Fritz Thurm

Fritz Thurm (born July 2, 1883 in Fraustadt , today Wschowa; † June 13, 1937 in Berlin ) was a German printer , politician and member of a resistance group of former SPD members who distributed publications forbidden in the Third Reich .

Life

Stolperstein in memory of Fritz Thurm (with a misspelled concentration camp name)

Fritz Thurm was born in 1883 as the son of a master tailor in Fraustadt (then Prussia , now Poland).

In 1905 he joined the SPD. From 1913 he worked as an employee for the general local health insurance fund in the city of Berlin-Lichtenberg , which was incorporated into Berlin in 1920.

From 1915 to 1918 he was a soldier in World War I and joined the USPD .

In 1919 he was elected a paid city ​​councilor and second district mayor in Lichtenberg , which the President of the Province of Brandenburg did not want to confirm. In 1922, Thurm rejoined the SPD. In 1926 he was re-elected and this time the Oberpräsident confirmed the election to the paid city council of Lichtenberg.

With the strength of the NSDAP , it tried in vain to win Thurm for its political goals. In March 1933 he was therefore dismissed as a paid city councilor for political reasons.

Fritz Thurm belonged with other former SPD supporters to a resistance group that mainly distributed forbidden literature.

Arrests

He was arrested in autumn 1933 and released in spring 1934, after which he was unemployed.

On January 1, 1936 memorial service at the grave was Karl Liebknecht in the Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde planned on until 1933 when Revolution Monument annual parades and memorial services in honor of Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxembourg took place and were now banned in Nazi Germany. Thurm went to the cemetery, but saw only the Gestapo there , since the meeting had been betrayed. He returned home one more time and then set off again to make inquiries according to his wife, Helene Thurm. The Gestapo came to search the house between three and four o'clock in the morning , during which time his wife learned of his arrest.

Thurm was taken to police headquarters, and from there into custody taken in the Moabit prison , then back to the bureau and then to the Lichtenburg concentration camp transferred. In October 1936 he was brought back to Berlin-Moabit , where he was tried. Despite an acquittal , he was not released until April 17, 1937. During his detention, he lost all of his upper teeth due to abuse.

He died eight weeks later as a result of severe abuse. Several thousand party comrades gave him final escort.

Commemoration

In his memory there is a stumbling block in front of his former residence at Kreutzigerstraße 28 in Berlin-Friedrichshain .

literature

• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The "other" capital of the Reich . Resistance from the labor movement in Berlin from 1933 - 1945. 1st edition. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-94-1 , p. 65, 122 (668 pp.).
• Helga Grebing, Siegfried Heimann (Hrsg.): Workers' movement in Berlin . The historical travel guide. 1st edition. Links, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86153-691-8 , pp. 99 (133 pp.).

Web links

• Fritz Thurm. In: Stolpersteine ​​in Berlin. Active Museum Association, accessed on October 19, 2018 .