Hans Schnitzler

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Hans Schnitzler visits a Berlin school class in 1980

Hans Schnitzler until 1950 Hans-Paul von Schnitzler (* 18th February 1908 in Rome ; † 16th November 1985 in Berlin ) as the German was a communist , a functionary of the GDR - Block Party Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany (DBD). From 1950 to 1963 he was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR.

Life

Hans-Paul von Schnitzler was the 2nd son of Legation Councilor Julius Eduard von Schnitzler , a son of Eduard Schnitzler . The Schnitzlers' father had been vice-consul in Shanghai since 1898 , and later consul in Rome and Antwerp . On September 20, 1913, he was raised to the Prussian nobility. The mother was Margarethe von Schnitzler, b. Gillet. Schnitzler attended the Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem in Berlin and studied law at the universities in Bonn and Göttingen . In 1926 he became a member of the Corps Palatia Bonn . After failing his legal traineeship, Schnitzler was an apprentice at a Berlin forwarding company from 1930 to 1932. After his father's death, he managed his own company called Filmspedition from 1934 onwards, benefiting from the funds from the inheritance, but went into bankruptcy with this company. He then worked again as a commercial clerk from 1937.

Communist in the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era until 1942

During his student days, Schnitzler became a communist and from 1928 worked for the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), first in the Red Student Union , and later for the KPD's intelligence service. In 1932 he applied for membership in the KPD, which was not granted for conspiratorial reasons. Since Hitler came to power , he has resisted National Socialism , including with Margarete Wittkowski and the later Spanish fighter Walter Ulrich Fuchs. The focus was on clarifying the relationship between the NSDAP and the Wehrmacht.

During this time Schnitzler played actively hockey with the Zehlendorfer Wespen and became German runner-up with the 1st men's team. The club was chaired by Heinrich Gattineau , head of the press and economic policy department of IG Farben in Berlin, SA standard leader (honorary) and liaison between the IG and the NSDAP. The KPD tried to skim off this important source of intelligence through Schnitzler. This brought him into conscience, since Heinrich Gattineau was not only not a National Socialist, but an outspoken opponent of Hitler. In addition, both became friends more and more. After an open discussion, Heinrich Gattineau voluntarily provided important information.

After a denunciation , the Gestapo arrested Schnitzler in October 1933 at his place of work at Colonia Insurance . Heavily burdened by material found from the Reichswehr Ministry, the situation was hopeless. He was subjected to severe interrogation and abuse on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse until he was suddenly released from custody. The reason was that Heinrich Gattineau had proceeded in a rather unusual way: he made an appointment with his friend, the first head of the Gestapo Rudolf Diels, in the Horcher restaurant, and let him get very drunk there. When heavily drunk, Diels ordered Schnitzler's files to be handed over, which were then immediately destroyed. In doing so, Gattineau at least saved Schnitzler from imprisonment or concentration camps and probably saved his life, since the indictment had been military espionage.

This was followed by illegal activities by Schnitzler in Hanau , Berlin , Frankfurt am Main and Saarbrücken . As head of the propellant gas department in the Central Office for Mineralöl GmbH in Frankfurt, which had the task of converting the fuel supply to the war economy , Schnitzler managed a serious act of sabotage . He delayed Major General Adolf von Schell's wood gas program , which allegedly led to the loss of several million liters of fuel for the Wehrmacht. Schnitzler lost his UK position on suspicion of sabotage .

War service and military resistance

He was then immediately drafted on January 15, 1942 for military service in the Wehrmacht , namely in the heavy flaka division 222 of the 8th Flak Division . The anti-aircraft officer training began there at the end of 1942. In the winter of 1942/43 he returned to his old unit as an ensign . Here, under his leadership, the establishment of a resistance group within the Wehrmacht began. On August 15, 1943, his unit was placed under the 11th Flak Division . He was stationed in Wilkowitz in the immediate vicinity of the Auschwitz III Monowitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps . The resistance group was 82 men strong at the end of 1944 and consisted of 10 German flak members and 72 Russian prisoners of war. She held key positions in the large battery. Schnitzler was the forward observer (VB), his driver was Berthold Rose . Allegedly there was also contact with the Polish resistance. There was a plan to enable a mass escape of prisoners in the Auschwitz III Monowitz concentration camp when Russian troops approached . For this purpose, around 1000 grenades were to be fired at the SS barracks and selected watchtowers with 24 anti-aircraft guns caliber 8.8 cm . In addition, a large breach should be made in the camp fence. The plan did not come to fruition, however, as the camp prisoners were increasingly being evacuated into the interior of the Reich and the SS themselves began to detonate them. The death marches of concentration camp prisoners could be clearly observed from the position. In addition, the Poles rejected another planned liberation operation in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by direct fire because there was apparently no willingness to help Jewish prisoners. When the long-awaited Russian offensive took place on January 12, 1945, Schnitzler was transferred to the regimental staff and was now in charge of the VB for further flak batteries. On January 25, 1945, Hans Schnitzler, as VB, directed the fire on his own troops for the first time. Due to the fire attack with approx. 2000 grenades on the position of the Birkental cemetery of the 371st Infantry Division (Grenadier Regiment 671), the worst losses occurred here. The Red Army was able to achieve the decisive breakthrough into the Upper Silesian industrial area right here on the following day . Panic broke out in the positions that had been held until then, thousands of soldiers (e.g. the 371st Infantry Division, 20th Panzer Division, 97th Jägerdivision, as well as various anti-aircraft units) and refugees tried to get into the approaching boiler to escape. On January 26, 1945, Schnitzler directed fire again at his own troops, this time in the Neuberun area a total of 4,500 shells, fired from his own large battery. On later occasions, the fire was mostly directed at enemy-free objects. Schnitzler expected discovery every hour, instead he was even promoted to lieutenant shortly before the end of the war.

After the war

On May 10, 1945, Schnitzler presented himself to a Soviet tank unit on the territory of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and identified himself there. Instead of the expected thanks and recognition, Schnitzler went into Soviet captivity . Together with Berthold Rose , whom he had known from his time in the Wehrmacht since 1942, he attended the Antifa schools in 2040 and 2041. Both later became functionaries of the DBD in the GDR. Schnitzler then worked as a teacher and active leader in various POW camps. After being denounced as an alleged war criminal, he was removed from the Antifa-Aktiv and arrested by the KGB as a "suspect". There he was tortured and threatened with death several times by Russians and Germans. On May 1, 1948, he was sent to the Krasnogorsk 7027/1 concentration camp, after four weeks he was sent to Moscow's Butyrka prison and remained in solitary confinement for eight months. Schnitzler also contracted malaria while a prisoner of war , from the consequences of which he suffered for the rest of his life. Only at the instigation of German anti-fascists through Major General Sergei Ivanovich Tjulpanov , to whom the propaganda and information department of the SMAD was subordinate, was his case re-examined in February 1949 and his innocence confirmed. Schnitzler was fully rehabilitated and nursed to health in a Moscow sanatorium. Even before his denunciation, Schnitzler signed up as an informant for the Soviet secret service. After his return to Germany, he carried out this activity until 1952.

Life in the GDR

Schnitzler returned to Germany at the end of July 1949. In August 1949 he became a member of the DBD and deputy editor-in-chief of the DBD central organ Bauernecho . In April 1950 he became a member of the party executive committee (PV) and the secretariat of the PV of the DBD and, as the successor to Berthold Rose , head of the training and education department of the PV.

On August 17, 1950, he was confirmed by the GDR Council of Ministers as a member of the committee for awarding the national prizes .

From 1950 to 1963 Schnitzler was also a member of the People's Chamber. Here he was a member of the DBD parliamentary group in the legal committee. In 1954 he became a member of the bureau of the Presidium of the National Council of the National Front and in 1956 a member of the Presidium of the party executive committee of the DBD. In 1957 Schnitzler led a delegation from the National Front to Vietnam , where he met with Ho Chi Minh .

From 1963 he could no longer work without restrictions after a stroke . In 1963/64 he worked as an editor at the AdL Institute for Information and Documentation. From 1964 to 1965 he was the district councilor for culture and deputy to the district mayor of Berlin-Weißensee . In the last years of his life, Schnitzler worked as a speaker and lecturer at political forums and training courses, particularly in the field of military policy. As a pensioner, he became a member of the committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters .

Private

In 1931 Schnitzler broke with the conservative part of his family, with the exception of his mother Margarethe von Schnitzler née. Gillet, who was an activist in the West German peace movement, and his younger brother Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler . As a member of the People's Chamber, he had the title of nobility removed from his name. He was married and had three children.

death

Schnitzler died after a serious illness at the age of 78 and was buried with military honors in the grove of honor for anti-fascist resistance fighters and fighters for the construction of socialism at the Baumschulenweg cemetery.

Awards in the GDR

literature

  • The People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic. 3rd electoral term. Staatsverlag der DDR, Berlin 1959, p. 392f.
  • Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler: My castles or How I found my fatherland . Edition Nautilus Verlag Lutz Schulenburg, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89401-249-8 , p. 28ff.
  • 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. 801.
  • Schnitzler, Hans . In: Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan et al. (Ed.): The parties and organizations of the GDR. A manual . Dietz, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-320-01988-0 .
  • Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56703-9 , p. 152ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schnitzler, Hans . In: Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan et al. (Ed.): The parties and organizations of the GDR. A manual . Dietz, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-320-01988-0 .
  2. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153-155.
  3. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153–155 (p. 154)
  4. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963 2003, pp. 153–155.
  5. ↑ BStU MfS AP6122 / 63: Schnitzler curriculum vitae Bl. 1-5, 12.08. 1949
  6. ^ Heinrich Gattineau: Through the cliffs of the 20th century. Memories of the time and Economic history. Seewald, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-512-00672-8 , pp. 140 and 206
  7. ^ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler: My castles or How I found my fatherland. Edition Nautilus Verlag Lutz Schulenburg, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89401-249-8 , pp. 78-81
  8. ↑ BStU MfS AP6122 / 63: Schnitzler CV August 28, 1950 Annex 2
  9. ^ Berthold Rose: Letter to KE v. Schnitzler 1949, p. 2.
  10. ^ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler: My castles or How I found my fatherland. Edition Nautilus Verlag Lutz Schulenburg, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89401-249-8 , p. 44
  11. ↑ Dariusz Zalega: Germany against Hitler Zalega: Niemcy przeciw Hitlerowi website
  12. ↑ Gunter: “Last Laurel”, pp. 178–179
  13. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153–155. (P. 155)
  14. ↑ Dariusz Zalega: Germany against Hitler Zalega: Niemcy przeciw Hitlerowi website
  15. ↑ BStU MfS AP6122 / 63: Schnitzler curriculum vitae Bl. 1-5, Annex 3.28.08. 1950
  16. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153–155 (p. 155)
  17. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153–155 (p. 155)
  18. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153-155.
  19. ^ Berthold Rose: Letter to KE v. Schnitzler 1949. , p. 2.
  20. ↑ BStU MfS AP6122 / 63: Schnitzler curriculum vitae Bl. 1-5, 28.08. 1950
  21. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948-1963. 2003, pp. 153–155 (p. 155)
  22. ↑ Neues Deutschland from August 19, 1950, p. 3.
  23. ^ Obituary notice in Neues Deutschland from November 29, 1985, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Schnitzler, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schnitzler, Hans-Paul von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German member of the People's Chamber, DBD functionary
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1985
Place of death Berlin