Hubert Vootz

Hubert Vootz (born April 24, 1886 in Dülken ; † August 24, 1956 in Viersen ) was a German social democrat , resistance fighter and mayor of Viersen.

Life

Family and education

On April 24, 1886, Hubert Vootz was born as the son of Gerhard Vootz and Margareta, b. L Bäumen, born in Dülken at a time when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was harshly repressive against German social democracy and the workers' movement.

He attended elementary school in Dülken from the age of six. In 1900 he began his apprenticeship and then worked as a journeyman in a dye works.

Vootz joined both the SPD and the trade union movement on April 1, 1906, and thus became active in a conservative-Catholic environment for democratic socialism. From 1906 to 1908 he did his military service with the 997 Infantry Regiment. For health reasons he had to give up his job in the dye works and became warehouse foreman in a deep-deep and railway construction business.

On July 23, 1909, Vootz married Bernhardine Kopp in Oedt . There were three children from this marriage: 1909 Bernhardine, married. Dudziak, 1914 Helene, married. Vollenbroich, used Stals, and one who died in his youth.

Work after the First World War

During World War I , Vootz took part in battles in Belgium, France, Poland and Russia as a deputy officer. Like many social democrats of his time, he also advocated war and rejected internationalism . After the war he continued to work as a warehouse foreman in the deep underground and railway construction business. Following the resolution of the Weimar Constitution by the National Assembly , Vootz became city ​​councilor of Dülken on March 5, 1920 . Until 1924 he was still organized as branch chairman in Mönchengladbach in the German construction industry. For a short time he moved to the mayor's office in Dülken and was responsible for the local food supply and welfare for the unemployed. In 1925, Vootz joined the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Association of German War Participants and Republicans , and since its founding in 1931 the Iron Front . In the years 1925 to 1931 he took up a travel activity for a textile company. He then worked as a bricklayer and foreman at the Matthias Gorissen construction business in Dülken, as well as being the head of the workforce.

Political commitment

Until the SPD party was banned in 1933, Vootz was chairman of the local SPD association in Dülken, where he was also chairman of the Reich Banner and the Iron Front . He took an offensive stand for the Weimar Republic and German democracy. Shortly after the transfer of power from Reich President Paul von Hindenburg to Adolf Hitler and his appointment as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, the National Socialists took power and control over the city of Dülken. This was followed by days of clashes between police officers, Jewish businessmen, workers and National Socialists. Under pressure from the NSDAP Dülken , Vootz was dismissed because of his political views. His family got into economic hardship and social problems. In the same year Vootz built a small settlement for the unemployed of 36 houses in Saarstrasse and was then given house number 3. Meanwhile, social democrats organized themselves in many places, whereupon arrests were made by the National Socialists. Vootz's house was repeatedly searched by the Secret State Police and specialist and socialist literature was confiscated. He was also arrested several times and held in detention cells in the Dülken town hall. He had to report to the police every day. On March 12, 1933 Vootz lost the election to the city council of Dülken; The SPD and KPD are said to have been prevented. The unions were banned on May 2, 1933.

From the summer of 1934 until his arrest on July 11, 1935, he belonged to the social democratic resistance around the Germania bread factory in Duisburg-Hamborn under Hermann Runge, head of the SPD Lower Rhine district . He was subordinate to the Adam Romboy group, consisting of Social Democrats from Mönchengladbach, Dülken, Süchteln and Viersen. Reading circles were set up to exchange illegally smuggled SPD material. Meetings, discussions and excursions maintained the social democratic identity and solidarity community. Material such as Freie Presse , Neuer Vorwärts and Sozialistische Aktion came with the International Transport Workers' Federation ITF, based in Amsterdam, to the port of Duisburg by ship on the Rhine, from where it was passed on to Hermann Runge or the Germania bread factory.

Sentencing and imprisonment

Vootz spent six days until July 16, 1935 in the police or Gestapo prison in Duisburg. He was tortured and severely ill-treated there. Almost all of his teeth were knocked out. In order to protect the other Social Democrats, he too only wanted to admit what he could not deny. It was not until 1953 that he was able to afford a dental prosthesis due to compensation as a victim of National Socialism of 300 DM. For the rest of his life he was unable to overcome or talk about post-traumatic stress disorder of torture.

After this detention, Vootz was taken to the Duisburg Regional Court Prison until August 5, 1935, for further custody. With regard to the bread factory trials , he was sentenced to 17 months in prison by the Hamm Higher Regional Court with 45 co-defendants of high treason. He served the entire sentence of 17 months in prison in Lüttringhausen . Due to the conviction, he was also punished by the Honorary and Disciplinary Court of the German Labor Front (Gau Düsseldorf) for two years with exclusion from the German Labor Front . This resulted in a professional ban and continued economic and social persecution. In addition, his settler house in Saarstrasse 3 was expropriated from him by Mayor Ludwig Simon. During this time, his family's social and economic problems became increasingly acute. He was released on February 9, 1937 and has had to report to the police every day since then.

During the Second World War

In 1938 Vootz moved with his family to Viersen , Am Blaue Stein 3. By March 1945, he was withdrawn from his family for the building trade in Kiel, Krefeld, Cologne and Westwall. On August 23, he fled from being arrested again by the Gestapo and lived in hiding in the Dülken area. Just as he feared he would be sent to a concentration camp, he frightened the thought that it might happen to his family too. On March 1, 1945, Viersen was liberated from National Socialism by US troops. After a short stay in the sanatorium, Vootz took part in the rebuilding of the trade union movement in Viersen and is a co-founder of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt- Ortsverein. He also founded the local SPD association there and held the office of chairman until 1953.

Political activity after the Second World War

On June 13, 1945, Vootz was reappointed a council member by the Americans at the first council meeting in Viersen on the basis of the local election results of March 27, 1929. In the second council meeting he was elected to the main and finance committees, and he held various offices in boards and committees until his death. He was particularly committed to helping the homeless and supplying coal to the socially disadvantaged. During the establishment of the Viersen local committee of the German Trade Union Federation, Vootz was elected to the board. On November 27, 1945, the Viersen city council set up a denazification committee for city officials, whose committee included Vootz. On October 13, 1946, he was elected to the local council and held the office of parliamentary group leader until his death.

On November 13, 1950, Vootz was elected and sworn in as mayor of the city of Viersen. He held the honorary office until his death. He moved a lot for the residents of Viersen and was instrumentalized against the CDU and the German Center Party (ZENTRUM). For the period from 1953 to 1956, Vootz was honorary chairman of the SPD local association Viersen. On his initiative, Viersen's city council decided to erect a memorial for those persecuted by the Nazi regime and made a sum of 12,000 DM available for this purpose. In addition, Vootz distinguished himself as a fighter against corruption in politics and administration. In 1954 he supported the Socialist Youth of Germany - Die Falken Viersen - for organization and financing .

death

On August 24, 1956, Hubert Vootz died in Viersen as a result of a stroke. The burial followed on August 28, 1956, with great sympathy from the population in the cemetery on the Löh. In 1986, in honor of Vootz, the youth home of the Socialist Youth in Germany - The Falcons - was renamed the Hubert Vootz House . For his services he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon.

literature

• Karl Fonyo: Center or Hitler? The political landscape between 1919 and 1933: the example of Viersen . In: June . Magazine for politics & culture . Volume 4, No. 2-3 . Aisthesis, 1990, ISSN  0931-2854 , p. 159-171 .
• Norbert Pies: "Relatively few people who hate people live here." History of the labor movement on the left Lower Rhine . SP, Marburg 1989, ISBN 3-924800-53-7 .
• Hartmut Pietsch, H. Scherschel (ed.): 125 years of the Social Democratic Party in Duisburg . Duisburg 1989 ( online [PDF]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lothar Klouten: Social Democrats in the area of ​​today's Viersen district 1933–1945 . An example of resistance and resistance to National Socialism . In: Hans-Christian Vollert (Hrsg.): Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen 1992 . 43rd episode, 1991, ISSN  0948-6631 , p. 158-165 .
2. ↑ Ferdinand Dohr: From the old Dülken . Viersen 1976, p. 66 .