Hermann Steinacker

Johann Baptist "Hermann" Steinacker (born November 20, 1870 in Odenheim , † April 14, 1944 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was a German anarchist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Empire and Weimar Republic

Hermann Steinacker learned the trade of tailor and joined the SPD ; later he became an anarchist. At the beginning of the First World War he sat as a "war opponent" with eight other Wuppertal anarchists without trial in "security custody" and was only released in March 1916 to be drafted as a soldier.

During the Weimar Republic , Steinacker became one of the most important people in the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD), the so-called " anarcho-syndicalists ", which in 1920 had 1200 members in the area of ​​what is now Wuppertal , but by 1933 it had shrunk to 40 members. Its importance lay in stabilizing the inward movement. His understanding of anarchism was not limited to political struggle, but also expressed itself in engagement against authoritarian conditions in schools, prudery and religious indoctrination. Steinacker's workshop was an informal meeting place: "For two generations of young people he became a teacher in the best sense of the word, embodied the principles of anti-authoritarian socialism through his person in word and deed." (Nelles)

time of the nationalsocialism

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Steinacker became the central figure in the anarcho-syndicalist resistance in Wuppertal. He tried in vain to convince the Wuppertal party and union leaders for a general strike in personal talks. Based on his experience during the Socialist Law in the German Empire , he advised that the FAUD and the Syndicalist-Anarchist Youth of Germany (SAJD) be officially dissolved. Steinacker, however, retained supraregional contacts with the FAUD comrades who had set up an escape aid organization to Holland in the Rhineland and who also obtained illegal literature from there. By denouncing a work colleague in October 1934 , the Gestapo tracked down the Wuppertal anarcho-syndicalists. Steinacker was arrested and to one year and nine months in prison sentenced, he in Luettringhausen dismounted.

On July 6, 1936, Herman Steinacker was released from prison. Shortly thereafter, he began collecting solidarity funds for comrades in the Spanish Civil War . In 1937 he was arrested again, taken to the Düsseldorf police prison and badly mistreated. In January 1938, 88 Rhenish anarcho-syndicalists were tried before the Hamm Higher Regional Court . Steinacker received one of the maximum sentences for “preparation for high treason” at the age of ten.

Imprisonment and death

Initially, Hermann Steinacker was imprisoned in the Münster correctional facility . A fellow inmate later reported: “Our comrade always believed firmly and steadfastly in the collapse of the Nazi regime. He endured his imprisonment in the prison in Münster calmly, even with humor. "(Nelles)

“Morally and mentally unbroken, torture and imprisonment had weakened Steinacker, then 73 years old, so physically that he could no longer climb stairs. So every morning his comrades carried him from his cell to the workroom on the first floor of the prison. One day, when he fell asleep while working, his death sentence was passed. The guards reported this and the prison director informed the Gestapo in Düsseldorf. In their eyes, the incapacitated prisoner was seen as an unworthy life and was therefore deported to the Mauthausen mass extermination camp in January 1944. "

- Nelles

In 1944, Hermann Steinacker was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp with a syringe containing copper vitriol . The only legacy left behind was blood-smeared glasses sent to his daughter.

Web links

• Dieter Nelles: A teacher of resistance. The anarcho-syndicalist Hermann Steinacker on gedenkbuch-wuppertal.de