Heinrich König (resistance fighter)

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Heinrich König (born April 13, 1886 in Weitmar , today Bochum ; † May 7, 1943 there ) was a German local politician ( SPD ) and resistance fighter who was murdered by the National Socialists .

Life

Heinrich König grew up in Bochum as the son of a miner's family. As a 17-year-old he entered the service of the General Knappschaftsverein in Bochum, which was merged into the Ruhrknappschaft after the Reichsknappschaft was founded in 1924, and rose there to senior secretary. From August 1, 1914, he took part in the First World War. As an infantryman, he was seriously wounded by a gunshot near Ypres in autumn 1915 . He suffered from the consequences of this injury all his life and only returned from the front line at the end of 1918, severely damaged by the war.

In December 1918 he joined the MSPD and was elected on March 24, 1919 as the first social democratic community leader of Weitmar. He held this office until 1924, after which he was a member of the Weitmar office until the incorporation of Weitmar into Bochum on April 1, 1926. From June 1926 he was city councilor for the SPD in Bochum, after the local elections in November 1929 as parliamentary group chairman. In the summer of 1929 he also became chairman of the local club Groß-Bochum of the SPD.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, an existing of approximately 30 people attacked on the night of 10th to March 11th, 1933 SA -Trupp the house of King. There was an exchange of fire. After a police officer arrived, König finally surrendered and was taken to the Bochum police headquarters together with his two sons. The prisoners were mistreated by SA men both during the transport and in custody. After a magistrate rejected an arrest warrant, König and his sons were released on March 15. They managed to escape from the SA who were already waiting at the courthouse. After König hid briefly with a party friend in Warstein , he managed to escape to the Saar area , where he moved into an apartment in Rilchingen-Hanweiler in the summer of 1933 with his wife and daughter, who had since also moved .

On January 16, 1935, three days after the referendum in the Saar region , König fled with his family to France, where he settled in Agen in the southern French department of Lot-et-Garonne in the summer of 1935 . From November 1940 he leased a long vacant farm in the village of Saint-Hilaire-sur-Garonne, about 10 km from Agen, and ran it. In July 1941, König joined the Resistance in the Agen section. He supported this by hiding resistance fighters, weapons and leaflets on his farm. On February 11, 1943, a French security officer in civilian clothes checked his papers at the royal court and then took him to the police station in Agen for closer inspection. There, the French police handed König over to the Gestapo , which initially took him to the Gestapo prison in Toulouse . He was then transferred to Fresnes prison near Paris and finally arrived in Bochum in mid-April 1943 after further prison stations in Saarbrücken and Trier, where he was imprisoned in the prison of the Bochum district court. Both on the transport to Bochum and in custody, König was repeatedly badly mistreated. As a result of the mistreatment, König died on May 7, 1943.

Honors

On December 5, 1950, König was posthumously appointed Sergent of the Resistance. He was honored with a name plaque on the memorial of the resistance fighters and deportees of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Lacapelle-Biron . A memorial was set up on his 90th birthday in 1976 at the Bochum-Weitmar municipal cemetery, where König is buried. A street leading past the cemetery was named after Heinrich König. At the office building in Weitmar on Hattinger Straße a plaque commemorates König.

  • Memorial plaque for Heinrich König at the office building in Weitmar

  • Information board about Heinrich König at the office building in Weitmar

  • Memorial to Heinrich König in the communal cemetery in Weitmar

  • Inscription of the memorial stone for Heinrich König on the communal cemetery in Weitmar

  • Heinrich König's grave in the municipal cemetery in Weitmar

  • Street sign for Heinrich-König-Strasse at the corner of Hattinger Strasse in Bochum-Weitmar

literature

  • Johannes Volker Wagner: ... take courage, be a fighter! Heinrich König - A life for freedom . Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1976, ISBN 3-921543-52-5 (234 pages).
  • Johannes Volker Wagner: swastika over Bochum - seizure of power and Nazi everyday life in a district town . Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1983, ISBN 3-88339-350-9 (472 pages).

Web links

Individual evidence

Johannes Volker Wagner: ... take courage, be a fighter! Heinrich König - A life for freedom . Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1976, ISBN 3-921543-52-5 (234 pages).

  1. ↑ p. 21
  2. ↑ p. 22
  3. ↑ p. 23 f.
  4. ↑ p. 33 ff.
  5. ↑ p. 51 f.
  6. ↑ p. 56
  7. ↑ p. 71 f.
  8. ↑ P. 97 ff.
  9. ↑ p. 114 ff.
  10. ↑ P. 127 ff.
  11. ↑ p. 136 ff.
  12. ↑ p. 137
  13. ↑ p. 143


personal data
SURNAME King, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German local politician (SPD) and resistance fighters
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Weitmar
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1943
Place of death Bochum