Herbert Belter

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Herbert Belter (born December 21, 1929 in Greifswald , † April 28, 1951 in Moscow ) was a student in the GDR . He was executed in the Belter group named after him for his non-violent resistance to the dictatorship in the GDR .

Life and education

Herbert Belter attended middle school in Rostock from 1936 to 1945 . The desire to take the Abitur was initially prevented by the turmoil after the war. Instead, Belter completed an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk at the Rostock business school from October 1946 to 1948 and then worked for the port administration in Rostock. In 1948 he joined the SED . In July 1949 he graduated from the Rostock preparatory college with a high school diploma. He then applied for a place at the University of Leipzig and was enrolled in October 1949 as a student of economics and social science. Belter was married. At the time of his execution, his wife was expecting a child.

Political resistance and execution

At the university, Herbert Belter was faced with increasing political repression and bringing the institutions into line. It is not known whether he was aware of the last big wave of arrests against democratically minded students in 1948 after the dissolution of the student council and the arrest of its chairman, Wolfgang Natonek . But the pressure to conform was obvious: For example, the degree of organization of students rose in the FDJ from 47% in July 1949 at 90% in October 1950. Belter decided to opposition work and gathered a group of like-minded around him, later than Belter group called has been. They began to provide information about the situation in the "zone" to the RIAS and, conversely, to provide counter-publicity at the university through leaflets .

On the occasion of the first elections to the People's Chamber , Belter and other members of the group distributed leaflets in downtown Leipzig on October 5, 1950, calling for free elections. Belter was arrested on the way back . During a subsequent house search , the police found leaflets and pamphlets, as well as information on other parties involved.

The police delivered Belter and other members of the Belter group on October 9, 1950 to the Soviet secret service MGB . The arrested were imprisoned in the MGB prison in Dresden, Bautzener Strasse and later brought to Moscow. There they were convicted in a private secret trial by the Soviet Military Tribunal No. 48240 on January 20, 1951. Belter himself confessed to the allegations in court and stated: “I operated illegally because I was dissatisfied with the situation at Leipzig University. We had no freedom of conscience , no freedom of speech and no freedom of the press . ”As a ringleader , Belter was sentenced to death , the others mostly to 25 years of forced labor .

On April 23, 1951, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet rejected a petition for clemency . Herbert Belter was shot dead on April 28, 1951 without public knowledge . The proceedings and the execution remained secret until the events after 1990 could be reconstructed from the opened Russian archives. The Russian judiciary issued an official rehabilitation on May 23, 1994.

Belter's body was cremated in the then only Moscow crematorium on the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow and he was buried in a mass grave there.

Commemoration

The University of Leipzig honors Herbert Belter together with other victims of the two German dictatorships in their book of honor.

In his speech on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war on May 8, 2005, Federal President Horst Köhler recalled the victims of the Nazi dictatorship and referred to the different post-war developments in East and West after the war. In doing so, he covered everything from the establishment of the dictatorship in the GDR to the fall of the Wall. Literally he said:

“In the beginning there were people like Herbert Belter, who in 1950 distributed leaflets against the oppression at the Leipzig University and was executed for it. In the end there was the democratic victory of the Monday demonstrators and civil rights activists at the round tables, the only freely elected People's Chamber and the government that emerged from it "

- Horst Köhler, speech on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war on May 8, 2005 "We mourn for all victims because we want to be fair to all peoples.

In 1996 the University of Leipzig honored Herbert Belter with an exhibition.

The comparison with the White Rose has been drawn by the university in this exhibition, in literature and the media .

Under the name “Belter Dialogues”, a joint series of events by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , the Bildungswerk Sachsen and the University of Leipzig was carried out and books were also published.

literature

  • Gerald Wiemers , Jens Blecher: Herbert Belter . In: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel (eds.): Opposition and Resistance in the GDR: Political Life Pictures , CH Beck, Munich 2002, pp. 187–192.
  • Jens Blecher, Gerald Wiemers (ed.): Student resistance at the central German universities 1945 to 1955: from the university to the GULAG; Student fates in Soviet penal camps from 1945 to 1955 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2nd edition 2005; ISBN 3-86583-008-0 , pp. 12-14.
  • Arsenij B. Roginskij (Ed.): Shot in Moscow. The German victims of Stalinism in the Moscow Donskoye cemetery 1950–1953 . 3rd, completely revised Berlin 2008 edition ISBN 978-3-938690-14-7 , p. 116.
  • University of Leipzig and Association of Patrons and Friends of the University of Leipzig eV (Ed.): Student resistance at the University of Leipzig 1945–1955. (Development of the exhibition and the texts: Gerald Wiemers / Jens Blecher, Leipzig University Archives) Beucha, Sax-Verlag, 2., erg. U. verb. Edition 1998, ISBN 3-930076-50-0 , Die Belter Gruppe pp. 25-71.
  • Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk :  Belter, Herbert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Jörg Rudolph, Frank Drauschke, Alexander Sachse: Executed in Moscow, 2007, ISBN 978-3-374-02450-6 , pp. 25-26.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography on:  Belter, Herbert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
    Wiemers and Blecher speak of a “preparatory school in Rostock”. (Wiemers, Blecher 2002: p. 187)
  2. ↑ I acted illegally ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Universitätsjournal 7/99, Universität Leipzig  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-leipzig.de
  3. ↑ From memory to renewal; in: FAZ of October 26, 1992, p. 35.
  4. ↑ Gerald Wiemers, Jens Blecher: Herbert Belter. In: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel (eds.): Opposition and Resistance in the GDR, pp. 188–189.
  5. ↑ Jörg Rudolph, Frank Drauschke, Alexander Sachse: Executed in Moscow, p. 26.
  6. ↑ Quoted from: Universität Leipzig, Association of Sponsors and Friends of the University of Leipzig: Student Resistance at the University of Leipzig 1945–1955 . Sax-Verlag, 1998, p. 34
  7. ↑ Jörg Rudolph, Frank Drauschke, Alexander Sachse: Executed in Moscow, p. 26.
  8. ↑ Jörg Rudolph, Frank Drauschke, Alexander Sachse: Executed in Moscow, p. 26.
  9. ↑ Honoring Herbert Belter by the University of Leipzig ( memento of the original from October 26, 2007 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / db.uni-leipzig.de
  10. ↑ Printed in: FAZ of May 9, 2005, p. 8.
  11. ^ University of Leipzig 1996
  12. ↑ Jens Blecher, Gerald Wiemers (ed.): Student resistance at the Central German universities 1945 to 1955: from the university to the GULAG; Student fates in Soviet penal camps from 1945 to 1955 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2nd edition 2005; ISBN 3-86583-008-0 , pp. 5-6.
  13. ↑ z. B. Joachim Klose (Ed.): Ohnmacht der Studentenräte, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86583-542-0 , p. 7.
  14. ↑ z. B. The White Rose of the GDR; in: Uni-Spiegel from April 7, 2014 , students in the resistance: “We were petrified”; in: SOPN of May 17, 2014 , Waldemar Ritter: Twice extreme; In: Tagesspiegel of November 30, 2008
  15. ↑ Belter dialogues on the university website
  16. ^ Belter dialogues on the DNB website
personal data
SURNAME Belter, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters in the time of the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifswald
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1951
Place of death Moscow