Fritz Schmenkel

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Fritz Schmenkel (born February 14, 1916 in Warsow , Randow district ; † February 22, 1944 in Minsk ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , who fought alongside Belarusian partisans during the Second World War and was later executed.

Fritz Schmenkel

Life

Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel was born in 1916 as the son of brickworker Paul Krause in Warsow in the Randow district (today Szczecin- Warszewo Poland ). His father was a staunch opponent of the National Socialist ideology ; he was killed in a violent confrontation with members of the SA in 1932 . Schmenkel grew up mainly with his paternal grandmother, who initially shaped him. After the violent death of his father, most of his livelihood rested on Schmenkel's shoulders, so that he first worked as a farm worker and later as a coachman on the Kückenmühl estate in Warsow. In October 1936, at the age of 20, he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service in Bytom. There he met his future wife Erna Schäfer, whom he married in 1937. From this marriage there were two daughters and one son. At the beginning of 1938 the young couple moved to Gühlichen in Silesia , where Schmenkel's in-laws lived. Since Schmenkel's father-in-law was a member of the SA, political disputes within the family did not fail to appear.

In December 1938 Schmenkel was drafted into the Wehrmacht , where he received training as a gunner . He hated service in uniform and his lack of discipline earned him several arrest sentences. After repeated unauthorized removal from the troops, most recently in October 1939, Schmenkel was arrested and sentenced by a court martial in 1940 to 18 months' imprisonment, which he served in the Wehrmacht prison in Torgau and in the Cobnik camp . In July 1941, shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Schmenkel volunteered for the Eastern Front, apparently with the intention of overflowing during a front-line deployment. In November 1941, just a few weeks after his transfer to the front as a member of the 1st Artillery Regiment of the 186th Infantry Division, he deserted and fled to the forests of Smolensk . From there he managed to contact a partisan unit . After an initial mistrust, long interrogations and an oath that was ultimately given ("I, a citizen of Germany and the son of a communist, swear that I will not put down my weapon until the Russian earth and my fatherland have been freed from fascist rubbish." ) he began to take part regularly in partisan operations from February 1942, primarily as a reconnaissance officer. Initially he did not have his own weapon and was accompanied by Soviet guards. The partisans only trusted him when he snatched the weapon from one of them after he was wounded and used it to uncover an ambush that was revealed to him by shooting German soldiers, thus enabling the partisans to win. Schmenkel also repeatedly used his German uniform to enable attacks on German posts or to take individual vehicles and their occupants by surprise.

In the spring of 1943 he received the Order of the Red Banner from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for his active partisan activities . Schmenkel was prepared for operations in the rear of the enemy. After crossing the front lines as a scout at the end of December 1943, he was ambushed and arrested because, despite his Soviet uniform, he was conspicuous because of his broken Russian. On February 15, 1944, he was sentenced to death by a German court martial in Minsk and executed a week later on February 22, 1944 by firing squad .

After the war, Schmenkel's family settled in Plauen, Saxony, where his wife worked in a Plauen cotton mill. Schmenkel's son Hans worked in the Ministry of State Security after his military service .

Posthumous honors

Memorial plaque for Fritz Schmenkel in Minsk

After Fritz Schmenkel had posthumously received the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1964, a large number of streets, schools and other institutions in the GDR were named after him. Also the Jagdfliegergeschwader one of the NVA bore his name until its dissolution in 1990th In 1977 DEFA produced the film I want to see you about the silent heroism of the anti-fascist Schmenkel.

After the fall of the Wall, the name Fritz Schmenkel disappeared in many places. For example, Fritz-Schmenkel-Straße in Berlin-Karlshorst was renamed Rheinsteinstraße. The building of today's German-Russian Museum , where the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht was signed in May 1945, is located on this street .

On the building of the company vocational school of RAW Franz Stenzer in Berlin-Friedrichshain there was a memorial plaque under a portrait relief plaque with the following inscription: "Fritz Schmenkel, geb. on February 16, 1916, a life of communist and patriot. Murdered by the fascists on February 22nd, 1944. “The basic organization of the Society for Sport and Technology (GST) of this school bore the honorary name Fritz Schmenkel , as the writing on a large plastered area next to the entrance announced.

media

  • Film 1977, I want to see you (with Walter Plathe as Fritz Schmenkel)

literature

  • Wolfgang Neuhaus: Fight against "star run". The way of the German partisan Fritz Schmenkel . 4th edition. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1980.
  • Hermann-Ernst Schauer : Stay upright, my son. An autobiographical story (=  series of autobiographies . Volume 23 ). Trafo, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89626-276-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hans Maur : Memorials of the labor movement in Berlin-Friedrichshain , ed. by the district leadership of the SED, district commission for researching the history of the local labor movement in cooperation with the district commission for researching the history of the local labor movement at the district leadership Berlin-Friedrichshain of the SED, 1981, p. 116 ff.
  2. ↑ a b Neues Deutschland from October 11, 1964 p. 5
  3. ^ Fritz-Schmenkel-Strasse . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
personal data
SURNAME Schmenkel, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsow , Randow district
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1944
Place of death Minsk , Belarusian SSR