Hugo Härtig

Hugo Härtig (born September 4, 1872 in Berlin , † September 11, 1944 in Brandenburg-Görden ) was a German communist resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Hugo Härtig was one of six children in the simple family of a master weaver . Hugo's father was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), his mother was a housewife. As a child of six he helped his father with the loom and thus contributed to the maintenance. When he finished elementary school , he learned to be a carpenter . First he did his military service in an imperial infantry regiment for two years from 1893 . In 1898 he emigrated to the USA and found work as a carpenter in New York . In 1902 he returned home and worked again as a carpenter. In 1905 he opened a rowing boat rental company in Woltersdorf . At the same time he ran a pub in Lichtenberg .

During the First World War , Härtig was used as a soldier in both the east and west and was wounded twice in the process. Returning to civilian life, he continued to rent his boats, but in 1927 he sold his company. Now he built in Kaulsdorf a house and opened a there grocery store .

Stumbling block for Hugo Härtig

In 1890 he joined the German Woodworkers Association . In 1895, like his father, he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the beginning of the war, he resigned from both the union and the SPD. His sympathies led him to join the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920 . When the KPD after 1933 in the illegality left, he headed the sub-district of Lichtenberg. After the beginning of the Second World War , he got in touch with the KPD company cell in Rheinmetall-Borsig AG , the Mannhart resistance group around Max Klesse . He distributed the publications and leaflets of this resistance group. He also helped prisoners of war and forced laborers with the provision of food and clothing. He listened to the enemy radio stations Radio Moscow and London , noted the changes reported there in the course of the war and recorded the German war losses in the case of tanks , planes and troops . He got to know Paul Hinze , who lived underground , and who had put him in touch with the Mannhart group. He first placed him with the confectioner Otto Haase in Tegel, and from July onwards with relatives and an acquaintance.

When the Mannhart group was discovered and its members captured, Hugo Härtig was arrested on November 13, 1943 and sentenced to death by the People's Court for helping the persecuted Paul Hinze and for favoring the enemy. The death sentence was pronounced on July 28, 1944. He was taken to Brandenburg-Görden and executed there on September 11th with the guillotine .

Hugo Härtig married in 1906 and had a son born in 1909. He was buried in the urn collecting grave of the Socialist Memorial at the Berlin-Friedrichsfelde cemetery .

memory

• A memorial plaque on his house at Bausdorfstrasse 10 in Kaulsdorf has been a reminder of his resistance struggle since 1952. This board was removed in 1991 after a facade renovation and was no longer attached. It is kept in the district museum.
• During the GDR era, the Kaulsdorf school was called the 22nd POS "Hugo Härtig".
• A stumbling block reminds of Hugo Härtig .

literature

• Sources - Landesarchiv A Rep. 370, No. 8997 - Indictment of the Oberreichsanwalts at the People's Court - 8 J 123/44 of June 21, 1944 -
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: Resistance in Pankow and Reinickendorf , Berlin 2009, p. 263 -
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The "other" capital of the Reich , Berlin 2007, p. 261 f -
• Günter Wehner: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945 , Volume 3, Berlin 2003
• Center for political beauty (ed.): To posterity. Latest news and testimonials from Nazi victims against forgetting , Berlin 2019, p. 92, ISBN 978-3-00-064453-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Remembrance Days 2019
2. ↑ Hugo Härtig on stolpersteine-berlin.de