Josef Thomas (resistance fighter)

Josef Paul Thomas (born October 3, 1895 in Reisewitz near Ottmachau , † October 20, 1975 ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ), judge and resistance fighter against National Socialism . Together with Bruno Dickhoff , Georg Dix and Albert Förster , he was a member of the resistance group around Willy Jannasch .

Life

Time before 1933

Josef Thomas was born as one of seven children to a farm worker couple in the village of Reisewitz. At the age of eight he had to work on the manor. At 19 he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis , but was drafted to Spare Machine Gun Division III in Spandau-Ruhleben during the First World War . From there, in May 1917, he was assigned to the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk Cottbus (RAW), where he worked as a boilermaker until 1925 .

In 1918 he became a union member of the German Railway Association. In this he was actively involved, including recruiting members and working as a cashier. During the Kapp Putsch in Cottbus, he went on strike with the other RAW employees. After leaving the Catholic Church, he became a member of the KPD in 1923 . Even after the party was banned in November of that year, he continued to work for them underground. For example, he distributed issues of the forbidden Red Flag and the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung. After the KPD was re-admitted in 1924, he ran unsuccessfully on its list for the election of Cottbus city councilors. In March 1925 he was released from the RAW because of his commitment to the KPD. In the next time he kept himself afloat with a traveling trade for haberdashery and bed linen. From 1928 he worked as a conductor for the Cottbus tram . Here he also became a member of the revolutionary trade union opposition , of which he was head of the Cottbus municipal utilities .

Resistance to National Socialism

In the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933 , Josef Thomas ran for Frankfurt (Oder) on the KPD's list . For this reason, he was arrested on March 16 while still at work in the conductors' uniform. He was brought to Berlin, where he was held in the Spandau fortress prison for about two weeks from March 18 . He was then taken to the Sonnenburg concentration camp, where he was held until June 20, 1933. After his release he had to report to the Gestapo in Cottbus every day .

In Cottbus, he made contact with KPD comrade Theo Schneider. It was through this that he got to know Willy Jannasch . The three contacted other comrades and formed a resistance group with them. Its core consisted of 13 members. Together with only temporarily active people, it comprised around 28 members. In order to minimize the risk of discovery, sub-groups were formed whose members did not all know each other. Josef Thomas led a group to which Max Bischoff and Georg Dix belonged.

One of the main activities of the resistance group was the reorganization of Red Aid . On the other hand, it also distributed socialist and communist publications to the population and inmates of Reich labor camps . Among these publications were editions of the Rote Fahne , the Inprekorr , the Junge Garde , as well as the Brown Book about the Reichstag fire and Hitler terror . These were organized through contacts with emigrants in Czechoslovakia and members of the KPČ , as well as another group from Forst .

In January 1936 Josef Thomas was arrested along with twelve other members of his resistance group. They were initially held in Cottbus until March and then transferred to Berlin. In May they received their indictment, accusing them of preparing "the highly treasonable undertaking of forcibly changing the constitution of the empire" .

The hearing took place on June 29th and 30th in the Berlin Superior Court . Joseph Thomas was three years and six months in prison convicted. He was also deprived of his civil rights for three years . The other defendants were also sentenced to prison or prison terms of at least one year. With the exception of co-defendant Willi Graf, all of them had to begin their prison sentences. Instead, he was released after a few days. This raised suspicions that he had betrayed the group. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Willi Graf was arrested by the SMAD and shortly afterwards committed suicide.

Josef Thomas was initially brought to the Brandenburg-Görden prison together with six of his colleagues . He was later imprisoned in Zwickau prison. After the end of his imprisonment, he was first brought to the Gestapo in Frankfurt (Oder) . He was only released from there after four weeks. He also owed this to the commitment of his wife. After he was released, he had to report to the police three times a week. In addition, he was forced to work as a boilermaker in the company JM & A. Barthel. Since the master there was the local group leader of the NSDAP von Sandow , he was also under observation there.

As a result of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Thomas was arrested again on August 22, 1944 as part of the Grid Action . First he was taken to the police prison in Frankfurt (Oder). From there, after a few weeks, he was transferred to the Oderblick labor education camp near Schwetig . About 700 other prisoners were housed here. In January 1945 the camp was evacuated. On this so-called death march , the prisoners first migrated to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . After a short stay, they had to hike on to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Here Josef Thomas joined the camp committee that resisted the Nazis. After the camp was liberated by the Red Army , prisoners from the camp were appointed mayors of the nearby towns. Thomas was responsible for the community of Kleinobringen . In June 1945 he returned to Cottbus.

Time after 1945

In Cottbus he was initially busy building the Free German Trade Union Federation . Until mid-1949 he was also in charge of this in Cottbus. In addition, he was a member of the anti-fascist committee Cottbus-Stadt und -Land. After 1949 he attended the federal school of the FDGB in Bernau . Here he was prepared for his later work as a labor judge for the Cottbus , Spremberg , Guben and Forst districts . After the reorganization of the labor courts in June 1953, Thomas was appointed director of the district labor courts of Cottbus and Frankfurt (Oder). He was involved in the development of this and the district labor court in Frankfurt (Oder). In 1956 Thomas gave up this post for health reasons. Between 1958 and 1964 he was the main clerk for those persecuted by the Nazi regime in Cottbus. During this time he was also involved in various SED committees . He was also active in the FDGB and popular solidarity .

Josef Thomas died on October 20, 1975.

Honors

Among other things, Josef Thomas received the GDR Medal of Merit and the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold . In the textile combine Cottbus one was brigade named after him.

literature

Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The KPD's anti-fascist resistance struggle in Cottbus from 1934 to 1936 . Committee of the Antifascist Resistance Fighters of the German Democratic Republic, District Committee Cottbus City and Country, Cottbus 1985

Individual evidence

^ Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 57
↑ ^a ^b Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 30 f.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 12 ff.
^ Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, pp. 20 ff.
↑ Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 15 ff.
↑ Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 18 f.
↑ ^a ^b Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 22 ff.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 32 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Thomas, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Thomas, Josef Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician (KPD / SED), judge and resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH	October 3, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH	cottbus
DATE OF DEATH	20th October 1975

[1] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 57

[Roeber30-2] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 30 f.

[Roeber12-3] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 12 ff.

[Roeber20-4] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, pp. 20 ff.

[Roeber15-5] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 15 ff.

[Roeber18-6] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 18 f.

[Roeber22-7] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 22 ff.

[Roeber32-8] Ernst-Otto Roeber, Erna Roeber, Walter Hanig, Otto Last: Willy Jannasch and Comrades - The anti-fascist resistance struggle of the KPD in Cottbus in the years 1934 to 1936. 1985, p. 32 f.