Johann Mathieu

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Johann Mathieu (born December 6, 1888 in Neuhütten , † January 2, 1961 in Neunkirchen ) was a German communist and union official.

Life

Johann Matthieu first grew up in Neuhütten near Trier and moved with his family to the Saar district around 1900. There he became a miner and was involved in the free miners' union from 1913. He served as a soldier in World War I and was wounded, leaving him with a permanent restriction on his right leg. From 1920 he became active as a communist. First in an "Association of Communists" founded in Landsweiler speeches , which he co-founded and which comprised 112 members, later in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1925 in Spiesen he headed the workers gymnastics and sports club . In 1930 he moved to Neunkirchen. There he led the shaft group Dechen of the unified association of miners in Germany and belonged to the revolutionary trade union opposition .

In 1932 he was elected to the Ottweiler district assembly. From 1934 he was a member of the united front and was the organizer of the last staff meeting in the upper Saar district. As a Saar delegate, he traveled to the Soviet Union . After the result of the vote on the future of the Saar area had been announced , he fled to Forbach , but returned on instructions from the party. He lost his job at the Dechen mine and then worked as a sales representative. To camouflage he joined the Nazi organization National Socialist People's Welfare .

Mathieu, however, continued to act secretly as a communist and had been one of the leading figures in the communist resistance since 1935, although as a former member of the district council he was under special observation by the Gestapo. He organized conspiratorial meetings of former KPD members and received secret information through an intermediary of the NSDAP in order to warn his comrades. He was also in contact with the KPD cell in Forbach. Despite the associated special risks, he also took part in meetings of exiles abroad in order to organize the resistance from there. He took part in a conference on May 23 and 24, 1936 in Paris and was in Metz in February 1937, together with other well-known communists, including Philipp Daub , Wilhelm Frisch and Otto Niebergall , at a conference with Social Democrats and Christian trade unionists, the one Working committee for the formation of the Popular Front in Saarland founded and the call Saarvolk hear! adopted.

After the liberation from National Socialism he became involved as chairman of the miners of the East Mines and organized illegal meetings. On November 18, 1945 he co-founded the mining interest group and became an important functionary of the mining unions and second man alongside Oskar Müller . After Müller's resignation in 1947, he ran for chairmanship, but was defeated by Aloys Schmitt . He remained the staff spokesman for the Upper Revier until 1948, after which he was active as an elected, exempt member of the select committee until 1952. In 1952 he resigned for reasons of age. Until 1956 he was still active in the union, among other things as miners' union and deputy chairman of the local group IV of the mining industry.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klaus Michael Mallmann / Gerhard Paul / Hans-Walther Herrmann (eds.): Herrschaft und everyday life , Bonn: Dietz, 1989 (= resistance and denial in Saarland 1935-45, vol. 2), p. 212
  2. ↑ Ursula Langkau-Alex, History of the Committee for the Preparation of a German Popular Front , Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2004, pp. 281f. and note 22
personal data
SURNAME Mathieu, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist and union official
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuhütten
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1961
Place of death Neunkirchen (Saar)