Heinrich Malzahn

Heinrich Malzahn (born December 10, 1884 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † April 9, 1957 in West Berlin ) was a socialist politician and trade unionist.

Life

The son of a bricklayer completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and mechanical engineer after attending primary school and then attended a technical school for mechanical engineering and worked in the Berlin metal industry. In 1906 Malzahn became a member of the SPD and the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). As a war opponent, he joined the USPD in 1917 and belonged to the circle of Revolutionary Obleute .

After the November Revolution , Malzahn was elected delegate to the Reichsrätekongress in December 1918 and belonged to the Executive Council of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils until August 1919 , and he also headed the Berlin works council headquarters . In 1920 Malzahn was elected to the Reichstag in the Berlin constituency. At the end of the year he belonged to the left wing of the USPD, which merged with the KPD to form the VKPD , in whose union department Malzahn worked. As a supporter of Paul Levi , he criticized what he believed to be the party's putschist policy in the context of the March action in the spring of 1921 and was able to present the position of the minority of the KPD - at Lenin's request - at the third Comintern Congress in the same year . At the beginning of January 1922 he was expelled from the KPD and joined the KAG led by Levi and Ernst Däumig , at the end of the year he returned to the KPD, but no longer took on any important functions.

After the NSDAP came to power , Malzahn lost his job at the district office in Berlin-Wedding in the spring of 1933 and was detained by the police for ten days in October of that year. From autumn 1934 worked again in the mechanical engineering industry and maintained contacts with the resistance group around Wilhelm Leuschner . He was arrested several times for this reason. In February 1940 Malzahn was sentenced to six months in prison, which he served in the central prison in Neumünster.

After the liberation from National Socialism in 1945, Malzahn lived in the western part of Berlin. He worked again for the district office in Berlin-Wedding. Due to his membership in the SED, he was dismissed without notice in September 1948. Malzahn then took on various functions in the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) in Berlin-Wedding and Kreuzberg. Politically, he no longer appeared on a large scale.

Sources and literature

• Entry in the Reichstag Handbook 1920
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Dietz, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-320-02044-7 , pp. 480–481.
• Christopher Wratil: Heinrich Malzahn (1884-1957) , In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers: officials of the German Metal Workers' Union and the Nazi Regime. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 1). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-059-2 , pp. 416-419.

Web links

• Heinrich Malzahn in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Malzahn, Heinrich . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .