Josef Angenfort

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Josef "Jupp" Angenfort (born January 9, 1924 in Düsseldorf ; † March 13, 2010 there ) was a German politician ( KPD / DKP ). He was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament from May 15, 1951 to July 4, 1954.

Life

Immediately was born in a Catholic family of railway workers in Düsseldorf. After finishing school, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and, at the age of 19, was taken prisoner in the Soviet Union in October 1943 . As a German prisoner of war in the Soviet Union, he joined the National Committee for Free Germany (NKFD). In conversations with Soviet soldiers and German anti-fascists, "a process of knowledge began," as he himself said. He became a member of the NKFD and worked to persuade German prisoners of war against war and National Socialism.

In 1949 he returned to his home town of Düsseldorf, where he became a member and soon afterwards chairman of the central office of the Free German Youth in West Germany . This was banned by the federal government in 1951.

In 1951, the KPD became the youngest member of the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia .

As chairman of the banned FDJ in West Germany, Angenfort was unable to protect his immunity as a member of the state parliament of the KPD in North Rhine-Westphalia from arrest by the Bonn Security Group of the Federal Criminal Police Office in March 1953 . The Federal Prosecutor's Office , which issued the arrest warrant against Angenfort, relied on the fact that federal organs do not need to take into account the laws of the individual federal states. He was convicted of high treason accused and by the Federal Court on June 4, 1955 (StE 1/52, NJW 1956, 231) for preparing a treasonable enterprise, for conspiracy and membership as ringleaders to an anti-constitutional association to five years imprisonment convicted. The BGH stated that a mass and general strike could be violence within the meaning of Section 80, Paragraph 1, No. 1 of the Criminal Code. The first prison sentence of a federal German court for a politically motivated criminal act was passed against him after 1945, the highest sentence ever imposed on communists during this time. Walter Menzel , at that time Parliamentary Managing Director of the SPD parliamentary group, said:

“If you compare this verdict with the mild verdicts against headhunters from the Hitlerites' concentration camps, against cattle murderers who are subsequently pardoned, then one is outraged that people are treated like this before the judgment seat. In West Germany we are back to the point where all opponents of the Federal Chancellor are accused of being Bolsheviks or of high treason. "

In April 1957, Angenfort was pardoned by Federal President Theodor Heuss, subject to conditions. When his successor Lübke revoked this decision due to a breach of the conditions, Angenfort was arrested again in February 1962. He then fled from a prisoner transport, went underground and later fled to the GDR .

After the establishment of the DKP in 1968, Angenfort became a member and traveled several times to appearances at party events in the Federal Republic of Germany, where he was arrested in mid-March 1969. However, he was released on April 25 after the actions of the law enforcement authorities had also been criticized in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Immediately was a member of the illegal leadership of the KPD and then a member of the presidium of the DKP. From 1988 to 2002 he was state chairman of the Association of Persecuted Persons of the Nazi Regime - Bund der Antifaschisten (VVN-BdA) in North Rhine-Westphalia. Later he was one of their state spokespersons in North Rhine-Westphalia and a member of the federal committee of the VVN-BdA. Jupp Angenfort contributed to the creation of a unified all-German VVN-BdA (the VVN was dissolved in the GDR in 1953).

Honors in the GDR

In Lauscha and in the Ostseebad Sellin (island of Rügen) two youth hostels were named after Angenfort in GDR times , in Bernburg (Saale) the “club house of the youth” and in Böken , district Schwerin an LPG as well as a children's camp of the VEB Maschinenbau Halberstadt in Tornow .

publication

Jump into freedom: The stories of Josef A. Told by himself. , ed. v. Hannes Stütz , Papyrossa, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-894384-51-7 .

literature

  • Michael Herms: Behind the lines of western work of the FDJ 1945–1956. Metropol, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-932482-64-6 .
  • Wolfgang Bittner : Four years and four months imprisonment. Josef Angenfort. In: I meddle. Striking German résumés. Horlemann Verlag, Bad Honnef 2006, ISBN 3-89502-222-5 .

Movies

  • When the state saw red - justice victims in the Cold War. Director: Hermann G. Abmayr. Documentation, D 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cf. We mourn Jupp Angenfort at communisten.de, March 14, 2010
  2. ↑ State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia , detailed view of the MP Josef Angenfort
  3. ↑ Der Spiegel : Jupp and the Ultras , May 2, 1962
  4. ↑ Hans Canje : Jupp Angenfort - a case of unjust justice in the early Federal Republic of Germany in Neues Deutschland from March 27, 2010
  5. ^ Thin joint , Der Spiegel, March 3, 1969
  6. ↑ René Heilig: "High Treason" Jupp Neues Deutschland from March 16, 2010, accessed on August 2, 2011
  7. ↑ Josef Angenfort , In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 34/2010 from August 24, 2010, in the Munzinger archive , accessed on August 2, 2011 ( beginning of the article freely available)
personal data
SURNAME Right now, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Angenfort, Jupp (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters and politicians (KPD / DKP), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 2010
Place of death Dusseldorf