Hermann Knüfken

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Hermann Knüfken (born February 9, 1893 in Düsseldorf , † February 8, 1976 in Brighton ) was a German trade union activist, marine , communist revolutionary and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

Knüfken was born the fifth child of a cleaning lady and was drafted into the Imperial Navy in 1914. In 1917 he deserted, but was caught. In November 1918, revolutionary sailors freed him from prison as part of the Kiel sailors' uprising .

On April 21, 1920 he kidnapped the fishing steamer Senator Schröder to the Soviet Union together with other left-wing activists under threat of shooting . As a member of the fishing steamer's crew, Knüfken had smuggled the communist functionaries Franz Jung and Jan Appel on board, who were supposed to convince Lenin of the possibility of a German revolution in Russia. The background was the Ruhr uprising . Knüfken returned to Germany in October and was arrested in Stettin earlier this month on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the Hamburg Regional Court for the kidnapping of Senator Schröder . He was sentenced to five years in prison on May 13, 1921 by the Hamburg jury court for serious robbery, mutiny and severe deprivation of liberty, but was released prematurely on May 1, 1923 and returned to Russia immediately.

From 1923 he headed the International Seamen's Club in Leningrad , was a delegate of the International Transport Workers Union and courier in the international network of the Comintern . Since 1927 monitored by the secret police OGPU , Knüfken took part in demonstrations of the opposition against Stalin during the revolutionary celebrations in Leningrad on November 7th . In September 1929 Knüfken was arrested on suspicion of membership in anti-Stalinist opposition groups and imprisoned in Leningrad, later transferred to the Moscow Butyrka . After protests abroad and a maritime demonstration in Leningrad, he was released from custody at the end of May 1930 under unknown circumstances. After working as head of the financial administration of the Soviet Flot in Leningrad and marrying Sonja (Sophia) Doniach (born January 10, 1910 - May 30, 1999) from Riga, he left the Soviet Union in January 1932.

In the 1930s he heads an anti-fascist resistance group. Eventually he worked as a secret agent for the British Secret Intelligence Service . After 1945 he helped denazification on the British side in Hamburg , but continued to work for the SIS and had contacts in the Soviet zone of occupation . In Hamburg he soon clashed with parts of the trade union movement and was excluded from the ÖTV . In 1950 he returned to Great Britain and then worked at the Foreign Office in London . In 1976 he died as a British citizen in England. In 2008 his memoirs were published.

Fonts

  • Hermann Knüfken: From Kiel to Leningrad. Memories of a revolutionary sailor. 1917-1930 . With documents, 80 photos and facsimiles. Edited by Andreas Hansen in collaboration with Dieter Nelles. BasisDruck, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86163-110-1

literature

  • Dieter Nelles: Resistance and International Solidarity. The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) in the resistance against National Socialism. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2001 ISBN 3-88474-956-0 (Dissertation, Kassel University, 2000)

Movies

  • A man named Freitag , Sweden / FRG 1988, directed by Staffan Lamm, broadcast on NDR III, May 3, 1989, 9 p.m. Length 60 min.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Knüfken, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1976
Place of death Brighton