Heinz Schröder (anti-fascist)

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Heinz Schröder (born January 18, 1910 in Groß-Lichterfelde ; † May 21, 1997 in Berlin-Wannsee ) was a German anti-fascist and chairman of the VVN-VdA in West Berlin .

Life

Schröder grew up in a family of craftsmen in Berlin. His father was a self-employed master painter, his mother by profession a plasterer. From 1916 to 1924 he attended elementary school and then completed commercial training in his father's company. Schröder became a member of the SAJ in 1924 and after his training he organized himself in the Central Association of Employees (ZdA), from 1928 in the SPD and from 1930 in the Reichsbanner . He was also active in the free gymnastics community .

In the early 1930s he became the SPD's district cashier. From mid-1933 he actively participated in the resistance against National Socialism , since June 22, 1933, specifically by maintaining the organizational structures of the SPD. He received information material from the Sopade through connections in Central Germany and collected funds and current information from the capital of the Reich for them, which were forwarded to Prague .

At the beginning of 1936 he married Hildegard Hirche from Wannsee , who moved with him to Chausseestrasse 15. Hildegard Hirche took an active part in the social democratic resistance and worked as a courier for the illegal SPD as early as 1933. Both were arrested by the Gestapo on April 7, 1936 . Heinz Schröder was brought to the Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse  8 and locked in the Columbiadamm concentration camp a few days later . On May 23, 1936, he was taken to pre- trial detention in Chemnitz , where charges were brought against him in November 1936. On February 11, 1937, a “judgment” was issued by the Berlin Court of Appeal , with which he was sentenced to 27 months in prison and three years “ loss of honor ” for “continuing the SPD and the SAJ” . His wife was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the same trial. He spent his prison sentence in the Brandenburg penitentiary and in the Roßlau prison , from where he was deployed to work on the Elbe regulation .

He was released from prison on July 11, 1938. On November 3, 1942, he was recruited to the penalty unit 999 on the Heuberg . His unit was shipped to Africa, where he and other criminal soldiers were able to go into American captivity on April 9, 1943, which he spent from May 8, 1943 in a special camp in Kentucky . On March 23, 1946, he returned to Berlin, where he was immediately involved in the party-political debates. Based on the experiences of the anti-fascist resistance struggle and the politically instructive time in the US prisoner of war camp, he advocated the merger of the divided German labor movement and the unification of his party with the KPD . While this association in West Berlin was rejected by a large majority in a membership decision of the SPD, the SMAD forbade a membership decision in East Berlin and there was a forced union of the SPD and KPD to form the SED . At the unification party congress at the East Berlin state level, he was elected to the state leadership of the SED , of which he was a member until 1948. He then became political secretary of the SED district of Zehlendorf . In addition, he held leadership positions in the VVN and in the Peace Council of the FRG .

Schröder was expelled from the SED at the end of the 1950s and lost his full-time positions. He began working for the railway police of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in West Berlin. His internal party rehabilitation took place in 1964. He then worked in the political department of the Reichsbahn until 1968 and then in full-time positions in the party, which was renamed SEW in 1967 .

After retiring in 1975, he concentrated his political work on the VVN and was instrumental in its organizational development into the Association of Antifascists . From 1980 he supported the city tour project of the Landesjugendring Berlin as a contemporary witness and gave lectures in schools and youth facilities.

Fonts (selection)

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Fieber: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945 . Published by the history workshop of the Berlin association of participants in the anti-fascist resistance struggle . BV VdN, Volume 7 (S), trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2004, p. 142.

documentary

  • "Five years of barbed wire in my youth ..." (Heinz Schröder). In: Berlin contemporary witnesses. From the anti-fascist resistance (Heinz Schröder - Gertrud Keen - Wolfgang Szepansky ). A documentary by Loretta Walz , video production Berlin, Landesjugendring Berlin 1993 (25 of 67 min.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German Resistance Memorial Center, 2000
personal data
SURNAME Schröder, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß-Lichterfelde
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1997
Place of death Berlin-Wannsee