Fritz Solmitz

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Fritz Solmitz (1929)

Fritz Solmitz (born October 22, 1893 in Berlin , † September 19, 1933 in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp , Hamburg ) was a social democratic politician, lawyer and journalist.

Life

Commemorative plaque in the Lübeck town hall for the members of the citizenry who were victims of National Socialism

Coming from a wealthy assimilated Jewish family in Berlin, Solmitz worked briefly in agriculture after graduating from high school and in 1913 began studying law, economics and political science in Freiburg / Breisgau, which was interrupted by his participation in the First World War from 1915 to 1918 . After the end of the war, Solmitz, who had joined the SPD and left the Jewish community, resumed his studies in Berlin, worked as a trainee lawyer and judge and received his doctorate in 1921. He then worked for three years as a department head for public welfare in the city administration of Berlin.

In 1924 Solmitz moved to Lübeck , where he worked as editor of the local social democratic daily newspaper Lübecker Volksbote and was elected to the citizenship in 1926 , to which he belonged until 1932. In addition, he took over functions with the Young Socialists . One focus was the organization of educational work. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Lübeck workers' cultural cartel . As the political editor of the Lübecker Volksbote , whose editor-in-chief was Julius Leber until 1933 , he worked with the young Willy Brandt . Under his maiden name Herbert Frahm, he wrote his first articles for the newspaper as a schoolboy and, under Solmitz's guidance, learned to edit third-party articles.

After the NSDAP came to power and the Reichstag fire , Solmitz was captured in March 1933. A sign saying “Jew” was hung around his neck and he was carted around town. Solmitz was initially imprisoned in Lübeck-Lauerhof prison and from May 1933 in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp . His wife Karoline Solmitz obtained his release; but this promise was withheld from Solmitz. Solmitz had been badly mistreated in solitary confinement. After he had been threatened with further beatings by SS guards under Willi Dusenschön , he was found hanged in his cell on September 19, 1933, three days after the scheduled date of his release from prison. The National Socialist authorities gave the wife suicide as the cause of death. It is unclear whether Solmitz was driven to suicide or murdered by his guards.

In the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, Solmitz wrote letters on cigarette paper in which he described the abuse he had suffered. He hid the notes in his pocket watch that was given to his wife Karoline. These reports were brought abroad by the social democratic resistance group around Walter Schmedemann and are one of the earliest documents that authentically represent the conditions in German concentration camps :

Pocket watch from Solmitz (original) and notes (replica)
... I only have the choice to tremble with every key rattle in front of the door or to grab the rope ...
Was the word: 'Better dead than a slave' just a phrase? Now you will understand me, beloved woman.
September 18: I'm still alive. Courage or cowardice? Above all, the horror of d. Type of death: "Hanged convict" u. before d. Bury. Because m. Corpse would definitely not be released now. In addition, the back looks [too] horrible. [...]
Monday, September 18th in the evening: Today there was tea. Just as I sip it E. comes with 5 people from SS u. Naval storm to make me mockingly friendly after a few Questions to announce that I will be beaten again tomorrow. 'The pear is whole again.' A very tall SS man stands on my toes and yells: 'With me you bend over! Hey Say yes you pig. ' Another: 'Hang yourself up! Then you won't get a beating. ' There is no doubt about the seriousness of the threat. Lord God! What should I do? [...] Farewell forever. 

In the trial against the leader of the security team Willi Dusenschön these records were available as evidence. Dusenschön was acquitted by the Hamburg Regional Court in 1960 on charges of murdering Solmitz for “lack of evidence”.

Solmitz's widow emigrated to the USA with their four children in 1938.

Solmitz in the novel "The Trial"

The communist writer and temporary inmate of Solmitz in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, Willi Bredel , took over parts of his reports from the concentration camp for his novel The Examination , published in London in 1934 , in which the Lübeck editor named Dr. Fritz Koltwitz wears. He made Koltwitz doubt the Social Democracy because of the betrayal by his own comrades: He, the Social Democrat, the political editor of the party newspaper, was arrested by a party member, Police President Mehrlein, and handed over to the Nazis. And why? Why? Only because he was against bringing the newspaper into line. Only because he was too left, too oppositional. Also because he's a Jew. Enjoyed? Nice comrades!

Bredel contrasts him with the indomitable Heinrich Torstens, by whom the communist member of the Reichstag Matthias Thesen is meant. Koltwitz thinks about suicide after the abuse and further expected further abuse: Would n't he rather twist a rope out of the rope? Shouldn't he rather break up? Won't they beat him until he ends up doing it? When Torstens found out about Koltwitz's death in solitary confinement, he realized for himself: So they managed it after all. Zirbes and Meisel have achieved what they set out to do. Koltwitz hanged himself ... .

In his preliminary remarks from 1946 to his novel, Bredel wrote of Solmitz's so-called suicide in connection with Solmitz, whom he described as a “social democrat with a decent character” . In the 1960 closing note to the novel, Bredel wrote: One morning Dr. Solmitz found hanged in his cell. At first it was said that he had put a hand to himself (I also said it in my novel “The Exam”), but it turned out that the SA murderers had beaten him to death and - to pretend suicide - had hung the body . '.

Honors

In Hamburg-Langenhorn , the Fritz-Solmitz-Weg is named after him.

In Lübeck, the bypass road in Kücknitz divided the old Travemünder Allee , on which it is partially located, into two remaining parts. The branch of the road that does not belong to the B75 in the direction of the Trave was renamed Solmitzstraße .

literature

  • Fritz Solmitz . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Volume 1: Deceased Personalities. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH, Hanover 1960, pp. 294-295.
  • Christian Jürgens / Uwe Danker: Fritz Solmitz. Local politician, journalist, resistance fighter and victims of Nazi persecution from Lübeck . Lübeck 1996.
  • Social Democratic Party of Germany (ed.): Committed to freedom. Memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century . Marburg 2000, p. 311.

Web links

Commons : Fritz Solmitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dialectics and materialism in Marx: a contribution to the method of Marx's social philosophy , University of Freiburg i. Br. , Dissertation , 1921 (typewriter)
  2. ↑ Martin Wein : Willy Brandt - The Becoming of a Statesman , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7466-1992-0 , page 83. The exact time is open; it is then a period between February 6 and March 23, 1933, when Julius Leber was arrested for the second time.
  3. ^ Christian Juergens / Uwe Danker: Fritz Solmitz. Local politician, journalist, resistance fighter and victims of Nazi persecution from Lübeck . Lübeck 1996, p. 63.
  4. ↑ Excerpt from: "Kola-Fu" - Concentration Camp and Gestapo Prison Hamburg - Fuhlsbüttel 1933-1945. - Hamburg portrait issue 18/83 of the Museum of Hamburg History, p. 6 (unpaginated)
  5. ↑ Keeping the memory of the father alive . In: Lübecker Nachrichten of March 31, 2015, p. 11
  6. ↑ Eva Kuníková: Life in a concentration camp reflected in the novel The testing of Willi Bredel ( MS Word , 137 kB)
  7. ↑ Willi Bredel: The test , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1968, page 90
  8. ↑ Willi Bredel: Dieprüfung , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1968, page 91
  9. ↑ Willi Bredel: Dieprüfung , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1968, page 167
  10. ^ Willi Bredel: Dieprüfung , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1968, preliminary remark, page 6
  11. ↑ Willi Bredel: Dieprüfung , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1968, concluding remark, page 345
personal data
SURNAME Solmitz, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION social democratic politician, lawyer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1933
Place of death Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp