Helmut Podgorsky

Helmut Podgorsky (born January 17, 1906 in Berlin , † October 23, 1944 in East Prussia (missing, exact location unknown)) was a German communist trade unionist and resistance fighter .

Life

Podgorsky attended elementary school. He did not learn a trade, but worked for several years as a trained lathe operator in the Berlin metal industry. At the end of 1930 Podgorsky became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He also organized himself as a union in the radical left-wing union of metal workers in Berlin (EVMB). Podgorsky was active as a cashier for the association in the Jaroslaw company in Berlin-Weißensee .

After the National Socialists came to power , Podgorsky became involved in the resistance for the illegal EVMB in Berlin-Weißensee. In mid-December 1933 the Gestapo arrested Podgorsky in his apartment. He was imprisoned in the Columbia concentration camp , then in the Oranienburg concentration camp and in the Berlin-Moabit remand prison until the Berlin Superior Court sentenced him to a two-year prison term on June 26, 1934. Podgorsky served his sentence in the Plötzensee and Tegel prisons.

After his release from prison, Podgorsky worked again as a lathe operator. He was observed by the Nazi security authorities. At the beginning of February 1943 Podgorsky was drafted into the Penal Division 999 for military service. Podgorsky was killed at the end of the Second World War . Most recently he was in East Prussia. He has been missing since October 23, 1944.

Literature / sources

• Stefan Heinz , Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Functionaries of the unified association of metal workers in Berlin in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 2). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-062-2 , pp. 32, 159, 224–226 (short biography), 259, 291.
• Stefan Heinz: Moscow's mercenaries? "The Union of Metal Workers in Berlin": Development and failure of a communist union. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89965-406-6 , pp. 313, 324, 369, 528.
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss , Resistance in Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee (= Resistance in Berlin 1933–1945 , Vol. 12), Berlin 2000, p. 120.
• Landesarchiv Berlin , inventory C Rep. 118-01, no. 15053 (documents from his wife Erna Podgorsky in connection with the recognition as a “victim of fascism”).

Web links

• Stefan Heinz: Short biography in the internet exhibition about political prisoners in Oranienburg concentration camp