Fritz Kahmann

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Fritz Kahmann (born March 13, 1896 in Girschunen ( East Prussia ), † May 17, 1978 in Schwerin ) was a German politician (KPD, SED).

Life

Life in the Empire and the Weimar Republic (1896 to 1933)

Kahmann was the son of a railroad worker and attended elementary school from 1902 to 1910 . He experienced the First World War as a member of the Navy . He then worked as a farmer.

In 1923 Kahmann joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). From 1927 he was a member of the KPD district leadership in East Prussia. From 1925 to 1929 he was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of East Prussia . From 1928 to 1932 Kahmann was a member of the Prussian state parliament . He was also a functionary in the Communist Farmers' Union.

In the Reichstag elections of November 1932 , Kahmann entered the parliament of the Weimar Republic as the KPD's Reich election proposal . His mandate was confirmed in the elections of March 1933, but Kahmann was no longer able to exercise it due to the Nazi persecution of communists that began at that time. On March 30, 1933, Kahmann's seat in the Reichstag, like the seats in the Reichstag for all other communist members, was revoked.

National Socialism and Emigration (1933 to 1945)

In 1933 Kahmann worked illegally in Germany for the now banned KPD for a few months. He was arrested and, after his release in October 1933, emigrated to the Soviet Union, where he lived until 1937.

From 1937 to 1939 he took part in the Spanish Civil War as an infantryman on the side of the International Brigades . At times he was political commissioner of the XI as Willi Berger . Brigade . From 1939 to 1943, Kahmann was interned in the Saint-Cyprien , Argelès-sur-Mer , Gurs and Le Vernet camps in southern France. Kahmann was liberated from the El Djelfa camp in the Sahara Atlas in Algeria in 1943 by Allied troops . In November 1943 he was able to travel to the Soviet Union with about 60 other internees there. Kahmann had been a Soviet citizen since early 1941. From May 1944 he was a teacher at the Antifa school in the prisoner of war camp in Gorky .

Even during his internment, Kahmann temporarily used the pseudonym Will Berger.

SBZ and German Democratic Republic (1945 to 1978)

In May 1945 Kahmann returned to Germany with the Sobottka group . From June 1945 to 1946 he was a member of the leadership of the KPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Since 1946, after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , Kahmann belonged to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

From 1945 to 1952 he was Ministerial Director (Department of Agriculture and Forestry) in the Ministry of Agriculture of the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In this capacity, as a member of the Land Reform Commission, he was involved, among other things, in the implementation of the socialist land reform in the Soviet Occupation Zone ( SBZ ). From 1949 Kahmann was head of the main department for the collection and purchase of agricultural products at the Prime Minister and the Ministry for Trade and Supply in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He then worked until 1965 as the main department head for agriculture and main consultant in the LPG sub-department of the agriculture department at the Schwerin District Council.

Fritz Kahmann was awarded the Silver Patriotic Order of Merit in 1961 and the Karl Marx Order in 1971.

Kahmann's estate is now stored in the Schwerin state archive. It has a size of 0.75 running meters of shelf and includes materials from the years 1918 to 1978. In terms of content, it contains personal documents, cadre records, certificates of awards, memoirs, records of Kahmann's work as a KPD functionary, press articles and other things related to history the XI. International Brigade in Spain. Furthermore, sketches, assessments, photocopies about the anti-fascist struggle in the Vernet concentration camp, correspondence. There is also a collection of material from the estate from his work as a teacher in camp 165 Taliza near Gorki / 1. Central anti-fasc school for prisoners of war and as a ministerial director at the state government (newspaper clippings collection, photo documents). In addition, cadre records of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime from the property of his wife Ida Kahmann are kept in Kahmann's estate.

Fonts

  • What I saw as a smallholder in the Soviet Union , Berlin 1928.
  • Madrid held out for 29 months. A Spanish fighter tells of the heroic struggle on the side of the Spanish people. In: SVE No. 18.
  • Memories , Halberstadt 1980 (unclear whether it actually got into print or distribution)

literature

  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online [accessed January 2, 2012]).
  • Gottfried Hamacher. With the assistance of André Lohmar: Against Hitler - Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement: short biographies . Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin. Volume 53. ISBN 3-320-02941-X ( PDF )
  • Norbert Korfmacher: Provisional list of members of the East Prussian Provincial Parliament 1919 to 1933, 2018, p. 29, digitized .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation 1933-1945. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-5162-9 , p. 317f.
  2. ^ Sibylle Hinze: Antifascists in Camp Le Vernet , 1988, p. 333.
  3. ↑ Werner Müller / Andreas Röpcke: The state government in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania under Soviet occupation , 2003, p. 68.
  4. ^ New Germany , October 6, 1961, p. 3
  5. ↑ Neues Deutschland, April 28, 1971, p. 5
  6. ↑ German Academy of Sciences in Berlin Institute for History: Yearbook for History , 1982, p. 388, gives the book dates mentioned here. However, the volume cannot be found in any catalog.
personal data
SURNAME Kahmann, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD, SED), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Girschuns
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1978
Place of death Schwerin