Hans Eiden

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Hans Eiden (born November 24, 1901 in Trier ; † December 6, 1950 there ) was a German KPD politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

As the son of a Reichsbahn worker, he was able to learn lathe work there and got a job with the Deutsche Reichsbahn . He became a member of the union and was interested in politics. Due to his political activities as a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), to which he had belonged since 1929, and his work as a political base leader of the " Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus " in Trier-Nord since 1932, he was taken into " protective custody " in 1933 , 1936 Sentenced to three years in prison for " high treason ", which he served from December 1936 to May 1939 in Siegburg prison. Three months later, probably on the occasion of the attack on Poland, he was taken back into protective custody and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp on September 16, 1939 (prisoner number 6222). At the end of 1944 he became a camp elder there .

In this position he felt responsible for improving the living conditions of the inmates. Many prisoners owe their lives to his selfless and courageous commitment. At the risk of his own life, he prevented fatal evacuations from the camp ( death marches ) on several occasions and he was one of the prisoners who took over the camp after a large part of the SS guards had fled from the advancing 3rd US Army . In the tradition of April 11, 1945, it is reported that he was with the storm troop who opened the main gate and announced to all prisoners: "Comrades, we are free!" He also demonstrated his strength of character by preventing lynching of the captured concentration camp guards with the words "these criminals belong before a court of nations".

After the end of the Nazi dictatorship, Hans Eiden returned to Trier. Eiden became a member of the first Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament elected in 1947 and headed the petitions committee there until his resignation on June 14, 1948 . In 1950 he died as a result of long imprisonment. He was one of the founding members of the "Association of Political Victims of Fascism", from which the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime VVN emerged in 1947 . He spoke several times in this capacity at commemorative events.

Hans-Eiden-Platz in Trier-North

In 1995 a memorial was erected in his home town of Trier on the site of his birthplace in Engelstrasse. In addition, a square in Trier-Nord was named after him in 2020. In Weimar a school bore his name until the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution , and a street there is still named after him today.

Works

In 1946, Hans Eiden published the report Das war Buchenwald about his life in the concentration camp. There is also the book Eh 'die Sonne laughs - Hans Eiden, communist and camp elder in Buchenwald (1995, ISBN 3-89144-204-1 ), in which all documents, memories of contemporary witnesses and the records of Eiden himself are processed into a biography have been.

Literature / film

  • Lutz Niethammer (Ed.): The “cleaned up” anti-fascism. The SED and the red kapos from Buchenwald. Berlin 1994.
  • Beate Dorfey: On the problem of communist resistance in the Buchenwald concentration camp. The case of the Trier communist Hans Eiden. In: Journal of History. 43. 1995, pp. 515-534
  • Bernhard Blees: Who was Hans Eiden? The camp elder from Buchenwald. 30 'S3 / SWF Mainz 1993.
  • Horst Gobrecht: Eh the sun is laughing. Hans Eiden, communist and camp elder in Buchenwald. Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89144-204-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Remembrance of Hans Eiden: Often forgotten Buchenwald prisoner, Die Glocke vom Ettersberg, bulletin of the Buchenwald-Dora camp community, no. 234, 2/2019, pp. 5-6
  2. ↑ Horst Gobrecht: Before the sun laughs - Hans Eiden, communist and camp elder in Buchenwald , Bonn 1995, p. 101
  3. ↑ Remembrance of Hans Eiden: Often forgotten Buchenwald prisoner, Die Glocke vom Ettersberg, bulletin of the Buchenwald-Dora camp community, no. 234, 2/2019, pp. 5-6
  4. ↑ Remembrance of Hans Eiden: Often forgotten Buchenwald prisoner, Die Glocke vom Ettersberg, bulletin of the Buchenwald-Dora camp community, no. 234, 2/2019, pp. 5-6
  5. ↑ Place in front of the community center reminds of resistance fighter Hans Eiden, https://www.trier.de/icc/internet_de/nav/4cc/broker.jsp?uCon=dd220853-5f93-3071-6a23-cff70ee3d615&uTem=02f7089a-29fc-6c31 -e777-d8b132ead2aa & uMen = 4cc4fbd0-1d9c-d311-c258-732ead2aaa78 , February 11, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Oaths, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD), MdL and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1950
Place of death trier