Hermann Friedrich (politician, 1885)

Hermann Friedrich (born May 22, 1885 in Plaue ; † November 7, 1944 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German communist resistance fighter .

Life

Hermann Friedrich grew up as a half-orphan in poor circumstances. His father died early. In his youth, Friedrich worked as an inland boatman in his learned profession. He was drafted into military service at the beginning of World War I and deployed on the Eastern Front. In connection with the November Revolution, Friedrich joined the USPD in 1919 . In 1920 he joined the KPD , for which he held an office in the local parliament between 1925 and 1933.

From 1923, Friedrich worked as a transport worker in the locomotive works of the former Reichsbahn repair shop in Brandenburg-West in Kirchmöser . In this operation, he was from 1929 to 1932 as a representative of the Communist Revolutionary Union Opposition (RGO) in the works selected. In early 1933 he was dismissed for political reasons.

After the National Socialists came to power, Friedrich continued his communist work in the environment of the now covert KPD sub-district leadership of Brandenburg. The towns of Brandenburg / Havel, Plaue and Kirchmöser were a center of illegal work by the regional KPD . On November 11, 1934, Friedrich and a number of other communists were arrested. More waves of arrests followed. The Gestapo put through their action illegal KPD activities in Brandenburg / Havel and surroundings largely paralyzed. For lack of evidence, Friedrich was released from pre-trial detention after about three months. Friedrich was then unemployed. In 1935 he was committed to labor service. It was not until 1937 that Friedrich was allowed to resume his former semi-skilled job as a transport worker in the Reichsbahn repair shop in Kirchmöser. He was employed there until 1944.

Friedrich was arrested on August 22, 1944 in connection with the grating action and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . The SS obliged Friedrich to do hard labor. He died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp on November 7, 1944. "Breast phlegmon" was given as the cause of death. In fact, however, Hermann Friedrich was a victim of brutal abuse by the SS .

Honors

The memorial stone for the resistance fighters Hermann Friedrich and Karl Miethe.

In his birthplace Plaue, a memorial stone erected in 1970 on Chausseestrasse commemorates Hermann Friedrich and the communist Karl Miethe , who also came from Plaue .

literature

• Stefan Heinz : Friedrich, Hermann (1885-1944). Revolutionary trade union opposition, in: Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the concentration camps Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen. Biographisches Handbuch, Vol. 3, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89468-280-9 , pp. 329–331.
• Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration (1933–1945) . Metropol-Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1 , pp. 293-296, 311, 469 f. (Short biography).