Hans Merker
Hans Merker (born October 24, 1904 in Hof ; † January 5, 1945 in Roßla ) was initially an SPD and later a KPD member. He was a resistance fighter against the Nazi dictatorship .
Hans Merker was the son of the Hof Social Democrat Paul Merker. After attending elementary school, he learned the trade of a pattern maker and later worked as an insulator. At the age of 18 he joined the metal workers' association and in 1924 became a member of the SPD, where his father was also a member. In 1929 he left the party and became head of organization when he joined the KPD. H. Second chairman of the Hof local group. On November 14, 1931, he married his wife Anna.
After March 10, 1933, the arrests (so-called protective custody ) of SPD and KPD members began in the city of Hof . Since Merker had already been imprisoned for five days in the regional court prison in March for illegal collection , he escaped this wave of arrests, he was also released by mistake and went into hiding. With Fritz Schröder he organized the general meeting of the now banned KPD in the restaurant Krebsbachgrund, where he appeared as a speaker. Seven people were arrested and Merker managed to escape. Further investigations eventually led to the arrest of Merker, who had been hiding in the perennial mill with Christian Sandner's family. He was transferred to the Munich-Stadelheim prison via the regional court prison . In August 1933 he was tried before the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court for preparing high treason . He and Fritz Schröder were accused of preparing the dictatorship of the proletariat and the establishment of a soviet republic . Both ended up in the Dachau concentration camp as "professional criminals" - interrupted by a short stay in the St. Georgen-Bayreuth prison .
After his dismissal in 1935, he was re-employed by Reinhold & Mahla. His wife had been offered divorce papers, but she had declined. Merker immediately got back in touch with his like-minded comrades, including Paul Seidel from Schwarzenbach. Merker was responsible for the distribution of writings that he obtained from Asch and Bautzen . The Merker group worked until 1938. When the war broke out in 1939, there was another wave of arrests in which well-known opposition members, including Merker and Ewald Klein , were arrested in Hof . Merker was imprisoned as a political prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp in the “small camp”.
On January 5, 1945, Merker was killed by the SS. According to official announcements, he was shot “on the run” during a transport at Roßla train station (see also mandatory post ). Merkner's remains were buried in the Hof cemetery. A common tombstone commemorates the three resistance fighters from Hof, Hans Merker, Ewald Klein and Philipp Heller . In 1946 a street in Hof was named after Hans Merker ; today it is part of Ernst-Reuter- Strasse. During the Cold War it was renamed as part of the KPD ban in 1957. With that, one of the few references to the resistance that was offered in Hof during the Nazi dictatorship disappeared. On July 30, 2015, the artist Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block for the first time in the city of Hof in memory of Hans Merker. The Stolperstein is located in a working-class district in front of the residential building Döbereinerstraße 12, Merker's last residence.
literature
- Albrecht Bald: Resistance, Refusal and Emigration in Upper Franconia . Bayreuth 2015, ISBN 978-3-929268-28-7 , p. 24 ff.
- Rudolf Macht: History of the Hofer Workers' Movement - Volume III / 2 (1924–1945) - Defeat . Hof 1996, pp. 385–393.
- Hartmut Mehringer : The KPD in Bavaria 1919-1945. Prehistory, Persecution, and Resistance. In: Martin Broszat , Elke Fröhlich: Bavaria in the Nazi era, Volume V, The parties KPD, SPD, BVP in persecution and resistance . Munich 1983, pp. 218-220. (on-line)
- Biographical collection in the Hof Stadtarchiv : 0619 Merker, Hans .
Web links
- Article in the Frankenpost on the 70th anniversary of Hans Merker's death (January 5, 2015): Resisters from the region . and rebellion through secret enlightenment .
- Frankenpost from April 1, 2020: Correction of the grave inscription .
Individual evidence
- ↑ District Association of Upper Franconia of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV (Hrsg.): War gravesites in Upper Franconia . Bayreuth 1985, p. 25.
- ↑ Article in the Frankenpost (August 8, 2015)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Merker, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (KPD), resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 24, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | court |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 5, 1945 |
| Place of death | Rossla |