berlin . From 1925 to 1929 he was secretary of the Reichstag faction of the KPD. In 1929 he was secretary of the communal political department of the Central Committee of the KPD and in the same year took over the management of the Universum library for all . In 1932/33 he was secretary to the management of the Kosmos publishing house.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Demuth took part in the resistance. From March to October 1933 he was imprisoned in the Sonnenburg concentration camp . After his release, he built up a coffee distribution system and was active with his wife Else (née Töpfer, 1893–1987) in the resistance group around Anton Saefkow . Demuth was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1940 and worked as a sergeant in a Berlin office. From May to July 1945 he was in Soviet captivity .

From 1945 a member of the KPD again, from the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD in 1946 a member of the SED, Demuth headed the office of the President of the German Central Administration for Agriculture and Forestry, Edwin Hoernle , from 1945 to 1952 , or was head of the training department there. Then he was involved in the development of the Berlin publishing house and worked as editor of the weekly post and the magazine Bild der Zeit . From 1958 to 1967 he was a member of the Central Revision Commission of the SED .

His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried where his wife Else is buried.

Awards

• Labor Banner (1960)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (1970)

literature

• Federal Ministry for All-German Issues (Ed.): SBZ biography . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 64.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 117.
• Ursel Hochmuth : Illegal KPD and movement “Free Germany” in Berlin and Brandenburg 1942–1945 . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 1998, p. 128.
• Hans-Joachim Fieber et al. (Ed.): Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Volume 2. Trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2005, p. 58.
• Demuth, Franz . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, p. 182.