Julius Fučík (Author)

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Julius Fučík (1929)
Postage stamp 1962

Julius Fučík (born February 23, 1903 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † September 8, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a Czech writer , journalist and communist cultural politician .

Life

In 1913 Fučík, a nephew of the composer Julius Fučík , moved with his family from Prague to Pilsen and attended the state secondary school there. When he was twelve he planned to start a newspaper called Slovan (The Slav). He was both politically and literarily interested.

In 1920 he began studying in Prague and joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party , where he was part of the “left” trend. In May 1921 this wing founded the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KPTsch). Fučík then wrote his first cultural contributions for the local party newspaper of the Communist Party of Pilsen. After finishing his studies, Fučík found a job as an editor at the literary newspaper Kmen (The Tribe). Within the KPTsch he was responsible for cultural work. In 1929 he went to the magazine of the literary critic František Xaver Šalda Tvorba (The Creation). He also became a permanent employee of the KPTsch newspaper Rudé právo . During this period, Fučík was repeatedly arrested by the Czechoslovak secret police.

In 1930 he visited the Soviet Union for four months and described the situation there very positively. In 1934 he went again, this time for two years, to the Soviet Union and wrote reports that again had a strongly partisan effect. After his return, violent arguments ensued with authors such as Jiří Weil and Jan Slavík , who criticized the Stalinist developments . Fučík stood behind the Soviet Union and criticized such criticism as fatal. In addition, from 1936 he participated in the anti-fascist resistance against Henlein's Sudeten German Party .

After the Munich Agreement , the Prague government largely stopped the activities of the KPTsch from September 1938. Fučík now published under a pseudonym in bourgeois newspapers, mainly on historical topics. After the invasion of the troops of National Socialist Germany in March 1939, Fučík became involved in the resistance movement . At times he lived with his family in Chotiměř . Later he went to Prague disguised as Professor Horák. From the spring of 1941 he was a member of the Central Committee of the KPTsch. He created leaflets and tried to publish the Communist Party newspaper Rudé právo regularly. The popular weekly newspaper Tvorba was also published under his direction .

On April 24, 1942, he was arrested in Prague , probably more by chance during a raid . He was first detained in Pankrác Prison, where he was also interrogated and tortured. During this time his report was written under the head , which was smuggled out of custody by the guards Adolf Kolínský and Josef Hora.

During the communist rule the version was shortened by critical passages and in particular the last three pages in which he admitted to having spoken to the Gestapo was omitted : Fučík was made a communist martyr .

His criticism of the Czechization policy in the Czechoslovak Republic against the German minority and his advocacy of the Sudeten Germans' right to self-determination was not published between 1945 and 1989 for obvious reasons.

Only after the Velvet Revolution could a complete edition appear; in 1995 a complete version of the work was available for the first time. The book is the most widely translated work in the Czech language. Around 300 editions have appeared in almost 90 languages. In later years the authenticity was contested. In the meantime, however, the authenticity has been scientifically proven.

In May 1943 he was deported to Germany. For a little over two months he was first imprisoned in Bautzen , then imprisoned in Berlin. In Berlin he was charged with high treason . Roland Freisler chaired the court and sentenced him to death. Before his execution, Julius Fučík wrote: “How many thousand prison cells did mankind run up and down in to get ahead?” He was murdered on September 8, 1943 in Plötzensee .

Honors

In the socialist countries, many streets and public facilities were named after Fučík. For example, there are several Fucik streets in Thuringia and Saxony . After the collapse of socialism, however, some renaming took place, for example in Magdeburg . The Fucik secondary school in Zwickau- Planitz has been called Fučík since the mid-1970s.

Julius Fučík Monument on Straßburger Platz in Dresden

In Berlin-Pankow there is still a monument to Julius Fučík in the Bürgerpark . It consists of five to eight meters high concrete columns and in the center you can see the face of Julius Fučík (see bust above). Underneath it reads: “People, I loved you, be vigilant.” In German, Russian and Czech, a quote from the report written under the thread . Every year a memorial run in honor of Julius Fučík takes place in the Bürgerpark. The above quote can still be found today at the entrance to the Ehrenhains Hamburg resistance fighters at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg and on a memorial stone in front of the Goor bathhouse near Putbus on Rügen .

The former Stübel- Platz in Dresden was renamed Fučíkplatz in 1951. The Julius Fučík memorial stands there to this day and was erected on the 20th anniversary of Fučík's death on September 8, 1963. The name Fučíks also gained further fame because the nearby exhibition center Fučíkplatz and a station of the Dresden Park Railway ( Happy Future (Fučíkplatz)) were named after him. The square itself has been called Straßburger Platz since 1991 , the exhibition halls have been demolished in favor of the Transparent Factory , the train station with its loop of tracks has been rebuilt approx. 300 meters from the square and without renewed naming.

In Kühlungsborn there was a rest home named after Julius Fučík. However, the building has since been demolished.

The cargo ship Yulius Fuchik , a Soviet variant of the US SeaBee ship , flying the flag of an international shipping company under the leadership of the Soviet Union, was in service between the Danube Delta and Southeast Asia from 1978 to the mid-1990s.

The asteroid (2345) Fučik was named after him. The same applies to Mount Fučík in Antarctica.

Works

  • V zemi, kde zítra již znamená včera 1932; German: A world in which tomorrow is already history . Translated by Günther Jarosch. List, Leipzig 1950, DNB 451401204 (report on a trip to the Soviet Union).
  • Reportáž psaná na oprátce. 1945 (Ed .: Gusta Fučíkova). German translation: Report written under the rope , Globus Verlag, Vienna 1946, Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1947; Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1973; Verlag Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-89144-272-6
  • A trip to Munich - July 1934 , German first publication of a rediscovered report; Translation: Helga Katzschmann, Verlag Wiljo Heinen, Berlin / Böklund 2013, ISBN 978-3-95514-011-3 .

filming

  • 1962: Report written under the head ( Reportáž psaná na oprátce )

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Julius Fučík  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katrin Bock: 100th birthday of Julius Fucik on radio.cz . Retrieved July 22, 2017.
  2. ↑ Michael Schmölzer: Fucik: Reportage written under the rope. Wiener Zeitung , October 7, 2002, accessed on August 27, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Fučík biography (in Czech)
  4. ↑ Quoted from Rainer Hermann: A deeply worried letter to President Erdogan. Can Dündar's minutes . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 10, 2016.
  5. ↑ Julius Fučík Run
  6. ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Volume 1 in the Google Book Search
personal data
SURNAME Fučík, Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech writer, journalist and communist cultural politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1943
Place of death Berlin