Fritz Barthelmann

Fritz Barthelmann (born January 17, 1892 in Berlin ; † January 14, 1962 there ) was a German sports official.

Life

The Berlin city councilor and trained stencil maker Fritz Barthelmann was head of Department 44 of the SPD before the National Socialists came to power and from 1919 to 1924 chairman of the Berlin Friends of Nature local group. He was also the founder of the “ Märkische Spielvereinigung ” and, since 1928, the first chairman of the “Cartel for Workers' Sports and Body Care” in Berlin. From 1930 Barthelmann worked as an administrative employee and in the welfare office in the Prenzlauer Berg district , but in 1933 he was dismissed under the " Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service ". At that time he lived on Skalitzer Strasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In May 1933 Barthelmann was imprisoned for a short time and was deported to the Sonnenburg concentration camp . After his release, Fritz Barthelmann was under police supervision for two years. His relationship with the left-wing socialist group " Red Shock Troop ", which was mainly composed of members of the SPD and the Reich Banner, remains unclear. After his release, the persecuted only met privately. B. to hikes or boat trips. The convicted "shock troop" supporters Friedrich Schlueter and Franz Meyer spoke occasionally with Fritz Barthelmann, who, however, behaved very carefully as a result of his arrest.

Despite the pressure of the Nazi system, he also stayed in contact with like-minded Social Democrats . He took part in his wife's business because he was unable to find work as a politically persecuted social democrat. The Barthelmann couple's shop developed into a point of contact for those who were politically and racially persecuted, as this was where they secretly received food. Fritz Barthelmann also approved the political orientation of the daughter Lore towards the communist youth and her contact with the resistance group around Gerhard Sredzki . In addition, the shop was used several times for illegal meetings and served Gerhard Sredzki as a hiding place from June 1944 to February 1945. Fritz Barthelmann gave his express consent to this.

After the Second World War , a sports committee of the Berlin city council was constituted in February 1947 , chaired by Fritz Barthelmann. After the Second World War he was one of the re-founders of the SPD in Berlin-Pankow . From May 1945 to September 1946 he was district councilor for economics and deputy district chairman of the SPD. After the ballot for the formation of the unity party in the district office in Pankow was rejected, the 2nd district mayor Kurt Schmidt and Fritz Barthelmann lost their offices on the instructions of the SMAD . Later the Soviets also banned them from working. Barthelmann evidently took a distance from the attempts at admission by Naturefriends. Like Fritz Wildung , at this point he spoke out in favor of the formation of large clubs and mocked the so-called "dwarf clubs" as they existed before 1933. Barthelmann became an important opponent of the SED-controlled sports policy in Berlin.

literature

• Oliver Kersten: The Friends of Nature movement in the Berlin-Brandenburg region 1908–1989 / 90. Continuities and breaks. Dissertation. Free University of Berlin 2004. Leisure and hiking, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-925311-31-4 , p. 292f.
• Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-274-4 [short biography of Fritz Barthelmann on p. 385f.].
• Werner Breunig, Siegfried Heimann , Andreas Herbst : Biographical Handbook of Berlin City Councilors and Members of Parliament 1946–1963 (=  series of publications by the Berlin State Archives . Volume 14 ). Landesarchiv Berlin , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9803303-4-3 , p. 63 (331 pages).
• Active Museum Association : In Front of the Door - Berlin City Councilors and Magistrate Members Persecuted During National Socialism 1933–1945 , Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-018931-9 , p. 148 f.