Herbert Tschäpe

Herbert Tschäpe (born January 15, 1913 in Berlin-Schöneberg ; † November 27, 1944 in Brandenburg-Görden ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a communist.

Life

Herbert Tschäpe came from a social democratic family. He attended an upper secondary school, which he had to leave after the 10th grade for financial reasons, because his parents could not afford the further school fees. He became a construction worker and completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. After he had already belonged to the Socialist Workers' Youth and the Red Falcons , he joined the KJVD and the KPD in 1930 .

Tschäpe then headed the KJVD sub-district Neukölln and, as a party official, was responsible for agitation and propaganda. After the seizure of power by the Nazis , he continued his Party work in the underground continued and was a political leader of the KPD-subdistrict Neukölln. In December 1933 Tschäpe was arrested and sentenced to one year in prison. After his release from prison, Tschäpe worked conspiratorially for the KPD in Berlin-Charlottenburg . Since he was threatened with arrest again in February 1936, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia on the instructions of the KPD , where he worked in Prague in 1936 under the code name Benno .

In the spring of 1937 Tschäpe came to Spain , where he fought as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades against the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. At first he belonged to the " Edgar Andre " battalion and then became a political delegate and later political commissar in the "Hans Beimler " battalion of the XI. International Brigade . As a machine gunner he was deployed on various sections of the front and reached the rank of captain in 1938. After the defeat of the International Brigades, Tschäpe was interned in France in February 1939. In the camps in Argelès , Saint-Cyprien and Gurs he was part of the leadership of the KPD camp group.

In April 1941 he was extradited to the German Reich and immediately arrested by the Gestapo . After the arrest, Tschäpe was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . From there he was transferred to the Lichtenrade subcamp in 1943 , from which he was able to escape on April 22, 1944 with the help of his partner Lisa Walter . Tschäpe went underground again and became a functionary of the National Committee Free Germany for the civil work sector. He also took part in resistance actions by the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization . In July 1944 Tschäpe was arrested by the Gestapo. He was indicted before the “ People's Court ” (8 J 200/44 G = 1 H 286/44) and by judgment of October 24, 1944 for making it difficult to prepare for high treason according to Art condemned to permanent loss of honor. The sentence was carried out at the end of November 1944 and his body was buried in the cemetery in Brandenburg .

Honors

Herbert-Tschäpe-Strasse has been in his honor in Berlin-Lichtenberg since 1973 . Since the naming ceremony on May 31, 1973, today's Blankenfelde-Mahlow high school has been called Herbert Tschäpes. A feeder trawler of the "Artur Becker" series also got its name. The transport battalion, later the material security battalion of the 8th motorized rifle division of the NVA , also bore his name.

literature

• Ursel Hochmuth : Illegal KPD and movement “Free Germany” in Berlin and Brandenburg 1942–1945. Biographies and testimonials from the resistance organization around Saefkow, Jacob and Bästlein. Teetz, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-933471-08-7 .
• Luise Kraushaar among others: German resistance fighters 1933–1945. Biographies and letters. Volume 2. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 366-369.

Web links

• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center

Individual evidence

1. ^ Herbert-Tschäpe-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
2. ↑ oberschuleblankenfelde-mahlow.de ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.