Fritz Sperling (politician)

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Fritz Sperling (born October 11, 1911 in Algringen ; † April 21, 1958 ) was a German politician ( KPD ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism . He became a victim of internal party purges in the GDR .

Life

Born in 1911 in Algringen (Lorraine), Sperling grew up as the son of a miner in the Ruhr area . After graduating from elementary school in Duisburg, he learned the profession of accountant. Initially active in the social democratic working-class youth, he joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) in 1931 and the KPD in 1932. After the National Socialists came to power , Sperling was arrested on March 2, 1933 and taken into protective custody for several months . After his release, he continued his activities against the Nazi dictatorship , some of them from other European countries. In 1935 he went to Moscow with his girlfriend at the time, Elvira Nieper , to study for the Communist International at the Lenin School . He left his son Ernst, born in 1937, after his training in a children's home in Iwanowo and emigrated to Switzerland . There he continued his work for the KPD and among other things brought leaflets to southern Germany.

He participated in the founding of the " Movement Free Germany ". As a result of investigations against Jakob Hug and Susanne Schüle, the Swiss investigators also became aware of Fritz Sperling. In 1941 he was arrested and interned for "continued communist activity and propaganda". He remained in solitary confinement until the spring of 1943. The planned deportation to Germany was not implemented due to the death penalty that threatened him there . Instead, Sperling had to work in the special camp for left-wing extremists in Gordola (Ticino).

Shortly after the German defeat in the war , in July 1945, Sperling returned to Germany and became the KPD state chairman in Bavaria . At the 15th KPD party conference in April 1946, Sperling delegated eleven other top functionaries (including Kurt Müller , Walter Fisch , Max Reimann and Albert Buchmann ) to the SED party executive . He - like the other eleven - had to resign on the orders of the Western occupying powers, however, as the SED was not allowed in the West. In 1947 he married Lydia Hug, whom he had met in exile in Switzerland. With the formation of the KPD party executive in April 1948, he became one of the five members of the secretariat. As such, he initially welcomed the internal party purges controlled from Moscow in the wake of the Noel Field affair . After Kurt Müller's arrest , he succeeded him as deputy KPD chairman in 1950. As a result of health problems suffered while in internment camps, Sperling was to be treated in the government hospital of the GDR at the invitation of the SED . In Berlin at the beginning of February 1951 he was removed from his position on the party executive committee on behalf of the SED, arrested on February 26 and taken to the State Security Prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . The reason for his arrest was his attitude in exile in Switzerland . A proper arrest warrant was not issued until April 17, 1953. In Hohenschönhausen, Sperling was interrogated day and night by both the KGB and the MfS and was forced to make a false confession using torture methods .

“I was hit with fists, I was hit with a square steel ruler. During an interrogation, I was seated at the table. The chief of the Soviet interrogator brigade, who was sitting next to me, hit my heart with the palm of his hand at short intervals, even though he knew that I had two heart attacks. This ordeal lasted about two hours. That same night I was kicked in the shins, hit my head with my fists, and my hair was pulled out. My glasses were smashed during another interrogation that was conducted without a witness. The platinum frame of the glasses was stolen. "

- Fritz Sperling

He was then transferred to the Stasi prison in Berlin-Lichtenberg. After two and a half years of pre-trial detention, he was sentenced to seven years in prison on March 18, 1954 by the GDR Supreme Court as a "war criminal, fascist and agent" for "crimes against peace". He served this from May 1954 in the Brandenburg prison .

Immediately after the XX. At the CPSU party congress in the spring of 1956, Sperling was pardoned on March 8, 1956, but not rehabilitated and was not allowed to leave the GDR. In letters to the SED leadership, he unsuccessfully demanded his rehabilitation and the punishment of those responsible for his treatment. The KPD classified the allegations made against him as inaccurate, but did not publish them. He was only rehabilitated in 1990 by the PDS party executive.

Sperling's and his wife's grave

Two years after his release, Fritz Sperling died at the age of 46 as a result of his imprisonment. He was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg in the Memorial of the Socialists in the Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dietrich Staritz : Communist Party of Germany. In: Richard Stöss (Ed.): Party Handbook. Westdeutscher Verlag , Opladen 1986, DNB 860847853 , p. 1672.
  2. ↑ Quoted from: Hubertus Knabe : The perpetrators are among us. About the glossing over of the SED dictatorship. Berlin 2009, p. 294
  3. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke : Historical revisionism from the MfS perspective . ( Memento from June 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 132 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Sperling, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD) and resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Algringen
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1958