Gustav Bruhn
Gustav Bruhn (born March 16, 1889 in Angermünde ( Uckermark ); † February 14, 1944 in Neuengamme concentration camp ) was a KPD politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Gustav Bruhn was a son of the signalman Wilhelm Bruhn and his wife Minna, nee. Ziegler. After leaving school he learned the carpentry trade and went on a journey as a journeyman. In 1909 he was called up for three years of military service in Kiel. There he met his partner Elisabeth Holz , whom he married in 1913.
In 1912 Bruhn joined the SPD in Hanover . When the First World War began, he first came to a sailors division and later to a pioneer company in Flanders, where he stayed until the end of the war.
He joined the Spartakusbund in 1918 . After the war he went to Heide (Holstein) with his partner . In the days of the November Revolution he spoke to the people of Heider in a soldier's uniform and was soon known as "the Red" in all of Dithmarschen .
In 1919 Bruhn joined the USPD from the SPD . In Heide and the surrounding area, he was one of the most famous USPD members alongside the editor Carl Metze and the businessman Paul Burmähl . He spoke at many meetings in Heide and in Norderdithmarschen .
In 1920 Bruhn was a co-founder of the Heider KPD and succeeded Erich Böhlig as chairman in 1923. Bruhn was also a city councilor and district councilor . He soon took up important positions in the KPD. He was delegated to Moscow in 1924 for the 5th World Congress of the Communist International . In the following years he reported publicly on his experiences and impressions from Soviet companies. From 1925 he worked as a party secretary and subdistrict leader in Heide and Itzehoe , later in Lübeck .
In 1927 he was arrested for distributing the brochure Germany's Revolutionary Sailors . To three years imprisonment sentenced Gustav Bruhn came to the fortress Gollnow / Pomerania.
In 1928 Bruhn was put up as a candidate of the KPD for the Prussian state parliament . He was elected and released from imprisonment due to parliamentary immunity. He then became a member of the KPD district leadership on Wasserkante.
The Bruhns moved from Heide (Holstein) to Altona in 1928 . In 1933 Bruhn was arrested several times. In 1935 he was sentenced to three years in prison for “preparation for high treason” , followed by protective custody in Sachsenhausen concentration camp .
After his release in 1939, he worked as a leading functionary in the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group and directed illegal work in large Hamburg companies.
Gustav and Elisabeth Bruhn were arrested on October 18, 1942, as the first of the wave of arrests against opposition activists that began in Hamburg . The prisoners were interrogated by the Gestapo in Fuhlsbüttel . The Gestapo headquarters and prisons were destroyed in air raids. Detainees on remand, including around 50 resistance fighters, were given two months' leave, with the condition that they did not make any contact with "comrades" during this time.
About 20 of those on leave, including Elisabeth and Gustav Bruhn, decided not to surrender themselves to the Nazi judiciary after the deadline, but to continue the resistance struggle from underground.
Under the leadership of Gustav Bruhn and Walter Bohne , the anti-fascist activity was continued and an attempt was made to rebuild the organization, which had been dismantled in October 1942. But the home side the undercover agent Alfons Pannek who posed as an active Illegal to sneak into the group and to win the trust Bruhns. On December 13, 1943, he was the first to extradite Bruhn from the Gestapo.
The Hamburg State Police Headquarters applied to Heinrich Himmler for " special treatment " for Gustav and Elisabeth Bruhn, Hans Hornberger and Kurt Schill . The four communists were brought to the Neuengamme concentration camp on February 14, 1944, without trial, and murdered there on the same day in the execution bunker.
His son Heinrich Bruhn lived in the GDR and was a professor in the journalism section of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig.
Commemoration
Bruhn is remembered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and in the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin.
In his native Angermünde , a primary school and a street are named after him.
In the memorial of the socialists in the Berlin central cemetery Friedrichsfelde his name is recorded on the large porphyry plaque.
A memorial stone in the honor grove of the Ohlsdorf cemetery commemorates Gustav and Elisabeth Bruhn. Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block for Gustav Bruhn at Schellingstrasse 16 in Eilbek .
literature
- Ursel Hochmuth : Nobody and nothing is forgotten. Biograms and letters from Hamburg resistance fighters 1933–1945. Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89965-121-9 .
- Peter Steinbach , Johannes Tuchel (ed.): Lexicon of Resistance 1933–1945 . CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 36f.
- Bruhn, Gustav. In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
Web links
- Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
- Kathleen Marowsky: The Bästlein-Jacobs-Abshagen Group - An example of communist resistance in Hamburg in the “Third Reich”. In: Unter-Hamburg.de
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bruhn, Gustav |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | KPD politicians and resistance fighters against National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 16, 1889 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Angermünde |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 14, 1944 |
| Place of death | Neuengamme concentration camp |