Heinz Kraschutzki

Heinz (Don Enrique) Kraschutzki (born August 20, 1891 in Danzig ; † October 27, 1982 Füssen ) was a naval officer, committed democrat , German pacifist , prison officer and publicist.

Career

During World War I and until 1919

Kraschutzki was born the son of a doctor in Danzig. He entered a sea cadet school in 1910 to become a naval officer. Kraschutzki took part in the First World War as an enthusiastic monarchist - most recently as a lieutenant captain and commander of a minesweeper. During the war, he - including abstainers - had already realized in conversations with the chairman of the Association of Abstinent Officers, Corvette Captain Hinckeldeyn, that Germany played a major role in the development of the war. He also soon realized that Germany would lose the war and that the monarchy could not have a future in Germany. Kraschutzki was involved in the November Revolution against the Wilhelmine Empire for the emergence of a democratic Germany. In November 1918 he was elected to the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council of Bremerhaven , of which he was a member until February 1919.

When Kraschutzki applied to run a new minesweeper in 1919, which was supposed to help clear the mines floating in the sea from the war that had just ended, the naval management rejected his application because he would participate in the November Revolution and even wanted to try him before a court martial. Kraschutzki left the navy and took up a civilian profession. In 1919 he moved to Itzehoe and became an authorized signatory at the network factory Die North German Networks .

Change to a pacifist and engagement in the anti-war movement

Kraschutzki became a pacifist because of his own experiences . He began to publish his ideas against the war in pacifist papers ( Junge Menschen , Deutsche Zukunft ) and in 1923 founded the Itzehoe branch of the German Peace Society (DFG), of which he was chairman until 1926. At first Kraschutzki was very popular with his pacifist ideas. But when he invited a French pacifist to a lecture, he had lost it with the increasingly nationalist bourgeoisie Itzehoe, who were looking for revenge against the "hereditary enemy France". His apartment was terminated and he had trouble doing his job. Therefore, in 1927 he took over the editing of the magazine Das Andere Deutschland in Hagen / Westphalia, published by Fritz Küster , and moved there with his family.

From 1925 to 1928 he was a member of the SPD , but left this party after the SPD government representatives had approved the construction of the ironclad A. The pacifists feared further armament in Germany. From then on, Kraschutzki remained independent.
As a result of his journalistic activities, he was persecuted by right-wing circles in Germany with charges of treason during the time of the Weimar Republic . As early as 1925, Kraschutzki, together with Fritz Küster and Berthold Jacob, participated in the revelations of the Other Germany about an illegal armament that was prohibited under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . Among other things, Jacobs' article Das Zeitfreiwilligengrab in der Weser was published in the Other Germany , which, based on an accident involving temporary volunteers on the Weser, showed that the Reichswehr had an illegal militia system instead of being limited to a small professional army. As a result of this article, Küster and Jacob were each sentenced to nine months of imprisonment in the " pontoon trial ".

Emigration from 1932 to 1945

In consultation with the publisher and editorial staff of the Other Germany , Kraschutzki remained editor, but in 1932 avoided legal and political persecution and emigrated to Spain . From 1932 he lived on Mallorca . He founded the company Las cuatro estrellas (German: the four stars ) whose logo showed four stars, which stood for his four children. He ran local trade and set up a production of sandals and was "an extremely popular entrepreneur with workers".
He employed 25 women and founded the Indústries de Cala Rajada company in 1933 with the Jewish banker Ludwig Strauss, who also fled to Mallorca .

On March 29, 1934, the Deutsche Reichsanzeiger published the second expatriation list of the German Reich through which Kraschutzki was expatriated . Shortly after the start of the Franco coup in July 1936, Kraschutzki was arrested by the Guardia Civil Francos in Cala Ratjada after being denounced by Nazi secret agents residing in Mallorca who supported the coup against the legal democratic government on behalf of their government. His sudden disappearance due to his arrest led to reports, for example in the Paris daily newspaper on March 18, 1936, that he had been shot. He was first taken to the Casa Mir prison , where he witnessed the republican bombing raids on Palma in July 1936 . Kraschutzki was sentenced to thirty years in prison by the Franco government. His wife and children were sent back to Germany. A son could study in England. While he was still in detention, his wife was forced to divorce him.

While in custody, he succeeded in sending the British, French and Swedish consulates to the attention of the regular, unconscious shootings of prisoners, which were not carried out for the time being. He was also spared. The reason for this was an agreement between the German envoy in Spain, General Wilhelm Faupel, and the Franco regime, according to which he would remain in custody, but not be shot. Von Faupel was a friend of Kraschutzki's late father and had been asked for help by Kraschutzki's mother. Kraschutzki volunteered while in custody to work to set up a prison camp on Formentera . In March 1942 the prison term was reduced to twelve years. However, the parole actually associated with this did not take place. In practice, however, he was actually released in Palma de Mallorca, although he was only allowed to leave the city with judicial authorization. In July 1943, he was arrested again and detained in the central prison in Burgos .

He was released in 1943 through his international pacifist contacts. The War Resisters' International (WRI) organized aid during the Second World War, particularly through diplomatic contacts, and ensured that Heinz Kraschutzki was brought to the Spanish peninsula of Gibraltar in 1943 , which is British overseas territory. First contacts to Theodor Michaltscheff were made. After the World War he joined the International Council of WRI in 1946 and remained there until 1963. According to other sources, he was in custody until October 1945 and was only then released under pressure from WRI and the British government.

Return to Germany and continued work for peace in Europe after 1945

After 1945 Kraschutzki lived in West Berlin . He married his wife a second time. He did not see his second oldest son again, as he had died in Austria during the Second World War . Kraschutzki taught history in Potsdam and then worked for several years as a senior welfare officer in the Tegel correctional facility . He also worked against errors of justice . Later, Kraschutzki was involved in the release of Herbert Schön, who was wrongly sentenced to life. In 1966 he wrote the book Misdeeds of Justice , listed in the list of publications, about this case and other judicial injustices . In doing so, he also supported the political work of the Humanist Union , which at the time was working for the liberalization of criminal law .

After the war, Heinz Kraschutzki was again a colleague of Fritz Küster in the magazine Das Andere Deutschland and campaigned against rearmament , for the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border , against the Cold War and for a policy of détente from west to east.

As a WRI council member he supported the founding of the International of War Service Opponents (IdK), the first German section of WRI after the war, and in 1947 was one of the founding members of the IdK. He actively worked in the WRI and the IdK. In doing so, he represented a remarkably open and unprejudiced attitude towards the communist World Peace Council . Kraschutzki was often attacked for this. He wrote that he had been an outsider his entire life and "therefore challenged a lot of harsh criticism".

Heinz Kraschutzki had been a member of the Religious Society of Friends ( Quakers ) since the early 1970s , lived in old age - blind - again with his wife in Mallorca and finally returned to Germany.

Publications

• Memòires a les presons de la Guerra Civil a Mallorca . Ed. Miquel Font. In Catalan, Palma de Mallorca, 2004
• The Misdeeds of Justice - The Evil of Retaliation Represented in 111 Cases . With a foreword by Fritz Bauer . Verlag Gerhard Szczesny , Munich 1966. A new version was published as The Justice Machine. Experience with punishments and the execution of sentences . CF Müller publishing house, 1970.
• Danger to the state ?: A documentary. Report on d. Düsseldorf trial against relatives d. Peace Committees d. Federal Republic of Germany . Küster, Hanover 1961
• The hidden story of the Korean War . Verlag Das Andere Deutschland , Hanover 1957
• East and West . Peace News, London 1949. In German: East and West . International d. War service opponent, Ger. Branch [War Resisters' International], Hamburg 1949

literature

• Björn Marnau: We who raised our hands at the Chevreuse fire ...: The Itzeho pacifists in the Weimar Republic . In: Yearbook Democratic History No. 10, pp. 141–166, beirat-fuer-geschichte.de (PDF; 3.8 MB) deals with the Itzeho pacifists in Weimar based on a representation of the life of Heinz Kraschutzki up to 1945

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Kraschutzki in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Donat , Karl Holl (Historiker) (Ed.): Hermes Handlexikon - The Peace Movement, Organized Pacifism in Germany, Austria and Switzerland - Düsseldorf 1983, p. 232 f.
2. ^ Günter Wirth: The Hauser Chronicle . Buchverlag Der Morgen, Berlin 1982, pp. 94/95
3. ↑ Lothar Kusche : Acceptance speech for the award of the Tucholsky Prize ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 21, 2007 and Björn Marnau: We who raised our hands at the Chevreuse fire ...: The Itzeho pacifists in the Weimar Republic . In: Yearbook Democratic History No. 10, p. 141, beirat-fuer-geschichte.de (PDF; 3.8 MB) 
4. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned : Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 54
5. ↑ ^{a b} Christian Buckard . Death in the island garden: Another story of the “German” holiday island Mallorca . In: Friday , July 7, 2006.
6. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 55
7. ↑ Michael Hepp (Ed.): The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger . tape 1 : Lists in chronological order. De Gruyter Saur, Munich / New York / London / Paris 1985, ISBN 978-3-11-095062-5 , pp. 4 (reprinted 2010).
8. ↑ Deutscher Reichsanzeiger of March 24, 1934, quoted from Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 113
9. ↑ Björn Marnau: We who raised our hands at the Chevreuse fire ...: The Itzeho pacifists in the Weimar Republic . In: Yearbook Democratic History No. 10, pp. 141–166, beirat-fuer-geschichte.de (PDF; 3.8 MB)
10. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 101
11. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 104
12. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 105
13. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 107
14. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 107 f.
15. ↑ Devi Prasad: War is a crime against humanity - the story of the War Resisters' International . published by WRI, London 2005
16. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 108
17. ↑ Martin Breuninger, Germà García i Boned: Mallorca's Forgotten History - How the island paradise became hell . Vitolibro, Mallorca / Malente 2011, ISBN 978-3-86940-001-3 , p. 108
18. ^ ^{A b} Gerhard Mauz : The art of awakening the evil appearance: via accelerated and other procedures . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1968 ( online ).
19. ↑ Guido Grünewald: The International of War Service Opponents (IDK) . Cologne 1982