Friedrich August Weineck
Friedrich August Weineck , better known as Fritz Weineck (born March 26, 1897 in Halle (Saale) ; † March 13, 1925 ibid), was a brush-maker and horn player in the Red Front Fighters Association , who was shot by the police during an election rally of the KPD and on Reason for which was venerated as a communist martyr in the later GDR . Following the title of a song dedicated to him and his death, Weineck also became known under the name The Little Trumpeter .
Life
Weineck was born in Kanzleigasse 7 in Glaucha - a former working-class district of Halle. His parents were the manual workers Ernst Weineck and Friederike, née Rothe. He learned the trade of a brush maker and was a soldier in the First World War , in which he was wounded.
In 1921 he married Meta Dietze, with whom he had a child. From 1924 he was a member of the Red Front Fighter League (RFB), a paramilitary (hall protection) association of the KPD, and belonged to a band of the RFB. He died on March 13, 1925 at the age of 27, along with nine other people, when the police forcibly broke up an election rally.
When the dead were buried, tens of thousands followed their coffins, and no work was done in any of the city's major factories during the funeral.
Circumstances of death
The death of Friedrich Ebert on February 28, 1925 made a presidential election necessary. The KPD had nominated Ernst Thälmann for this and the strong workforce in Bitterfeld demonstrated for him as a candidate.
In connection with the presidential election, an election event took place on March 13, 1925 in Halle 's Volkspark , at which Thälmann wanted to present himself to his supporters. After a few foreign speakers had initially addressed words of welcome to the meeting, their speech was interrupted before it could be translated into German.
The police, led by the police officer Lieutenant Hellmuth Pietzker, entered the hall through a side entrance to dissolve the meeting. Some participants in the gathering tried to calm the crowd by contacting the lieutenant and asking him to come to the stage, but this failed. The lieutenant's instructions were not understood or followed in the general commotion.
The police then pushed the participants out of the hall with rubber truncheons . Lieutenant Pietzker and members of the security police are said to have fired more than 50 shots into the crowd. The struts of the banister broke with the crowd pushing outside.
There were 10 fatalities in total. Fritz Weineck and three other people died immediately, the others died on the way to the hospital. According to the autopsy report, Weineck died from a shot in the back at chest height.
"The little trumpeter"
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-58198-0024%2C_Halle%2C_Rive-Ufer%2C_Fritz-Weineck-Denkmal.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-58198-0024%2C_Halle%2C_Rive-Ufer%2C_Fritz-Weineck-Denkmal.jpg)
Weineck's death was used for propaganda purposes by the KPD. In 1925, the song Der kleine Trompeter was created from a repositioned soldier's song from the First World War , which was widely used in the interwar period .
Later, especially in the GDR, the song and the person were revered:
- Streets, schools and squares in the GDR were named after Fritz Weineck .
- 1958 took place in the context of the III. At the pioneer meeting, the Rive -ufer in Halle (Saale) was renamed to Weineck-Ufer . There the “Trumpeter Monument” was erected, which was used for the pioneering organization's flag roll calls . (Since 1992 the bank has been called Rives again, and a stele with a bronze portrait erected in 1998 commemorates the mayor. The Weineck statue is now in the magazine of the Museum for City History Halle )
- In 1964 the DEFA film The Song of the Trumpeter by Konrad Petzold was made .
- In 1970 a 10-pfennig postage stamp “The Little Trumpeter” was published, on which the statue from Halle was depicted.
- The "Motorized Rifle Regiment 17" of the 11th motorized rifle division of the NVA in Halle was called "Fritz Weineck".
- One of the largest holiday hotels in Oberhof was the FDGB recreation home "Fritz Weineck" , which opened in 1974, for 700 guests. The hotel was demolished in 2003.
- The paperback series The Small Trumpeter Books was published by Kinderbuchverlag Berlin . The story about Weineck was published as Volume 1 of the series.
literature
- District commission for research into the history of the local workers' movement and district party archives at the SED district management hall (ed.): From all our comrades ... The little trumpeter and his time. Hall 1967.
- Sebastian Merkel: March 13, 1925 in Halle (Saale). Police violence and the emergence of a political martyr. In: Saxony-Anhalt Memorials Foundation (Ed.): Remember! Task, opportunity, challenge. 1/2014, Magdeburg, pp. 33–47.
- Dirk Schumann: Political Violence in the Weimar Republic 1918–1933. Fight for the streets and fear of civil war. Essen 2001, p. 230 ff.
Fiction:
- Inge and Gerhard Holtz-Baumert : The little trumpeter and his friend. (The small trumpet books, vol. 1), children's book publisher, Berlin 1959.
- Otto Gotsche : Our little trumpeter. Novel. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1961 and Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1962.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Fritz August Weineck - The Little Trumpeter at http://www.harz-saale.de/
- ↑ Records of the town clerk Simone Trieder in the Halle (Saale) town archive
- ↑ Simone Trieder A palace for workers: 100 years of Volkspark Halle , Hasen-Verlag, Halle 2007, ISBN 978-3-939468-09-7 , pp. 33–39.
- ↑ Bernd Werner, Director of the Stadtmuseum Halle (Saale), expert opinion on the person and work of Fritz Weineck, 1996.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Weineck, Friedrich August |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Weineck, Fritz |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Member of the Red Front Fighter Association |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 26, 1897 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Halle (Saale) |
DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1925 |
Place of death | Halle (Saale) |