Georg Spiegel

Georg Spiegel (born July 3, 1895 in Stuttgart , † October 31, 1960 in Potsdam ) was a German politician ( SPD / SED ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Spiegel was born as the first of five children to a social democratic working class family. His father, Georg Spiegel, was a Social Democrat and active in the trade union, and his mother, Emilie Spiegel, née Zwinker, was politically active. From 1900 to 1910 Spiegel attended the Realanstalt in Stuttgart. From 1910 to 1914 he completed an apprenticeship as a model carpenter.

At the age of 13, Spiegel was already active as the leader of the youth group of the “Free Gymnastics”. In 1910 he became chairman of the metal workers' youth in Greater Stuttgart. In 1913 he joined the SPD after having previously held various positions in the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ).

In March 1915 he was called up for military service and served in Serbia until 1918 , later in Flanders and France . After returning from the war, Spiegel worked for various social democratic newspapers. First of all, from 1918 on he was a reporter for the Schwäbische Tagwacht , a regional SPD newspaper based in Stuttgart , and trained as an editor . In April 1921 he became the responsible editor and head of the people's bookstore and the cooperative printing company in Tuttlingen . From 1925 he was a political editor at the Schwenningen printing company . Two years later he worked as an editor for a short time in Frankfurt am Main .

From 1918 to 1921 he was state secretary of the SAJ Württemberg and from 1920 to 1928 a member of the main board of the SAJ. In 1921 he became chairman of the SPD in Tuttlingen. From 1924 to 1929 he was SPD constituency chairman for the Black Forest region and the Swabian Alb. From 1923 to 1925 he was a member of the local committee of the ADGB and from 1924 to 1925 authorized representative of the Tuttlingen Saddlery Association. He was also a member of various municipal advisory boards of the cooperative movement, such as the Tuttlingen consumer cooperative. In 1929 Spiegel moved to Potsdam, where he married the Berlin- born Social Democrat Irma Naether. He became editor of the Potsdamer Volksblatt , was a city ​​councilor and from 1932 chairman of the SPD district executive in Potsdam. Together with the political leader of the KPD local group Nowawes Walter Junker , he was committed to creating an anti-fascist united front.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Spiegel remained in contact with the SPD headquarters in Berlin and was arrested in June 1933. He was imprisoned in Potsdam prison and in Oranienburg concentration camp before he was released on August 19, 1933 and placed under police supervision. After his release, Spiegel was unemployed and worked as a small trader between 1934 and 1939.

He resumed his resistance activities , kept in touch with the SPD functionaries in Potsdam and Brandenburg and worked closely with the resistance group around Hermann Maaß and Wilhelm Leuschner . Among other things, he also took part in meetings with Stauffenberg at von Maaß's house. In August 1939 he became a civilian employee of the Wehrmacht at the military replacement inspection in Potsdam and from 1940 he was the office manager of the “Horse” group. He was the main clerk there for the Valkyrie secret files , at least as far as the mobilization of the horse demand was concerned. As part of the " Grid Action ", Spiegel was arrested by the Potsdam Gestapo on August 20, 1944 and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . He was released on September 27, 1944.

After the war, Spiegel re-founded the SPD in Potsdam, became first chairman of the district of Greater Potsdam and from October 1945 was the SPD state chairman for the Mark Brandenburg. In May 1945 he was appointed press officer for the city of Potsdam Werin by the Soviet commanders. In July 1945 he was appointed First Mayor of the City of Potsdam by the Soviet headquarters as Deputy Mayor Walter Paul (KPD) . He held this office until 1947. From 1946 to 1950 he was chairman of the Potsdam city council.

Spiegel actively supported the union of the SPD with the KPD to form the SED . He took part in the unification party convention at the state level in Potsdam on April 7, 1946 and at the unification party convention in Berlin on 21/22. April 1946. From 1946 he was a member of the SED Provincial Board of Brandenburg and, together with Kurt Seibt, honorary head of the cooperative department at the SED Provincial Board Secretariat. From 1946 to 1955 he was a member of the SED district committee in Potsdam and its secretariat.

From April 1947 to the end of December 1948, Spiegel acted as a ministerial advisor in the Ministry of Economic Planning in the State of Brandenburg and was a member of the state parliament in Brandenburg from 1949 to 1950. From 1949 he was the full-time managing director of the Potsdam consumer cooperative. In November 1949 he completed a course at the district party school in Sacrow . In September 1951 he became organizational manager at the Deutsche Handelszentrale / Lebensmittel, Landesleitung Brandenburg. After this position was closed in 1953, he was first secretary of the SED-BPO in the supply and storage office for imports-meat-fats-dairy products until 1956. From March 1956 he headed the press department in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Internal German Trade. In 1958, Spiegel retired.

Awards

• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945 (1958)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in silver

literature

• Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, p. 1033.
• Werner Bethge, Kurt Finker, Kurt Libera: Union of SPD and KPD in the Province of Brandenburg in 1946 (PDF; 258 kB) . PDS Regional Association - Working Group on History, Potsdam 1996, p. 37 f.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 875.
• Friederike Sattler: Economic order in transition. Politics, organization and function of the KPD / SED in the state of Brandenburg during the establishment of the central planned economy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–52 . Lit, Münster 2002, p. 963.
• Werner Bethge, Kurt Finker: On the anti-fascist resistance in Potsdam and the province of Brandenburg 1933–1945 (PDF; 325 kB) . PDS Regional Association - History Working Group, Potsdam 2004, passim.

Web links

• Short biography on the website of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation (The political prisoners of the Oranienburg concentration camp)