Josef Raab (resistance fighter)

Josef Raab (born May 27, 1899 in Penzberg ; † January 28, 1971 there ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , fought on the part of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War as commander of the Thälmann Battalion and in the ranks during the Second World War the French resistance movement Résistance . Raab was also a member of the Free Germany for the West Movement (CALPO). In 1956 Josef Raab was awarded the Hans Beimler Medal “in recognition of excellent service in the Spanish people's struggle for freedom 1936–39” . During the Spanish Civil War he was named Franz Raab.

Childhood and youth

Josef Raab was born on May 27, 1899 as the son of a family of miners in Penzberg. He began an apprenticeship as a locksmith in Walchensee on March 1, 1913, which he successfully completed on March 1, 1916. Shortly after his 18th birthday he was drafted into military service. Since April 1919 Raab worked as a fitter in the Penzberg mine . In the 1920s he became master of wrestling and was a member of the 1st team from 1928 to 1933 as chairman of the AC Bayrisch-Fels . In 1928 he joined the Communist Party of Germany, which was founded in 1918/19 .

In the anti-fascist resistance

After the Red Front Fighter League was banned , he became the head of the " Combat League Against Fascism ". The Red Front Fighters Association and the Fighting League Against Fascism in Penzberg organized under Raab since the summer of 1932 regular sports and drill exercises as well as field battles and basic terms of the military such as camouflage and distance treasures. The Raab resistance group also organized and hid weapons. Raab was wanted by the National Socialists , he lived on the run in the surrounding forests and was searched for with systematic search operations by numerous SA people and police officers. At the beginning of 1933 the Penzberg resistance group comprised at least 30 people, in addition to Raab Georg Reithofer (cashier) and Josef Kastl, a victim of April 28, 1945, as well as Wallner, Numberger, Truger, Leonhard Wiedemann, Otto Kirner, Stein Maßl and Schmidtner.

After the seizure of power , 51 people were arrested in May 1933 on "suspicion of complicity or aiding and abetting in a crime of preparation for high treason "; On June 12, 1933, a preliminary judicial investigation was opened against 45 people. In December 1933, 46 members of the anti-fascist resistance organization were imprisoned in remand or so-called protective custody in the Munich-Stadelheim prison and in the Dachau concentration camp , including 27 miners, a retired miner, four unskilled workers, a railroad worker, a fruit dealer and ten craftsmen. Josef Raab lived underground with his comrades Wiedemann, Dirwimmer, Herschel and Hörmann, initially in the Beuerberg area and later in Antdorf and Hohenkasten . At the end of 1933 Raab was out and about in Bichl , where he noticed a Penzberg businessman who had been a member of the NSDAP since January 1933 . Josef Raab fled with a comrade on his motorcycle via Mittenwald / Scharnitz to Austria , where he hid for a few weeks in the Karwendel Mountains, and then moved from Austria to Switzerland . In Switzerland he immediately took part in the anti-fascist work; Raab and his comrades kept in touch at home, smuggled in leaflets and newspapers against the Nazi regime and helped organize the resistance in the country. The illegal border crossings came from different places; sometimes via Basel to France and from there to Germany. At a meeting in Munich in 1934, he suddenly found himself facing the Gestapo . He was betrayed by a contact whom the authorities had smuggled in under the code name "little Willi". He pretended to accept the Gestapo offer to provide them with information in the future. This gave him a day of free space that he used to flee to Switzerland. Raab stayed in Switzerland until the spring of 1936, then went to France and resumed anti-fascist activity in Paris .

Spanish Civil War

In July 1936, Raab signed a list in Paris on which volunteers applied for work in Spain to join the International Brigades , and arrived in Barcelona on August 10, 1936. There he was incorporated into the Centuria Thälmann. Due to his military experience in World War I and in the Red Front Fighters Association, he became an instructor. Under his direction, a heavy truck was converted into a serviceable armored car that was used under his direction in fighting on the Aragon front. In one of his post-war résumé notes, Raab wrote about his functions in Spain: “Soldier, armored car commander, MGK instructor, deputy battalion. Commander, commander of the Thälmann battalion - head of the German department of the officers' school, - special department in Albacete - final battle again commander of the Thälmann battalion. On February 9, 39 crossing the fr. Border with the 11th Brigade. “Josef Raab was temporarily commander (with the rank of major) of the Thälmann Brigade (Thälmann Battalion) from February to May 1937 and July 1938 to January 1939.

Internment in France

After the defeat of the Republican army, Raab crossed the Spanish-French Pyrenees border with the 11th Brigade on February 9, 1939 and was taken to an internment camp near St. Cyprien by a large contingent of the Guard Mobile . The detention center was an open area in the sand dunes near the sea, fenced with barbed wire. To protect themselves from the cold, sea storms and sand storms, the prisoners had to dig holes in the sand to find shelter. There were no sanitary facilities, no regular meals and hardly any medical care. Diseases such as dysentery , scurvy and typhus broke out in the camp ; the circumstances in the camp contributed significantly to the fact that Josef Raab's health was ruined for the rest of his life.

The hygienic conditions improved somewhat when Raab and many of his fellow prisoners were transferred to the Camp de Gurs barracks and later to the Le Vernet Pyrenees camp.

Escape from the internment camp - on the side of the Resistance

After the armistice on June 22, 1940 in the unoccupied zone, all Germans were to be extradited to the German Reich . Many participants in the Spanish Civil War were extradited and deported to concentration camps, where many of them were murdered or died from exhaustion. Raab succeeded in breaking out and escaping from Le Vernet in October 1941 with a few comrades. In Toulouse he was able to establish contact with resistance circles and went to Switzerland to establish resistance connections with France. He was arrested in Switzerland and returned to France; Another internment in Le Vernet followed.

He and others were then officially arrested in the Le Vernet camp in November 1942 and taken to the Castres deportation prison (between Toulouse and Montpellier ), but not immediately extradited to the German Reich. On the evening of September 16, 1943, 36 prisoners (more than half of those incarcerated) managed to break out. Most of the escapes joined the French resistance of the Resistance, including Josef Raab. Despite serious health problems, he took part in actions by the Resistance, especially in the city of Toulouse. In Marseille he was a member of the FTP-MOI staff . After the liberation of Paris in the summer of 1944, he joined the Committee Free Germany for the West (CALPO) there.

Acting Mayor of the City of Penzberg

At the beginning of June 1945 Raab returned to Penzberg sick and weak . At the instigation of the Penzberg miners he was appointed acting mayor of the city of Penzberg by the American occupation forces . He held this office from June 21, 1945 to January 29, 1946. In the first municipal council elections , the SPD won seven, the CSU and KPD four seats each. Raab ran for the KPD. With the votes of the CSU and SPD, the social democrat Anton Prandl won the election. Josef Raab remained on the city council for his party until April 25, 1948. His brother Paul Raab sat for the KPD on the Penzberg city council from January 1953 to April 1956. In the 1950s Josef Raab ran a small restaurant, which was known as the “Communist meeting” even after the KPD ban in August 1956.

Honor in the GDR

• In 1956 Josef Raab was awarded the Hans Beimler Medal “in recognition of excellent service in the Spanish people's struggle for freedom 1936–39” .

literature

• Klaus Tenfelde : Proletarian Province. Radicalization and resistance in Penzberg / Upper Bavaria 1900 to 1945. (Habilitation thesis Munich 1980), first in: Bayern in der NS-Zeit, Vol. IV. Ed. By Martin Broszat et al., Munich 1981, pp. 1–382; Revised and expanded new edition: Munich / Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-486-50701-X .
• Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 4 No. 2 1969, Commanders and Commissars Of The XIth Brigade
• VVN-BdA: Wrestling for a better world - The Penzberg anti-fascist Josef Raab (1899-1971) , Munich 2005 - Frauenlobstraße 24, 80337 Munich
• Jonny Granzow: The breakout of the Spanish fighters from the secret prison: A historical report. edition bodoni, 2012, ISBN 978-3940781277 .
• Marion Detjen: "Appointed enemy of the state". Resistance, resistance and denial against the Nazi regime in Munich. Munich 1998.
• Dora Schaul (Ed.): Resistance. Memory of German anti-fascists , Berlin, 1985
• Else and Bernt von Kügelgen (ed.): The front was everywhere. Experiences and reports from the struggle of the National Committee “Free Germany”. Berlin 1978.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Hutter : Spain in the Heart: A Swiss in the Spanish Civil War. Rotpunktverlag, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-85869-134-8 .
2. ^ Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 4, Number 2, 1969.