Fritz Opel (trade unionist)

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Caspar Fritz Magnus Opel (born August 26, 1912 in Hindenburg , † 1973 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German political activist , editor , publisher and trade unionist .

After completing his high school diploma at the humanistic grammar school in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Opel studied law and economics in Berlin from 1930 to 1933 , which he “had to abandon due to racial persecution” at the beginning of the National Socialist era . He lived in Berlin-Zehlendorf and was before the seizure of power by the National Socialists the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) and initially worked illegally as an activist. Because of his participation in the communist student resistance he was convicted and because of his political convictions he sat in Nazi custody in the Brandenburg-Görden prison from 1934 to 1937 and then emigrated, first to France and in 1941 to the USA.

In the post-war period, Opel was initially a member of the KPD and then active in the workers' policy group that emerged from the KPO . In 1949, Opel co-founded the “Thomas Münzer Briefe” with Fritz Lamm , which was published from 1950 to 1959 under the title Sparks. Debate books for international socialist politics published. In the early 1950s he joined the SPD . From this time on he was an advisor to Otto Brenner , the chairman of IG Metall . In the early 1960s he worked alongside Georg Benz , Heinz Dürbeck , Jakob Moneta and Hans Matthöfer in the support group of the Socialist German Student Union and, along with Viktor Agartz, was “one of those who have particularly shaped the SDS left at federal seminars and through their lectures ".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Full first name after: Karljo Kreter: Socialists in the Adenauer period: the magazine "Funken": from the homeless left to the inner-party opposition in the SPD , VSA-Verlag, 1986, S-200
  2. ↑ Hermann Weber , Gerda Weber: Life according to the "left principle": memories from five decades . Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, S, 194
  3. ↑ Short biography in: Friedrich-Martin Balzer , Hans Manfred Bock , Uli Schöler: Wolfgang Abendroth: scientific politician: bio-bibliographical contributions , Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2001, p. 293
  4. ^ Note in the socialism archive
  5. ↑ Jürgen Stroech: The underground press. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1979, p. 248
  6. ↑ See Michael Grüttner : Students in the Third Reich , Schöningh, Paderborn 1995, p. 449 ff.
  7. ↑ Walter Uhlmann : Die to live: political prisoners in the Brandenburg-Görden prison, 1933-1945 . Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1983
  8. ↑ Helga Grebing , Christl Wickert : The 'other Germany' in the resistance against National Socialism . Essen: Klartext, 1994
  9. ↑ SDS and New Left
  10. ^ Tilman Fichter SDS and SPD: Partiality beyond the party . Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988
personal data
SURNAME Opel, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Opel, Caspar Fritz Magnus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political activist, editor, publisher and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Hindenburg
DATE OF DEATH 1973
Place of death Frankfurt am Main