Heinrich Brenner (resistance fighter)

Heinrich Brenner (born June 18, 1908 in Hühnerfeld (Sulzbach / Saar) , † December 23, 1986 in Sulzbach ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Heinrich Brenner grew up in Hühnerfeld as the son of a Protestant family of miners. Like almost the entire town, Brenner was in the tradition of workers' associations from an early age. At the age of 14 he drove into the Altenwald mine and was a member of the Arbeiter-Athletenbund . After becoming a member of the Independent Social Democrats , he joined the KPD in 1928 . There he was technical director of the Red Front Fighters Association and chairman of the "Red Sport Formation". After a fight with a Steiger , he was fired and found little work.

Three days after the result of the Saar referendum , Brenner fled to Lourdes , but returned to Hühnerfeld in June 1935. He distributed illegal leaflets that were smuggled into the country via couriers from Forbach . As he was known as an opponent of the National Socialists, he found little work. After a sharp exchange of words in an inn with several members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), he fled abroad for the second time. He went to Spain, where he joined the International Brigades in 1936 . He was wounded and injured in the knee at the Battle of Teruel . This gunshot wound resulted in the amputation of the left leg below the knee ten years later.

After the end of the Spanish Civil War , Brenner settled in France, where he was interned in Bordeaux , but was able to flee to the unoccupied part of France in time. In Sarrancolin he joined the Resistance in March 1943 . When the situation there became difficult, he tried to get to Spain, but was picked up by mountain troops in the Pyrenees .

His internment began in the Frèsnes prison in Paris. From there he was taken via Trier to the Saarbrücken correctional facility , where he was interrogated several times by the Gestapo . He was then transferred to “ protective custody ”, which he spent from October 1943 to March 1944 in Kislau Castle (then: Kislau concentration camp ) and then in Neue Bremm . In May 1944 he was taken to the Dachau concentration camp , where he remained imprisoned until liberation by the Allies .

After the war he returned to Sulzbach and founded a haulage company there.

literature

• Klaus Michael Mallmann / Gerhard Paul: The splintered no. Saarlanders against Hitler . Dietz, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-8012-5010-5 , p. 43-46 .