Fritz Michaelis

Fritz Michaelis (born January 4, 1897 in Weißensee near Berlin; † unknown) was a resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

After attending elementary school, Michaelis worked from 1910 to 1913 as an office messenger in the Reich Patent Office . This was followed by employment as an unskilled worker in the Reichsdruckerei (1913–1915), as a helper at the Reichspost and then as an unskilled worker in the "Sittenfeld printing house". On May 1, 1917, he was called up for military service. He served as a soldier until November 1918. The experiences he made seem to have politicized him to such an extent that he joined the SPD in 1918 after leaving the army .

On September 12, 1921 Michaelis began his service with the police and joined the "Prussian Police Officer Association" founded in the same year. This union organization for state police officers joined in February 1923 with the “Association of Prussian Police Officers” to form the “Association of Prussian Polizeibeamten e. V. “together. Ernst Schrader took over the chairmanship , which is why this association also became known as the "Schrader Association". In 1925, internal quarrels led to a dissatisfied group of more “left” members, led by Betnareck, splitting off and founding the “General Prussian Police Officer Association” - also known as the Betnareck Association after its chairman. Fritz Michaelis was also one of the officials who switched to the new association.

On November 19, 1932, he resigned as a police sergeant and worked until August 31, 1933 as a city assistant for the Magistrate of Greater Berlin. He then worked temporarily as a controller of the Spandauer Wachgesellschaft on the Berlin exhibition grounds.

resistance

After the National Socialists came to power , Fritz Michaelis was illegally active in the resistance. He distributed pamphlets and other materials from the SPD and KPD , which was a peculiarity since the majority of the resistance activists only worked for one of the two parties. He was also involved in at least two resistance groups.

On the one hand, he belonged to the group of former members of the SPD and Reichsbanner around the Berlin railway unionist Albert Schmidt. Among other things, he held conspiratorial meetings in his gazebo in the "Roseneck" colony and was part of the resistance network around the former EdED board member Hans Jahn .

On the other hand, Michaelis was active in the resistance group “ Deutsche Volksfront ” and acted under the code name “Alexander” as a liaison to Sopade , the Prague exile executive committee of the SPD. The first meeting there, in November 1934, was followed by (at least) three more in May, August and November 1936. In the spring of 1937, he and Anton Ackermann , Karl Siegle , Hans Seidel and Otto Brass attended a meeting with the Sopade party executive in Prague to report on the illegal resistance in Germany and to work for cooperation with the communists. At the conference that followed, the next steps were discussed with numerous other Social Democrats and Communists present, although there were differences between Michaelis, Brass and other members of the group.

Fritz Michaelis, who also took part in a trip to the USSR through his connections to the KPD, was later suspected by Otto Brass, among others, of having acted as an informant for the Nazis. The fact that Michaelis was imprisoned for a long time should prove that there wasn't too much truth in it. However, he was most likely active as a representative of the communists in the SPD.

On October 10, 1938, Fritz Michaelis was arrested by the Gestapo ; was in custody from December 9, 1938 in the judicial prison in Berlin-Charlottenburg. On May 31, 1939, Fritz Michaelis and others were charged with “preparing for high treason” before the People's Court . In addition to Hans Seidel and Karl Siegle , the judges sentenced Michaelis to five years in prison on September 29, 1939 - the highest sentence of the trial. After serving his term in prison in Brandenburg-Görden , Coswig and Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel , the Nazis deported him to the Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen concentration camps , where he was liberated in April 1945.

Post war fate

After the end of the Second World War and his liberation from the concentration camp, Fritz Michaelis returned to Berlin. Here he was arrested in February 1949 under hitherto unexplained circumstances and abducted by the Russians. His further fate is still unclear today.

literature

• Hans-Joachim Fieber, Lothar Berthold, Michele Barricelli (eds.): Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Volume 5, Trafo Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89626-355-2 , p. 203.
• Hanno Bruchmann: Fritz Michaelis (1897–?). In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (eds.) With the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Trade unionists in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographical Handbook, Volume 4 (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 6). Metropol, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-148-3 , pp. 133-146.
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: Resistance in Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg. (= Resistance 1933-1945. Volume 11). Berlin 1998, DNB 968755127 .
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The "other" capital of the Reich. Resistance from the labor movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-94-1 .

Web links

• Björn Lampe: Siegle, Karl (1881–1947) . Short biography on the website of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation (The political prisoners of the Oranienburg concentration camp).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Achim Wagenknecht: Professional associations of the police in Germany 1882 to 1935
2. ↑ Police Union (Ed.): The "Association of Prussian Police Officers" or "Schrader Association" - from founding to breaking up.
3. ↑ Ulrich Peters: Whoever loses hope has lost everything. Communist resistance in Buchenwald . PapyRossa, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89438-274-0 , p. 460.
4. ↑ Klaus Mammach: The KPD and the German anti-fascist resistance movement: 1933–1939 . Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, DNB 750043113 , p. 210 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: Resistance in Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg (= resistance 1933–1945. Volume 11). Berlin 1998, p. 65.
6. ↑ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The "other" capital of the Reich. Resistance from the labor movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 116.