Heinz Putzrath

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Heinz Putzrath (born December 12, 1916 in Breslau ; † September 24, 1996 in Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter, businessman , social democratic politician and head of department at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation .

Life

Heinz Putzrath grew up in Breslau as the son of Jewish parents, his father was a businessman. Until 1933 he attended the secondary school there. As a schoolboy he was a member of the German-Jewish Wanderbund Kameraden from 1928 to 1932 and in 1933 of the Socialist Schoolchildren's Association. In 1932 and 1933 he was a member of the KPD opposition (KPO) .

In 1933 he moved to Berlin and devoted himself to the resistance against Hitler . He was an apprentice in a car mechanic and then a commercial apprentice in a tapestry factory . In September 1933 he was arrested and sentenced to six months in prison for “preparing for high treason”; he was only released in June 1934. In July 1934, he fled to the Netherlands . In the “Werkhof Nieuweshuis” of the Jewish refugee committee he was trained as a fitter for two years . In 1936 he was expelled for political activity. In 1936/37 he lived in Czechoslovakia .

In 1937 Heinz Putzrath emigrated to Great Britain . In 1940/41, as a German, he was imprisoned in various internment camps for eleven months . He worked in various professions in England , initially as a pipe fitter for a construction company in London ; from 1942 to 1945 he worked in an aircraft factory, then a publishing clerk. From 1942 to 1945 he worked in the group “ New Start ”; since 1945 in the SPD. From 1942 to 1946 he was a member of the "National Group of German Trade Unionists in Great Britain"; 1945/46 board member of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt, and from 1943 to 1946 he was chairman of the youth group of the " Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain ".

After twelve years in exile, Heinz Putzrath returned home to Germany in 1946. He became foreign affairs officer of the SPD executive committee; first in Hanover , from 1951 in Bonn . He was involved in the re-establishment of the Socialist International and established relations with the Labor Party in Israel for the SPD . He was also a co-founder of the German-Israeli Society .

From 1961 to 1968 he was managing director of the technical development aid organization "Worldwide Partnership". From 1968 until his retirement in 1981 he was head of the “Sociopolitical Information” department of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. In 1982 he became an advisor to the historical commission of the SPD party executive . Since 1983 he was chairman of the " Working Group of Persecuted Social Democrats " (AvS).

In 1993, Heinz Putzrath gave the idea and was one of the initiators and founding member of the non-partisan and non-denominational association " Against Forgetting - For Democracy ". As their board member, contemporary witnesses and memorials were important to him, as was the contemporary significance of the Nazi past, communism; and dealing with right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, racism and totalitarianism of all forms.

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personal data
SURNAME Putzrath, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1996
Place of death Berlin