Hermann Möhring

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Signature of Hermann Möhring 1979

Hermann Möhring (born September 9, 1900 in Dahlenwarsleben ; † July 5, 1986 in Fulda ) was a German university professor , editor and politically persecuted in the GDR . He belonged to the SPD and became a member of the SED in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) through the forced union with the KPD .

Life

Möhring was the son of a bricklayer active in the SPD. After attending primary school , he became a printer, other sources say: typesetter. Like his father, he was involved in politics and became a functionary of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) .

From 1919 he was a member of the SPD. Since the SAJ was founded in 1922 as a merger of the youth organizations of the SPD and USPD , it can be assumed that he was first a member of the VAJV . He later became head of the youth hostel at the Leuchtenburg . At Easter 1927 he gave the lecture "The class and its overcoming" there. From 1933 Hermann Möhring appeared actively in the Oberbarnim district with the “ Iron Front ” against the National Socialists . Until the ban by the National Socialists, he was editor of the magazine Das Volk in Jena. In May 1933 he was taken into “ protective custody ” and then sentenced to nine months in prison for “ treachery ”. After the dissolution of the SPD, he worked as the owner of a tobacco shop. During this time he was a permanent member of the political resistance in Germany.

Life after the end of the war in 1945

He experienced the end of the war in Magdeburg and became a member of the SED as a result of the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED, but could never really get used to the idea of ​​unifying the SPD and the KPD. In April 1946 he was elected to the secretariat of the SED Magdeburg SED. He later became cultural secretary in Magdeburg and finally came in 1947, first as a pupil, then as a lecturer and department head, to the SED party college Karl Marx in Liebenwalde , then to the Hakeburg in Kleinmachnow near Berlin. It was there that he met Wolfgang Leonhard , who was 20 years his junior .

As early as Magdeburg, Soviet officers tried to win him over as an informant against Social Democrats who were known to oppose the elimination of their party. When the pressure for espionage increased and the originally agreed principle of parity between communists and social democrats was increasingly abandoned, the party was expelled from the SED. In October 1948 Möhring fled with his family from the Soviet Zone to West Berlin .

Escape in October 1948

He couldn't establish himself professionally in West Berlin, he had to live on unemployment benefits. The Berlin SPD resented him for not defending himself against the forced unification. From around 1949 he worked in a support group to support a USPD / UAPD / FKPD that was to be founded, but which suffered from the dispute between Karl Heinz Scholz and the “Schlömer-Möhring Group”. and probably also consisted mainly of informants from the parties and employees of the secret services.

As a co-founder of the “Socialist Association” he worked - at least in 1952 - in the SWV (Social Science Association), which only found itself again in 1952 because of Alfred Weiland's arrest . As editor of the magazine “Pro und Contra. Neither East nor West - the undivided world ”he created a new basis for influencing former SPD members in East Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone. It was soon possible to establish regular connections with readers in East Berlin.

When one day the courier broke down, he brought the magazine copies to Berlin-Rummelsburg himself .

Arrested in the GDR in 1952

He was arrested on November 7, 1952. According to the arrest report, he was recognized by the ZK employee Wilhelm T. "as the former teacher at the Kleinmachnow party college". An attempt to escape failed.

He was taken to the central remand prison of the MGB , the cellar of the former St Antonius hospital in Berlin-Karlshorst . On May 13, 1953, a Soviet military tribunal sentenced Möhring to twice 25 years of forced labor for “anti-Soviet agitation” and “illegal group formation”, reduced to 35 years.

Möhring was obviously considered a big catch. His name was not allowed to be mentioned in the detention center. It was suspected that he worked for the American and French secret services. Because of his friendship with Benno Sternberg , that's not impossible either. Even in 1956 the KGB did not allow the MfS to inspect the files of their inmate Möhring.

In June / July 1953 Möhring was taken via Brest Litovsk to Moscow to the Lubyanka prison , and in October 1953 to the Vorkuta forced labor camp , where a prisoner uprising was bloodily suppressed in August . Then he was transported to Camp IV in Sverdlovsk . There he was locked up with people who were later convicted as Nazi helpers in the Sachsenhausen trial .

The return to the GDR as part of the "return of the ten thousand" in 1956 did not bring Möhring freedom, but further imprisonment in the Bautzen prison and from 1958 in the Brandenburg penitentiary . There he met Alfred Weiland again. After his dismissal in the same year, he stood up for Hermann Möhring at the East Office of the SPD . In 1960, Weiland published a report on prison conditions in the DGB newspaper “Welt der Arbeit”, which was also published in The Guardian under the title Political prisoners on starvation diet. Condition worsening in East German gaols was addressed.

Released in 1964 and moved to the Federal Republic

When Möhring was released to West Germany in 1964, his imprisonment had been a total of twelve years. After his release he worked with Weiland for the " Association of Political Prisoners " (VPH). In 1974 he was a driving force behind the establishment of the “Gemeinwesenarbeit Fulda-Aschenberg e. V. “At the age of 79, he took a trip to Bonn to attend a VPH conference. At that time he was also still active with the SPD in Fulda.

When his mental powers began to wane, he tried to kill himself. He lived in the care home of the Fulda-Petersberg workers' welfare organization until his death.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermann Möhring  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fritz Borinski, Horst Grimm, Edgar Winkler, Erich Wolf (eds.): Youth in political protest: Der Leuchtenburgkreis 1923-1933-1977 . 1977, pp. 19, 31
  2. ↑ Committed to freedom: memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th ... SPD, p. 226
  3. ↑ Action Network
  4. ↑ Andreas Schmidt: "- ride with you or be thrown off": the forced unification of KPD and SPD ... pp. 207–209
  5. ↑ a b Twice 25 years of forced labor . SPD press service, PPP, October 10, 1979.
  6. ^ Andreas Malycha: Party by the grace of Stalin? - the development of the SED into a new type of party . 1996, p. 209.
  7. ↑ Hermann Weber, Gerda Weber: Back when my name was Wunderlich . P. 266
  8. ↑ Red cloth . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1949, pp. 8 ( online ).
  9. ↑ Thomas Klein: For the unity and purity of the party
  10. ↑ Michael Kubina: From Utopia, Resistance and Cold War . P. 365 ( Google Books )
  11. ↑ a b Michael Kubina: From Utopia, Resistance and Cold War . P. 431 ( Google Books )
  12. ^ The Guardian , May 25, 1960
personal data
SURNAME Möhring, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD, SED), politically persecuted
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Dahlenwarsleben
DATE OF DEATH 5th July 1986
Place of death Fulda