Franz Schneider (communist)
Franz Schneider (* 1894 ; † April 22, 1933 in the Kleve prison ) was a German communist and Nazi victim .
Life and activity
In 1933 Schneider was head of the Combat League Against Fascism (KGF) in Goch . Because of this position, after the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, the new rulers targeted him.
Schneider was initially able to evade arrest in the wake of the wave of arrests following the fire in the Reichstag on February 27, 1933, but was discovered in Kellen on March 6, 1933 and taken to the prison in Kleve .
On April 22, 1933, Schneider was taken from his cell by drunk members of the SA guards and brought to the prison yard. He was alleged to have thrown Communist weapons and ammunition into the Niers in order to prevent the authorities from accessing them. He was then severely mistreated with fists and rifle butts until he collapsed dead. The dead man was dragged back to his cell.
The following day, news was officially spread that Schneider had killed himself while in custody. The Vossische Zeitung said that when Schneider was about to be brought up for questioning, he tore himself away and fell from the second floor of the prison into an 8-meter-deep air shaft and died shortly afterwards of his injuries.
The Schneider case was made known abroad through the second communist brown book .
In 1959, one of those involved, the former police chief Franz Peters from Kleve, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for bodily harm resulting in death.
Later a street in Goch was named after Schneider.
In February 2015, a stumbling block in memory of Schneider and his fate was laid in front of Haus Blumenplatz 4 in Goch, Schneider's last residential building .
literature
- Brown book about the Reichstag fire and Hitler terror. International Relief Committee for the Victims of German Fascism, preface Dudley Leigh Aman Marley, Universum-Bücherei, Basel 1933, p. 344
- Gerd Halmanns: The Klever “protective custody prison” and the murder of Gocher Franz Schneider in 1933. From the records of the former political prisoner Hans Bendgens-Henner (1892–1942) . In: Calendar for the Klever Land to the year 1996 . Boss-Verlag, Kleve 1995.
Web links
- Hans Joachim Koepp: Stumbling Stone Laying Franz Schneider , Against Forgetting - Nazi Victims from Goch and Uedem, Comprehensive School Middle District in Goch
- Julia Lörcks: Kleve: Commemoration behind bars , Rheinische Post , January 28, 2009
- Thomas Claassen: Goch: The brown terror in Goch , Rheinische Post, February 23, 2012
- Jürgen Loosen: Goch: The history of crime in Goch , Rheinische Post, July 17, 2017
Individual evidence
- ^ "Death jump in the prison", in: Vossische Zeitung of April 24, 1933.
- ↑ World Committee for the Victims of German Facism: The Reichstag Fire Trial: The Second Brown Book of the Hitler Terror , 1934, p. 345.
- ^ Hans Joachim Koepp: Franz Schneider . Retrieved December 7, 2017
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schneider, Franz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German communist and Nazi victim |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1894 |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 22, 1933 |
| Place of death | Kleve Detention Center |