Julius Leber

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Julius Leber in the early 1920s
Julius Leber in the People's Court (probably on October 20, 1944)

Julius Leber (even Jules ; * 16th November 1891 in Biesheim , Alsace , † 5. January 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German SPD - politician , member of parliament and resistance fighters against the Nazis .

Life

Julius Leber was born out of wedlock to Katharina Schubetzer and was later adopted as a child by her husband, the bricklayer Jean Leber. In his youth, Leber was decisively influenced by his grandfather, who was fond of France. Accordingly, he advocated the autonomy of 1871 the Treaty of Frankfurt for the German Empire coming in Alsace-Lorraine one. Through the intercession of the local clergy, he came in 1902 to the grammar school (now Martin Schongauer-Gymnasium Breisach ) in Baden Breisach , 1908 concluded liver where his education with GCSE and completed a business education in a wallpaper factory in Breisach. From 1910 he attended the lower prima of the upper secondary school in Freiburg im Breisgau and wrote newspaper reports on the side. He also gave tutoring to finance his education. As a schoolboy, he joined the SPD in 1912 .

After graduating from high school in 1912, Leber studied economics and history in Strasbourg . In the winter semester 1912/13 he joined the Catholic student association Rheno-Frankonia (later Rheinpfalz Köln in KV ), but was excluded there in the summer semester because of a violation of the fides principle . From the winter semester 1913/14 he studied at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . In 1914, Leber volunteered for military service.

As a soldier, Leber was wounded twice and suffered gas poisoning. In 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant and battery chief in the field artillery and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class. After the end of the war, Leber served again as a battery chief in the Reichswehr with border guards in the east . During the Kapp Putsch in 1920, he and his unit from Belgard sided with the Republic . Then he was dismissed from the Reichswehr - under protest. After further studies he was awarded a doctorate at the University of Freiburg in 1920. rer. pole. PhD .

In 1921 Leber became editor-in-chief of the social-democratic Lübecker Volksbote - Willy Brandt , who was still a student at the time, wrote for the early 1930s - and was a member of the Lübeck citizenship from 1921 to 1933 . He was an avowed opponent of the mayor of Lübeck, who had a German national attitude , Johann Martin Andreas Neumann . With a campaign of several years against him, he brought about his resignation in 1926. That was the prerequisite for the election of Paul Löwigt as the first social democratic mayor of Lübeck . As a member of the Reichstag for the SPD from 1924 to 1933, he dealt primarily with defense policy. In doing so he moved more and more away from Marxist theories and belonged to the reform wing of his party. On November 21, 1927, in Lübeck, he married Annedore Rosenthal , the daughter of the director of the Katharineum , Georg Rosenthal . Liver was a member of Reichsbanner black, red and gold , and belonged to the reformist Freemasonry to the rising sun on.

On the evening of January 31, 1933, the NSDAP , SA , SS , Stahlhelm and the Prussian National Warrior Association organized a torchlight procession in honor of Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor , which led to serious clashes between the police protecting them and the members of the Reich Banner and the anti-fascist campaign came. In the morning hours of February 1, 1933, there were further violent clashes between the Reichsbanner and an SA group. In the process, Lebers Reichsbanner bodyguard Willi Rath stabbed SA naval storm man Rudolf Brügmann, who succumbed to these injuries. In defiance of his immunity as a member of the Reichstag , Leber was arrested, which led to large demonstrations by the Iron Front on February 14 and 19, 1933. Rath was sentenced to one year, while Leber was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment as the “intellectual originator”. Afterwards, Leber was detained in the Esterwegen concentration camp and in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1935 to 1937 . After his release he worked as a coal trader in Berlin-Schöneberg in the resistance and was supported by Gustav Dahrendorf , Ralf Dahrendorf's father , Ernst von Harnack and Ludwig Schwamb .

In 1940 he sought contact with the armed forces leadership and met Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg . In the following years he was in contact with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and the Kreisau Circle around Helmuth James Graf von Moltke . In the putsch plans of the Stauffenberg district, Leber was designated as Minister of the Interior . Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg stood up for him as future chancellor. His bourgeois co-conspirator Hans Bernd Gisevius , on the other hand, viewed him as standing too far to the left. For example, Leber used B. Contacts with members of the left-wing socialist resistance group Red Shock Troop who were released from prison and the Penal Division 999 .

Leber was arrested by the Gestapo on July 5, 1944, before the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . At the end of June 1944, he and Adolf Reichwein had taken part in a meeting with three high-ranking representatives of the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization , among whom was the Gestapo spy Ernst Rambow . On October 20, a show trial of Leber, Adolf Reichwein, Hermann Maaß and Gustav Dahrendorf took place before the People's Court . Leber was sentenced to death and the sentence was carried out on January 5, 1945 in what was then the Berlin-Plötzensee prison .

His grave is in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf . The grave site in Dept. XVI-W-701/702 is one of the honor graves of the State of Berlin.

Honors

The Julius-Leber-Kaserne in Berlin-Wedding , the Julius-Leber-Brücke in Berlin-Schöneberg including the S-Bahn station of the same name , the adjoining Leberstrasse and the Julius-Leber-Kaserne in Husum are named after him. The Julius-Leber-Haus is located in Essen and serves as an education center, old people's and youth meeting place. The Julius-Leber-Schule , a district school in Hamburg-Schnelsen, has an exhibition about him, the elementary and community school in Breisach , a school in Frankfurt am Main and an integrated secondary school in Berlin-Reinickendorf also bear the name Julius Lebers.

Since 1992 one of the 96 memorial plaques for members of the Reichstag murdered by the National Socialists has been commemorating Leber in Berlin near the Reichstag .

A Julius-Leber-Strasse can be found u. a. in Aalen , Aschaffenburg , Baesweiler , Bielefeld , Bonn - Duisdorf , Braunschweig-Kanzlerfeld , Bremen , Diepholz , Donaueschingen, Frankfurt am Main , Göttingen , Hachenburg , Hamburg-Altona , Hanau , Hürth , Kiel , Koblenz , Cologne-Longerich , Leverkusen-Alkenrath , Lüneburg , Nuremberg , Regensburg (district Burgweinting ), Meckenheim , Memmingen , Moers , Monheim am Rhein , Mülheim an der Ruhr , Münster , Neuss , Neustadt am Rübenberge , Nordhorn , Oldenburg (Oldb) , Paderborn , Remscheid Salzgitter , Soltau , Stralsund , Varel , Wesel and Wismar , in Lübeck the Dr.-Julius-Leber-Straße , in Erfurt , Krailling and Schongau a Julius-Leber-Ring and in Hildesheim the Julius-Leber-Grund . A Julius-Leber-Weg exists in Ellwangen (Jagst) , Essen ( Horst district ), Hanover (Mühlenberg district), Itzehoe , Ulm (Böfingen district), Wedel and in Wilhelmshaven (Altengroden district). In Bremerhaven there is Julius-Leber-Platz in the Leherheide district and Leberstrasse in Dortmund Aplerbeck.

The former coal shop no longer exists because the site was hit by a bomb in 1944. The barrack, which still stands on the site today, was commissioned by Annedore Leber in the 1950s and has since been modified and expanded several times. The demolition of the building was prevented. A working group to which the Schöneberg district shop, the history workshop and other residents belong is campaigning for a memorial at this location. Using the example of Annedore and Julius Leber, the resistance against National Socialism should be understood.

literature

Web links

Commons : Julius Leber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education (ed.): Justice in National Socialism. Crimes in the name of the people . Exhibition catalog. S. 38. Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2002, ISBN 3-7890-8178-7 .
  2. ↑ Jürgen W. Schmidt: A man goes his way. Julius Leber (1891-1945) on his 125th birthday . “The West”, Erwin von Steinbach Foundation. 63rd volume, issue 3/4 2016. pp. 10–15.
  3. ↑ Reichstag Handbuch , 3rd electoral period, 1924, p. 298
  4. ↑ Tom Goeller: Freemasons- clearing up a myth . be.bra verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-89809-071-1 , p. 130.
  5. ↑ Hans Bernd Gisevius: Until the bitter end. II. Volume. Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1946, p. 279.
  6. ↑ Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744 , pp. 20, 93 300f., 305, 318f., 365, 439, 446, 529f.
  7. ↑ For details cf. Annette Neumann, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization 1942 to 1945. In: Hans Coppi , Stefan Heinz (ed.): The forgotten resistance of the workers. Trade unionists, communists, social democrats, Trotskyists, anarchists and forced laborers . Dietz, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-320-02264-8 , pp. 144–157, here pp. 154 ff. And Hans Bernd Gisevius: Until the bitter end. II. Volume. Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1946, p. 280.
  8. ↑ Learning and memorial place
personal data
SURNAME Leber, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leber, Jules
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR, resistance fighter, Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Biesheim
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee