Karl Fick

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Karl Fritz Johannes Fick (born December 3, 1881 in Fackenburg , † May 3, 1945 when the Cap Arcona sank in the Bay of Lübeck ) was a German social democratic politician .

Live and act

Karl Fick was the son of the farm laborer Heinrich Friedrich Fick and Catharina Elisabeth nee Gößler. He grew up with four brothers in a social democratic home in Stockelsdorf and learned the trade of a carpenter . His older brother Heinrich Fick (1874–1953), who had become a bricklayer , was elected to the state parliament of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg ( East Frisia ) as a social democratic member of the state of Lübeck in 1911 . The area of ​​Lübeck (previously the Principality of Lübeck ) corresponded roughly to the Eutin district . In 1773 it was merged with the Duchy of Oldenburg (from 1919 Free State of Oldenburg ) and in 1937 it was added to Schleswig-Holstein .

Karl Fick looked after the youth group of the Stockelsdorf SPD at a young age . In addition to political work, he also organized leisure events such as hikes and theater plays. a. were performed at events on the Liedertafel. In 1899 he joined the SPD. During the Weimar Republic he was a member of the state executive committee of the SPD. On August 18, 1906, he married Adolphine Elisabeth Caroline Schnerke in Lübeck. The marriage resulted in two sons.

With the beginning of World War I, Fick volunteered for military service and fought on the Western Front in Flanders and France in 1917 . With double hernias and temporary total hearing loss, he was in a hospital in Harburg for six months in 1917 and was finally released as unfit for military service. Two of his brothers died in East Prussia and Poland during the war .

After the end of the war, Fick was unable to resume working as a carpenter because of the war injuries. He found work as a salaried union and became district leader of the German Agricultural Workers' Association . He was also active again for the SPD immediately after the end of the war, first in November 1918 in the workers 'and soldiers' council and then from 1919 as a member of the Stockelsdorf municipal council and the regional committee (district council) in Eutin. In 1922 he became a member of the state parliament in Oldenburg, to which he belonged for twelve years. From January 23, 1823 to 1933, he was a member of the state parliament's finance committee. Here he campaigned for the improvement of the living conditions of employees and socially disadvantaged people. The focus of his political work was the improvement of the infrastructure in the Lübeck region. The focus was on the construction of roads and paths as well as the expansion of community facilities, such as disposal in the baths in the Bay of Lübeck and the continuation of the constantly delayed construction of the railway connection from Bad Schwartau to Neustadt. Professionally, from 1920 to 1933 he was a full-time district leader of the agricultural workers' association in Stockelsdorf.

In the Eutin state committee and in the Oldenburg state parliament, Fick increasingly got into violent arguments with the National Socialists , especially with the Eutin lawyer Johann Heinrich Böhmcker . As SA group leader , he was responsible, among other things, for brutal hall and street battles in Eutin (which led to his nickname "Latten-Böhmker").

After the NSDAP received an absolute majority of the seats in the Oldenburg parliament (as the first state in the German Reich) in the state elections on May 29, 1932 , Böhmcker was appointed regional president for the Lübeck region. With his fanatical political attitudes and personal hostility, he was arguably one of the main culprits for Fuck's future fate. Fick was arrested on March 11, 1933 and sent to the temporary Eutin concentration camp . Numerous efforts by his family to obtain a release failed due to Böhmcker's interventions and massive reprisals against the family. On August 29, 1933, Fick was released, but the reprisals by Böhmcker continued.

Fick was expelled from the German Agricultural Workers' Association and lost his job. It was not until the beginning of 1935 that he found work as a traveling salesman at the Walkenrieder steam washing soap factory in Genzel in the Harz region . However, the application for a trade license for the Lübeck part of the country was rejected by the government in Eutin on the grounds of political unreliability. A lawsuit against this decision before the Oldenburg Higher Administrative Court was unsuccessful. The reasoning for the judgment of July 10, 1935 follows the Eutinian arguments: “... The refusal does not require proof of an intention to abuse the trade for purposes hostile to the state. Rather, the existence of the facts that justify an assumption is sufficient ”. The consequences of this judgment were initially limited to the Free State of Oldenburg ; outside of the country, Fick carried out his new job under the official job description "warehouse clerk".

After the death of his wife, Fick married Doris Sophie Helene Voss, born on January 4, 1941. Ehlers, from Bad Schwartau . After the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Fick was arrested again on August 22, 1944 as part of the “Gewitter” arrest and taken to Neuengamme concentration camp . He lost his life in the sinking of Cap Arcona, which had been converted into a floating concentration camp, on May 3, 1945 in the Bay of Lübeck.

Karl Fick was a Stockelsdorf politician whose work went far beyond the town. His commitment to the Lübeck region is shown by the documents still available from the Oldenburg Parliament in the Lower Saxony State Archives.

Memorial plaque for Karl Fick in the foyer of the Stockelsdorf town hall

Appreciation

  • On May 3, 2019, a memorial plaque was unveiled in the Stockelsdorf town hall in honor of Karl Fick.
  • Brochure about Karl Fick from the SPD local association Stockelsdorf, created by Ulrich Meyenborg

See also

literature

  • Beatrix Herlemann : Biographical Lexicon of Lower Saxony Parliamentarians 1919–1945, 2004, ISBN 3-7752-6022-6 , pp. 108–109.
  • Social Democratic Party of Germany (ed.): Committed to freedom. Memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century. Schüren, Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-89472-173-1 , p. 94 f.

Web links

swell

personal data
SURNAME Fuck, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fick, Karl Fritz Johannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social democratic politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Fackenburg
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1945
Place of death near Lübeck