Fritz Sauer

This article deals with the party official Fritz Sauer. For the German artistic gymnast, see Fritz Sauer (Turner) . For other people see Friedrich Sauer .

Fritz Sauer (born August 23, 1904 in Zellerfeld , † May 28, 1938 in Butowo ) was a German communist who was a victim of the Stalin purges .

Life

Sauer studied economics at the Frankfurt Commercial College, then at the Freiburg University. In the communist student movement he became a member of the Reich leadership of the Kostufra . In 1926 he made his diploma, in 1929 he did his doctorate in Frankfurt with the dissertation "The nature, functions and development tendencies of social policy and the position of social democracy on social policy until 1914". He became a member of the KJVD and joined the KPD in 1927 . As a publicist, Sauer is also said to have belonged to the party's intelligence service (AM apparatus) in 1929.

In 1930 he went to the USSR, where he worked for the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (MELI). In March 1931, its leader, Dawid Ryazanov , was arrested in the course of party purges and Sauer was temporarily transferred to the Comintern . In the CPSU since 1931 , he was reprimanded there in 1933 for a “conciliatory attitude” and then expelled. In September 1936 he was released from the MELI and immediately arrested by the NKVD .

Fritz Sauer was shot dead in Butowo on May 28, 1938 as a victim of the German operation of the NKVD . His wife Irma (1907–1974) and their son Ernst (1934–1988) were deported to Novosibirsk and stayed there until their death. Ernst founded a family that is now living in Germany again. Fritz 'sister Anni Sauer (1906–1989) was released in 1955 and went to the GDR, where she became known as a dance teacher.

literature

• Fritz Sauer In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .