Jakob Welter

Jakob Welter (born August 31, 1907 in Dudweiler ; † April 19, 1944 in Stuttgart ) was a German KPD member who was executed by the National Socialists .

Life

Jakob Welter trained as a locksmith after school and worked at the local slaughterhouse . In 1931, like his brother Heinrich, he joined the KPD. His father Christian Welter was a co-founder of the Dudweiler branch. Jakob Welter lost his job on September 1, 1932 against the background of the global economic crisis and began to get more involved in the party. So he distributed leaflets and recruited new members. At the end of 1933 he became head of organization in Dudweiler and later also head of the KPD's local group with the largest number of members. As part of the voting campaign for the Saar area , he also became a member of a “self-protection unit” that often got into violent conflicts with NSDAP and Stahlhelm members.

On September 7, 1934, his home was searched. incriminating propaganda material was found. A complaint for the production and distribution of inflammatory pamphlets was pending, but was never brought to trial because Welter emigrated to France after the results of the vote were announced. There he turned to the Red Aid . He was also involved in the KPD's foreign department, which sent him to Sweden. There he smuggled leaflets and the party organ Die Rote Fahne onto German ships. During the German occupation of Norway , Welter was also interned as an emigrant in the Längmora refugee camp in Sweden.

Welter was considered a reliable comrade and was recruited by Herbert Wehner for a scout mission in the German Reich. Welter fled the camp with two comrades. He was supposed to enter Germany via the Netherlands, but due to organizational problems he stayed in the Netherlands from May 1942 to January 1943. On January 7, 1943, he managed to enter the German Reich with a forged passport. Back in the Saar region, he went to his parents and spent twelve days in his old home. In the meantime, the plans of Wehner and the KPD members who had previously been sent to the Reich were betrayed by the confidante Karl Mewis to the Swedish police, which passed this information on to the Gestapo .

On January 19, Welter was arrested by the Gestapo and first in protective custody taken that a little later in pre-trial detention was converted. He spent the time leading up to his trial in Saarbrücken's Lerchesflur prison . On February 22, 1944, Welter was sentenced to death by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court. The execution took place on April 19, 1944.

In Dudweiler a street was named after him after the war. He is also named on an "honorary grave for the victims of the National Socialist justice in the Heidelberg mountain cemetery".

literature

• Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Gerhard Paul : The splintered no. Saarlanders against Hitler . Ed .: Hans-Walter Herrmann (=  resistance and refusal in Saarland 1935–1945 . Volume 1 ). Dietz , Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-8012-5010-5 , p. 274-280 .
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
• Gerd Kiefer, "On the 50th anniversary of Jakob Welter's death, resistance fighter from Dudweiler" 1994, published by Friends of LPM e. V.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The time that remains for me ... In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1977, pp. 42-55 ( online ).
2. ↑ Reinhard Hildebrandt: The victims of the Nazi justice in honorable memory . In: Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisteninnen und Antifaschisten Baden-Württemberg (ed.): Antifa-Nachrichten . No. 1 , May 2007 ( telebus.de ).