Johann Esser

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Johann Esser (born April 10, 1896 in Wickrath , † September 2, 1971 in Moers ) was a German poet and trade unionist .

Life

Esser grew up in an orphanage and initially worked as a weaver after finishing school . During the First World War he was drafted as an infantryman. Esser then worked as a miner in the lignite area of ​​the Lower Rhine, became a union member and joined the KPD . Inspired by early worker poetry, he wrote poems and stories from the world of work.

In 1933 he was taken into “ protective custody ” as a communist and trade unionist and charged with high treason . In the Börgermoor concentration camp , Esser and Wolfgang Langhoff wrote the song of the moor soldiers as a song of resistance against persecution and oppression. In the following years he and his family lived in dire financial straits because of repeated arrests and the impossibility of finding employment. Presumably to avoid further persecution, Esser wrote a few poems for National Socialist publications during this time, e. B. “We don't capitulate!” And “Battleship Bismarck”, in which he praised National Socialism and Adolf Hitler with pathetic words.

Memorial plaque to the Moorsoldatenlied on the tomb of Johann Esser in the Trumpeter Cemetery (Rheinhausen)

After the Second World War he resumed his trade union activities, but broke away from communism at the time of Stalinism . Esser retired in 1960 and continued to publish poetry in newspapers. He died in Moers in 1971. His grave (and a memorial plaque) are in the Trompet cemetery in Duisburg-Rheinhausen .

Johann-Esser-Platz honors him in Moers' Meerbeck district .

literature

  • Werner Röhrich: Johann Esser - Poet and Patriot. Published in: Local calendar of the Wesel district , Kleve 1980
  • Volker Kühn (Ed.): Germany's Awakening: Cabaret under the swastika; 1933-1945 . Volume 3. Weinheim: Quadriga, 1989 ISBN 3-88679-163-7 , p. 372 (short biography)

Web links

Commons : Johann Esser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth register, registry office Wickrath, No. 65/1896
  2. ↑ Death register, registry office Moers, No. 585/1971
  3. ↑ Dirk Lüerßen: "We are the Moorsoldaten ..." The inmates of the early concentration camps in Emsland 1933–1936. Biographical studies on the connection between the categorical assignment of the arrested, their respective forms of behavior in the camp and the effects of imprisonment on the further life history . Diss. Rer. pol., University of Osnabrück, 2001, Department of Social Sciences, p. 276
personal data
SURNAME Esser, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Wickrath
DATE OF DEATH 2nd September 1971
Place of death Moers