Gustav Menzel

Gustav Menzel (born June 23, 1867 in Zedel / Sorau district , today Siodło; † October 10, 1930 ) was a politician and functionary of the SPD and KPD .

Life

Gustav Menzel came from a poor family of forest workers as the ninth child. He learned the shoemaking trade in Berlin from 1881 to 1884. He then went on a hike and joined the socialist movement in 1886. He joined the SPD in 1887 , was a member of the board of the Berlin shoemakers 'union ("Association for the Protection of the Interests of Shoemakers in Berlin and the Surrounding Area") and in 1890 was a leader in the shoemakers' strike. He was expelled from Berlin because of his political activities. In 1898 he built a new existence for himself in Delitzsch with a small grocery store (butter and cheese trade). There he was elected city councilor. In 1904 Gustav Menzel moved to Bitterfeld , took over an inn there ("Restaurant zum Hohenzollern") and was again a city councilor. The bar was a popular meeting place in Bitterfeld workers' associations. Gustav Menzel joined the USPD in 1917 and joined the Prussian National Assembly in 1919 for the USPD . In 1920 he was a delegate at the split party congress of the USPD, with whose left wing he went to the KPD in December 1920. From 1921 he was a member of the KPD in the Prussian state parliament , member of the central committee of the Red Aid and head of the central legal office of the KPD state parliamentary group. From 1924 the main field of his activity was the care of political prisoners. Due to his work in prisons and penitentiaries, Gustav Menzel was respectfully called "father of prisoners" and "penitentiary uncle".

Gustav Menzel died on October 10, 1930. In his honor there were large mourning rallies in Berlin and Halle (Saale) . A square in Nietleben , a district of Halle (Saale), bears the name of Gustav Menzels.

His son Ferdinand Menzel was also a communist functionary, since 1923 editor of the »class struggle« in Halle, in April 1924 sentenced to one year and three months fortress. Ferdinand Menzel died while bathing on May 14, 1925 while he was in custody.

Fonts

• What is and what does International Red Aid want? , Ed. By the Executive Committee of International Red Aid.

literature

• Who are our worker candidates? , Klassekampf, Halle (Saale), May 8, 1928, p. 5.
• Gustav Menzel - The father of the proletarian prisoners is dead! , Tribunal, No. 14, November 1, 1930, p. 4.
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Gustav Menzel in the catalog of the German National Library