Fritz Behn (resistance fighter)
Fritz Behn (born February 17, 1904 in Benz ; † January 6, 1944 near Tallinn ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Behn spent his childhood in poor conditions on Usedom . After completing compulsory schooling in a one-class village school, he worked in Westphalia for several years and became a carpenter. In 1924 he became a member of the SPD and returned to his homeland. Disappointed with the SPD's coalition policy, he switched to the KPD in Swinoujscie in the spring of 1927 .
In autumn 1927 he and a few friends founded a local group of the KPD in his home village. Behn became a KPD speaker and appeared at many village meetings in Pomerania .
In March 1933 he was imprisoned in Swinoujscie Prison for a few weeks. Nonetheless, he continued to resist after his release.
During the Second World War he was drafted into a naval construction battalion and from the summer of 1941 deployed in the Leningrad section of the front and stationed near Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region. With other war and Nazi opponents in his unit, he secretly formed an anti-fascist soldier group, which developed into a Wehrmacht group of the National Committee Free Germany (NKFD). They were in contact with the Russian teacher Vasily Grigoryevich Titov, who led a local resistance group. He made it possible for them to hear the German-language broadcasts on Radio Moscow . The resistance group spread this news among the soldiers of the Wehrmacht in their area. Together they organized drug smuggling into besieged Leningrad . Behn also handed over plans for the military objects on the Baltic coast to Titow.
In August 1943, eight members of the NKFD group were arrested after being denounced. A court martial sentenced Fritz Behn, Karl Görs and the chief mate Franz Bammacher and had all three of them shot dead in the dunes near Tallinn on January 6, 1944. Titov and at least 40 other Soviet citizens were hanged without trial soon after their arrest.
Other well-known members of the Behn / Titow group were the German Emil Schifelbein and the Russian doctor M. Dedikowa.
Honors
In the GDR Fritz Behn was honored as an anti-fascist and resistance fighter. A memorial for Fritz Behn by the sculptor Hans Kies was erected in the village square of Benz in 1969 and a street was named after him.
literature
- Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters 1933–1945. Biographies and letters. Dietz-Verlag: Berlin 1970, Volume 1, pp. 95-97
- Gottfried Hamacher, Andre Lohmar and Harald Wittstock: Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement. A biographical lexicon. Berlin 2003, p. 20 PDF
- Michael Korsunski: Despite all this , Verlag Periodika Tallinn 1977, p. 92, DNB 790439646
Web links
- Literature about Fritz Behn in the state bibliography MV
- ЭТО БЫЛО В УСТЬ-ЛУГЕ ("It was in Ust-Luga", Russian article on Fritz Behn in the Russian education portal nsportal.ru)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Behn, Fritz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German communist and resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 17, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Benz |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 6, 1944 |
| Place of death | at Reval |