Friedrich Fellenberg (politician)

Friedrich Fellenberg (born December 6, 1904 in Kappeln , † September 28, 1979 in Leipzig ) was a German politician. He was a KPD member and from 1946 to 1952, as a member of the SED, he was a member of the state parliament of Mecklenburg . In 1954 he got into a party purge and was temporarily expelled from the SED and imprisoned.

Life

Youth and times of National Socialism

Fellenberg was born in Kappeln, Holstein, and completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter after primary school. He then worked in his profession in various jobs until 1927, as he was on the move during this time. He then worked as a construction worker and taxi driver in Hamburg until 1931. In 1919 he became a member of the SAJ, from 1923 to 1926 Fellenberg was a member of the SPD. In October 1928 he joined the KPD and became increasingly involved in the KPD driver cell Barmbek-Uhlenhorst. In 1930 he was elected organizational secretary of this cell, in 1931 he became a political instructor and member of the district leadership of the KPD in Hamburg-Barmbek-Uhlenhorst. From June to December 1932 Fellenberg was deputy chairman of the district committee of the illegal anti-fascist Aktion Wasserkante. Then he attended until February 1933 the KPD party school "Rosa Luxemburg" in Fichtenau . During the subsequent unemployment he did illegal work as head of the factory cell commission of the KPD in the Wasserkante district, which was banned by the National Socialists. Fellenberg was arrested on May 27, 1933 and was initially held in protective custody at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from June 1933 to March 1934. He was only briefly at large after his release. He was arrested again in June and sentenced to two years in prison for preparing for high treason, including 11 months in pre-trial detention. Fellenberg served his sentence in prison in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel until September 1935. He then worked as an electric welder at the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg from January 1936 until he was arrested again. In November 1939, Fellenberg was arrested again and initially imprisoned again in the Fuhlsbüttel prison. He was later taken to the Emsland camp near Papenburg. Fellenberg experienced the end of the war in the Mecklenburg prison in Dreibergen-Bützow.

post war period

After the liberation from the Bützow prison, Fellenberg initially ran a Soviet casino. Shortly afterwards, as early as June 1945, members of the Sobottka group gave him another party role. From June 1945 to October 1947 he headed the KPD as first secretary and from April 1946 the SED district leadership in the Ludwigslust district. The SED nominated Fellenberg as a member of the state parliament for the first state parliament elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in October 1946. After a successful election, he was a member of the state parliament until its dissolution in July 1952. In October 1947 the SED delegated him to one of the first one-year courses at the Karl-Marx party college. Due to the need for cadres, Fellenberg was dismissed from this course prematurely in 1948 in order to work as a full-time functionary in the secretariat of the SED state leadership in Mecklenburg. After the constitution of the provisional chamber of the GDR in October 1949, the Mecklenburg state parliament sent Fellenberg as one of its representatives to the chamber. As a result, Fellenberg also belonged to the first electoral term until he left in 1954. After the dissolution of the states of the GDR and the formation of districts, the formation of SED district leaderships with their secretariats created a corresponding need for personnel. Fellenberg was appointed 2nd secretary of the SED district leadership in Neubrandenburg. Willi Wiebershausen , who was only 35 years old, was appointed 1st secretary of the SED district leadership .

Investigative Trials and Detention

As a result of the events around June 17, 1953 , the behavior of leading SED functionaries was investigated. After the first secretary of the SED district leadership, Wiebershausen, was removed from his post for conciliatory and immoral conduct, investigations by the State Secretariat for State Security were also directed against Fellenberg. The reason was probably that the latter partially approved of Wiebershausen's behavior. In addition, the collectivization of agriculture in the strongly agricultural district of Neubrandenburg was not really making progress. As a result, Fellenberg's old case files were viewed again at the People's Court and, from February 1954, a formal investigation by the State Security was initiated. On March 3, 1954, the Central Party Control Commission of the SED expelled the party for cowardice and surrender to the class enemy and for betrayal of the party and the working class. On March 12, 1954, Fellenberg was taken to the State Security's pre-trial detention, which was usual at the time.

He was charged before the 1st criminal division of the Halle District Court for crimes against humanity under Control Council Act No. 10 . The main focus of the prosecution were statements made by Fellenberg during his imprisonment by the Gestapo in 1933 . According to the facts of the judgment, he is said to have uncovered the connections of the Hamburg KPD to Copenhagen . As a result, allegedly through Fellenberg's report, the entire illegal activity of the KPD in the Hamburg area was smashed and a large number of KPD functionaries were arrested. His report then allegedly served as evidence in subsequent convictions. In addition, according to the trial files after his release from prison in 1935, he allegedly appeared as a witness against the well-known Hamburg KPD functionary Fiete Schulze . Schulze was sentenced to death, although the death sentence had already been decided. Since the heroically revered Ernst Thälmann was associated with Hamburg in the early GDR historiography of the KPD , and with Fiete Schulze, another KPD icon allegedly died as a result of Fellenberg's actions, the process became particularly explosive and Fellenberg was considered in the Linguistic style of the time even as a Nazi criminal, for whom the death penalty had even been considered at times.

To make matters worse, after 1945, as a member of the SED, he had not informed his party of the incidents at that time. On April 29, 1955, he was finally sentenced to 15 years in prison for treason against the working class during his imprisonment with the Gestapo . The judgment became legally binding on May 17, 1955, as an appeal limited to sentencing was rejected by the GDR Supreme Court .

Just over a year later, on May 3, 1956, Fellenberg was released from the Brandenburg prison. In the light of the new general political weather situation as a result of the XX. Party congress of the CPSU proved to be no longer valid. Fellenberg was one of a number of party functionaries who were released from prison in 1956/57, into which they had come mainly as part of party purges. He did not receive any public rehabilitation. As a result, Fellenberg moved to Leipzig, where he was given a job at the Leipzig Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where he worked until he retired.

Remarks

judgment

The judgment against Fellenberg is to be regarded as a politically motivated judgment of the GDR judiciary, as it was typical for the time. The legal appraisal of the judgment says: It is not necessary to check and to prove whether the betrayal he committed had lighter or more serious consequences for the KPD functionaries whom he disclosed. Even if he mentioned officials who were already known to the Gestapo, this information was used to confirm the information already available and to collect further evidence against resistance fighters. The court indirectly admits that it has not been proven whether Fellenberg's alleged information led to the smashing of the Hamburg KPD. The short term of imprisonment of just over a year with a prison sentence of 15 years is to be regarded as an indication of the illegality of the judgment. The release itself was justified with no longer valid allegations.

Source criticism

In the 2016 book In the Name of the People. Investigations in the GDR against Nazi and war criminals of the former Stasi officers Dieter Skiba and Reiner Stenzel are listed under No. 736 also the case against Fellenberg. There it says, among other things: After 1945 Fellenberg lived in Leipzig, pretended to be an anti-fascist resistance fighter and was a functionary of the SED until his exposure.

There is no reference to his dismissal or his reasons for dismissal. Instead, the preamble to the book says: The GDR and its judicial and security organs were not free from errors and wrong decisions. And that could certainly not be ruled out in dealing with former Nazi elites and in matters of criminal prosecution for Nazi and war crimes.

Web links

• Mario Niemann :  Fellenberg, Friedrich . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

literature

• CF Rüter, L. Hekelaar Gombert, DW de Mildt: GDR justice and Nazi crimes Collection of East German criminal judgments for Nazi killing crimes, Volume III , Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-24613-7 , pp. 659–665
• Dieter Skiba, Reiner Stenzel: In the name of the people. Preliminary proceedings in the GDR against Nazi and war criminals , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-360-01850-2 , p. 391
• Mario Niemann , Andreas Herbst : SED squad: The middle level. Biographical encyclopedia of the secretaries of the state and district managements, the prime ministers and the chairmen of the district councils 1946 to 1989 . 1st edition. Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76977-0 , p. 181 f .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Skiba, Reiner Stenzel: In the name of the people. Preliminary proceedings in the GDR against Nazi and war criminals , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-360-01850-2 , p. 13