Heiko Ploeger

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Heiko Ploeger (born July 12, 1898 in Leer (East Friesland) , † September 16, 1944 in Dortmund ) was a German trade unionist and anti-fascist and a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Heiko Ploeger's gravestone at the 2017 memorial event

Heiko Ploeger learned the trade of machine fitter. At the age of 17, he volunteered for the Navy during World War I. When he was thirty he came to Herford and married Henny Niederbeckmann. Presumably due to the influence of his wife, who came from a social democratic family, he became a member of the SPD and the German Metalworkers' Association in 1928 . Heiko Ploeger was involved in the party against National Socialism . Before the National Socialists came to power , he and his wife Henny and others distributed leaflets in Herford and put up wall inscriptions. They continued this after the National Socialists came to power. The distribution of leaflets probably took place within a conspiratorial group of Social Democrats and Communists, since the Ploegers were close friends with their communist neighbor, Willi Osterhagen . Ploeger had been working in the Dürkopp Adler factory in Bielefeld since 1928 , where he agitated in a group of around eight people against National Socialism and used information that he had gained from listening to the BBC and other enemy channels .

Painting from photo of Heiko and Henny Ploeger by the artist Sponk

Heiko Ploeger was arrested at the same time as others in his apartment in Herford on the evening of January 18, 1944 and then taken to the police prison in Bielefeld. On September 15, 1944, Heiko Ploeger was executed in Dortmund for high treason after he had previously been sentenced to death by the Hamm Higher Regional Court. His last words to his wife were: “I hope that a freer Germany will emerge for you. I have strived for it and suffered for it. Germany will recognize it. "

After his execution, he was buried in a corner of the cemetery in Dortmund with Gustav Höcker, who was also executed . The judges responsible for his death sentence continued to serve as judges after the end of the war.

Honors after his death

Heiko Ploeger memorial event 2017

After the end of National Socialism, Heiko Ploeger's corpse was transferred to Herford and buried there at a joint commemoration event by the SPD and KPD. After that, it was forgotten for 40 years until the DGB remembered it again in 1986. A street in Herford was named after Heiko Ploeger. In 1988 the Heiko Ploeger Prize for Moral Courage was launched. This was awarded annually until 2010. In 2010, a dispute broke out over the potential winner, as the most promising candidate had been rejected by the CDU. Since 2012, a memorial event has been held at his grave in the Eternal Peace Cemetery in Herford every year on the anniversary of his death . In May 2018, a power box was sprayed with the portrait of Henny and Heiko Ploeger as part of the graffiti art project on power boxes on the initiative of the Herford association Rat und Tat.

literature

  • Dieter Begemann: "I hope that a freer Germany will emerge for you". The fate of the worker Heiko Ploeger, who was executed in 1944. Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 1988, ISBN 3-927085-03-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Accompanying brochure with the guide to victory ( memento of the original from September 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accompanying materials for the exhibition, compiled and edited by Saskia Bruns and Christoph Laue, series of publications by the Zellentrakt Memorial , Volume 2, 2015  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zellentrakt.de
  2. ↑ widerstand-gegen-ns.de , Heiko Ploeger
  3. ^ Students honor Heiko Ploeger , website of the Ernst Barlach School
  4. ↑ Under the sign of the swastika. Bielefeld 1933-1945 , Reinhard Vogelsang, Bielefeld 1986, p. 93ff
  5. ↑ Stolperstein by Gustav Höcker , www.stolpersteine.de
  6. ↑ I hope that a freer Germany emerges for you: The fate of the worker Heiko Ploeger, executed in 1944, Dieter Begemann, Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 1988
  7. ^ Heiko Ploeger Weg , meinestadt.de
  8. ↑ Politics disputes over Heiko Ploeger Prize Neue Westfälische , October 17, 2011
  9. ↑ The future remembering Heiko Ploeger Neue Westfälische , March 1, 2012
  10. ↑ ostwestfalen-lippe.dgb.de , flyer for the Heiko Ploeger memorial event on September 15, 2013
  11. ^ Fear paralyzes - then as now , Neue Westfälische , September 17, 2012
  12. ↑ Historical motifs enrich the cityscape of Herford Neue Westfälische , May 25, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Ploeger, Heiko
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German metalworker and victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Leer (East Frisia)
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1944
Place of death Dortmund