Friedrich Schmidt (politician, 1880)

Friedrich Schmidt (born March 18, 1880 in Heven , † January 11, 1950 in Landau in the Palatinate ) was a German trade unionist , politician ( SPD ) and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Life and work

After attending primary school, Schmidt worked as a miner in the Ruhr area from 1897 to 1908 . He was involved in the SPD from 1898 and soon afterwards in a union. From 1908 to 1914 he was union secretary and from 1912 to 1914 district manager of the free trade union association of miners (Miners' Association, BAV) for the Saar region and Alsace-Lorraine . From 1906 to 1911 Schmidt was also a councilor in Laer. From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War as a soldier .

Schmidt had been district manager in the German Railway Workers' Association (DEV) / Union of Railway Workers in Germany (EdED) from January 1919 . First he took over this function for the DEV district of Essen-Ruhr from 1919 to October 1921. From November 1921 to June 1930 Schmidt was EdED district manager in Stuttgart . From July 1930 to January 1933 he was district manager of the EdED in Frankfurt an der Oder and from the end of January to May 1933 he worked in the same position in Erfurt .

After the National Socialists came to power, he was released. Schmidt was involved in the southern German EdED resistance group around Karl Molt and Fridolin Endraß against the Nazi regime. In 1933 and 1938 he was briefly taken into " protective custody ". In 1939 he was suspected of being in illegal trade union circles. He was charged by the People's Court , but was acquitted on November 25, 1939 for lack of evidence. From 1934 to 1945 he worked most of the time as a district inspector for an insurance company.

Membership activities and time after 1945

Schmidt was a member of the Advisory State Assembly of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate for the SPD in 1946/47 and was then elected to the Rhineland-Palatinate Landtag , to which he belonged until his death. He also worked temporarily for the employment office in Landau in the Palatinate.

literature

Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution - resistance - emigration (1933–1945) . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1 , pp. 230 ff., 243, 653-654 (short biography).