Heinrich Wagner (politician)

Heinrich Wagner (born February 1, 1886 in Łódź , Congress Poland, † January 26, 1945 in Bergen-Belsen ) was a German KPD politician. He came as an elected member of the Oldenburg state parliament. On January 26, 1945, he was murdered in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp .

Career

Wagner was born on May 1, 1886 in Łodz, the son of a bricklayer. There he learned the trade of blacksmith. Around the middle of the 19th century, Łodz developed into a center of the textile industry, and Łodz was known as the Manchester of Poland. From 1821 onwards, weavers were recruited from a wide area from Silesia, Things, Bohemia and later also from the Sudetenland. With the use of machines from 1836 onwards, a secondary industry was founded which, like machine factories or repair shops, were supposed to ensure the smooth production flow of the weaving mills. This required craftsmen such as locksmiths, wheelwrights and blacksmiths, and so Heinrich Wagner completed an apprenticeship as a blacksmith. Just finished his apprenticeship, he was drafted into military service with the Jägerregiment in Graudenz from 1906 to 1909 . For some time now there have been repeated unrest and strikes in Łodz. The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) worsened the economic situation in Russia and thus Łódź's most important sales market. When there were bad harvests in the areas of Congress Poland in the summer of 1904 , social unrest broke out and the Poles called for more autonomy. In June 1905 there was a workers' uprising in Łódź. The bloodiest week, 18. – 25. June, 200 deaths to mourn . After completion of military service Heinrich Wagner moved then not returned to Lodz, but in the 500 km distant Tilsit where he was a blacksmith work fand.Tilsit, the Russian today Sowetsk belonged at that time to the governmental district Gumbinnen East Prussia . There he met his wife Anna Danull, with whom he later moved to Delmenhorst in northern Germany , where the two married in 1913.

Relocation to Northern Germany

Anna Danull was the illegitimate child of an estate's housekeeper who lost her position due to pregnancy. The mother's relationship with her unloved daughter Anna was later described as problematic. In Delmenhorst, Heinrich and Anna Wagner had their daughter Erna on February 21, 1914 and their daughter Hilda in 1916.

From 1913 Wagner had a serious lung disease. Therefore, he was not used for military service in World War I, but from 1914 worked as a blacksmith at the Atlas works in Bremen. In 1919 the family moved back to Tilsit, where Heinrich Wagner bought a house in order to earn a living as a self-employed blacksmith. As a result of inflation and the occupation of the Memel area , he had to give up everything and returned to Delmenhorst with his family in 1922, where he worked in various larger companies.

Political activity

From 1918 he was a member of the USPD and joined the KPD in 1924. He was also a member of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) and the Red Front Fighters Federation (RFB). In 1929/30 he became head of the KPD's local group in Delmenhorst. He was considered one of the most active KPD functionaries in the state of Oldenburg and was elected to the Delmenhorst city council in 1931 and as a member of the Oldenburg state parliament in May 1931. The state elections in 1931 enabled the communists to expand their mandates from 1 to 3 members, but the real election winners were the National Socialists. They increased the number of their seats by 16 seats to 19 seats.

This made it clear at an early stage that there would be clashes with the KPD, verbal in the state parliament and tangible outside. The Oldenburger Kreisblatt reported again and again about the violent behavior of the Communists against the Nazis. Much to the chagrin of the KPD representatives, because they lost more and more support and sympathy in the state parliament and among the electorate. Disappointed by the violent actions of his party against the National Socialists and their growing superiority in politics as well as in everyday life, Heinrich Wagner resigned his mandate as a member of the Oldenburg state parliament in 1932 and was subsequently expelled from the KPD.

Persecution, imprisonment, death

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, an intensive hunt down began against the communists. Hitler had issued the order to eradicate Marxism "stump and stick". The fire in the Reichstag in February 1933, for which the communists were wrongly held responsible, also spread the persecution to groups close to communism, e.g. B. red front fighters expanded. With a law passed in 1933, which allowed the state to confiscate the property, assets etc. of the communists without compensation, the political resistance of the KPD disappeared more and more. Who could fled abroad z. B. to Spain or was deported. The first concentration camps were opened in the summer of 1933 a. a. filled with communists. Active communists were taken into protective custody. This measure could be ordered by the police ( Gestapo ), SA or SS without a judicial order . The prisoners were held in detention facilities administered by the National Socialists and known as concentration camps.

Heinrich Wagner was imprisoned in "protective custody" in March 1933 and again imprisoned for several weeks on May 1, 1933 on "suspicion of illegal activities for the KPD". From 1935 he worked at the Delmenhorst road construction office, then at AG-Weser. During this time he was already under Gestapo supervision. He was then remanded in custody for 10 months in Vechta, Delmenhorst and Berlin and then, in May 1938, was sentenced by the People's Court to 3 years in prison for high treason (illegal activity in the KPD). According to the reasons for the verdict, he was charged with collecting money for the families of imprisoned KPD members, as he was at the time. Everything was taken from these families and they did not have any income or other financial support.

He served the sentence until July 1940 in the Bremen-Oslebshausen prison. He then came to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from there to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . On January 26, 1945 Heinrich Wagner was killed with poison gas.

Honor

In memory of " the victims of National Socialism among the parliamentarians " there is a plaque in the Leineschloss in Hanover. Because of the alphabetical order of the victims, Heinrich Wagner is immortalized in the penultimate position.

Plaque

Individual evidence

1. ^ Weber, Hermann, Herbst :: German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , pp. 1056 .
2. ↑ Manfred_Alex, _: Small_Geschichte_Polens .
3. ^ Weber, Hermann, autumn: German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . Ed .: Berlin: Dietz, 2008. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , pp. 1096 .
4. ↑ Jürgen Hensel: Poles, Germans and Jews in Lodz 1820-1939 . Ed .: Feliks Tych.
5. ↑ Heinrich Wagner. In: Handbuch der deutschen Kommunisten - Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst, 2008, accessed on December 6, 2018 . 
6. ^ "Memel area". In: The Great Brockhaus . 15th edition. tape 12 , 1932, p. 382 .
7. ^ Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin, Franz-Mehring-Platz 1, 10243 Berlin (ed.): Handbook of the German Communists .
8. ^ Handbook of the German Communists: Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin, Franz-Mehring-Platz 1, 10243 Berlin .
9. ↑ weber, Hermann, Herbst: Biographical information from the manual of the German communists . Ed .: Karl Dietz Verlag.
10. ↑ Karl Dietz Verlag (ed.): Biographical information from the handbook of the German Communists .
11. ^ Reasons for the judgment from the People's Court
12. ^ Goldenstedt, Christiane Author: Albert Goldenstedt A Delmenhorster in the anti-fascist resistance . 2019, ISBN 978-3-7308-1552-6 .