Georg Froeba

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Georg Johann Fröba (born November 27, 1896 in Bayreuth ; † October 27, 1944 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German master tailor, local politician and resistance fighter .

Life

Memorial event in Frankfurt
Newspaper clipping, FR, August 1, 1945

Fröba was born as the fifth child of a worker in Bayreuth. The family soon moved to Darmstadt . Fröba attended elementary school, completed an apprenticeship as a tailor and then passed the master's examination. He took part in the First World War as a soldier . After the war, Fröba joined the USPD . In 1920 he was a co-founder of the Darmstadt KPD local group. In 1924 he rose to become political director of the Darmstadt sub-district. In addition, he held the chairmanship of the KPD Darmstadt and represented it from 1927 to 1933 in the city council. He headed the Darmstadt Unemployment Committee and was the local chairman of the German clothing workers' association.

On January 30, 1933, Fröba wrote a pamphlet in which the workers in the Darmstadt factories were called to go on a general strike in order to prevent Hitler from coming to power at the last minute. This leaflet was to be distributed in front of the Darmstadt factory gates the next day. Several party members worked all night to print enough leaflets and to organize the distribution in front of the various factory gates. However, the leaflet campaign was quickly stopped by the police.

At the beginning of March 1933, Fröba and other well-known opponents of National Socialism were arrested by the SA , abused and finally deported to the Osthofen concentration camp . Fröba had to mend the other inmates' clothes there.

After being released from “ protective custody ”, Fröba and 46 other KPD members were charged with “preparing a treasonable enterprise” and imprisoned in the Frankfurt judicial prison. The judges sentenced him to two and a half years in prison in December 1933, which he served in Hamelin . After his release from prison in 1936, Fröba was unemployed and had to report to the police twice a week. He managed to earn a small income as a self-employed person with small jobs for his circle of friends. During this time he built a resistance organization based on KPD members in the Darmstadt district.

During the Second World War , the group tried to alleviate the lot of prisoners of war who had been used for forced labor in the factories.

As early as 1937, the Gestapo knew about the structure and structure of the resistance group. However, it was not until 1942 that concrete evidence could be gathered against Fröba and his fellow campaigners. The organization was broken up by the Gestapo in early 1943. Due to a denunciation , Georg Fröba was arrested along with other resistance members and taken to the Gestapo prison on Rundeturmstrasse.

In May 1944, charges were finally brought against Georg Fröba and five other supporters. On September 6th, the 2nd Senate of the People's Court met in the Darmstadt district court building. Fröba was sentenced to death for “preparing for high treason and favoring the enemy”. His co-defendants Michael Weis, Hans-Otto Fillsack, Konrad Weigel and Michael Hass received long prison sentences. Georg Fröba was executed on October 27, 1944 in the Frankfurt-Preungesheim prison. His body was handed over to the Frankfurt University Clinic and cremated in Frankfurt's main cemetery before the American invasion.

At the request of the Communist Party of Darmstadt and its liberated comrades in the resistance group, the Frankfurt cemetery administration handed over an urn in 1947, which was later buried in a family grave (grave site: IV C 282) in the old cemetery Darmstadt on Nieder-Ramstädter-Straße .

Honors

  • There was a Fröba facility in Darmstadt until 1960: after the Second World War, the residential complex at the Odenwaldbrücke (crossing Spessartring / Dieburger Strasse ) was named "Georg Fröba facility". But as early as 1960, the Darmstadt magistrate had the facility renamed "August-Buxbaum-Anlage".
  • In 1988 the Fröbaweg in the Heimstättensiedlung in Darmstadt was named after him.
  • A memorial plaque in Dieburger Strasse refers to his work (plaque of the Darmstadt history tour )
  • In March 2006, a Georg Fröba room was inaugurated in the famous Darmstadt cult pub Goldene Krone .

literature

  • Angelika Arenz-Morch: Georg Fröba (1896–1944) , In: Angelika Arenz-Morch, Stefan Heinz (ed.): Trade unionists in the Osthofen concentration camp 1933/34. Biographical manual (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration , Vol. 8). Metropol, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-439-2 , pp. 199–211.
  • Georg Fröba , in: Darmstädter Stadtlexikon, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 278f.
  • Fritz Deppert, Peter Engels: Firestorm and Resistance . Darmstadt 1944, Darmstadt 2004, pp. 90f.
  • Carlo Schneider: Die Friedhöfe in Darmstadt , Darmstadt 1991, p. 70
  • Ed .: VVN-BdA , DKP , PDS and DFV Darmstadt: My life was a service for the little ones and working people (In memory of the Darmstadt resistance fighter Georg Fröba who was executed on October 27, 1944) , brochure, Darmstadt 1994 ( reading text )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linkspartei and Goldene Krone open Georg-Fröba-Zimmer
personal data
SURNAME Froeba, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fröba, Georg Johann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German master tailor, local politician and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Bayreuth
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1944
Place of death Frankfurt am Main