Friedrich Wetzel (politician)

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Friedrich Wetzel (born January 10, 1903 in Hohensalza ; † after 1945) was a German KPD functionary and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Wetzel learned the trade of precision mechanic in Stettin . Then he went on a journey . In 1926 he joined the KPD. After his return to Stettin in 1927 he worked for the AM apparatus of the KPD district leadership in Pomerania . From 1931 to September 1932 he was in charge of the local AM apparatus. In 1932 he was a student at the M School of the Comintern near Moscow . After his return from the Soviet Union , he became head of the KPD district leadership in Pomerania in Stettin.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he played a key role in the reorganization of the KPD in Pomerania in the spring. On July 13, 1933, forty communists in Stettin, including the head of the illegal Pomeranian district party organization, Hermann Matern , his close colleague Wetzel and the editor Franz Braun, were taken into “ protective custody ”. Those arrested were badly mistreated, Braun murdered. Wetzel and Matern were charged with " high treason " before the People's Court , the hearing was scheduled for October 2nd.

On the night of September 17-18, however, Wetzel managed to escape from the prison in Altdamm near Stettin together with Hermann Matern , Bruno Retzlaff-Kresse and Erwin Tomkewitz . After three weeks of illegal stay in Stettin and the surrounding area, Matern, Retzlaff-Kresse and Wetzel - Tomkewitz had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo again through a carelessness - were able to leave Stettin.

Wetzel fled to Czechoslovakia and later to Great Britain . He lived in southern England after 1945 and did not return to Germany.

literature

  • Robert Thévoz et al. (Ed.): Pommern 1934/35 in the mirror of Gestapo situation reports and factual files (representation) . Grote, Cologne / Berlin 1974, passim; especially p. 95ff. and 308.
  • Kyra T. Inachin , State Center for Political Education Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Ed.): From self-assertion to resistance. Mecklenburg and Pomerania against National Socialism 1933 to 1945 . Scheunen-Verlag, Kückenshagen 2005, ISBN 3-934301-97-5 , pp. 117f.
  • Hans-Gerd Warmann: On September 18, 1934: Dramatic escape from the Altdamm court prison. Four communists broke out. High reward for arrest. Hermann Matern, Friedrich Wetzel and Bruno Retzlaff escaped the Nazis . In: Stettiner Bürgerbrief , Vol. 30 (2004), pp. 44–53.
  • Wetzel, Friedrich . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lya Rothe, Erich Woitinas: Hermann Matern. From his life and work . Dietz, Berlin 1981, p. 55.
personal data
SURNAME Wetzel, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD functionary and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohensalza
DATE OF DEATH after 1945