Karl Okonsky

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Karl Okonsky

Karl Okonsky (born October 12, 1880 in Rummelsburg near Berlin; † May 8, 1974 in Kuźnia Raciborska ) was a German politician (SPD).

Live and act

Life in the Empire and the Weimar Republic (1880 to 1933)

Okonsky was born as the son of the farm worker Josef Okonsky and his wife Josefa Dudzinska. After attending elementary schools (or village schools) in Friedrichsberg , Schön-Eiche , Heinersdorf and Hasenfelde, he completed an apprenticeship as a gardener in Herzfelde from 1895 , after having worked in agriculture since he was eleven. Until 1901 he earned his living as a gardener, coachman and construction worker in Berlin , Hamburg and taught . From 1903 to 1904 he was in the military in Allenstein . From 1904 to 1910 he worked as a construction worker in Berlin.

As a young man, Okonsky joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He also became a member of the trade union, for which he sat on the board of the construction workers' association in Berlin-Friedenau . In the course of his work for the SPD he came into contact with August Bebel and Rosa Luxemburg, among others . He also worked as an editor for the SPD-affiliated press for almost 20 years: from 1910 to 1918, interrupted by his participation in the First World War , during which he was stationed as a soldier in France, he worked as an editor for the newspaper Volkswacht in Breslau . In 1912 Okonsky was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for one of his articles in the People's Watch by the Wroclaw District Court for gross insulting ministers. From 1919 to 1924 Okonsky was editor of the Upper Silesian newspaper Volkswille , then, from 1925 to 1927, editor of the Katowice newspaper . From 1928 to 1945 he ran a nursery in Ratiborhammer .

From July 1919 to June 1920 Okonsky was a member of the Weimar National Assembly . In June 1920 Okonsky was elected to the Reichstag as a candidate of the SPD for constituency 10 (Opole) , of which he was a member until May 1924. From 1928 to 1933 Okonsky was a member of the Prussian State Council . In 1931 he left the SPD and joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). In addition, he was a member of the district council of Ratibor and community leader.

Okonsky's writings were published in German and Polish.

Nazi period and post-war period (1933 to 1974)

In 1933, Okonsky's house was searched by the Gestapo . Several writings were confiscated that were supposed to prove his communist aspirations. On February 29, 1936, Okonsky was arrested by the Gestapo in Ratibor for alleged derogatory statements about Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler and the Reich government and taken to Lichtenburg . On May 15, 1936, he was charged with high treason at the Breslau Higher Regional Court . After several months of pre-trial detention in Torgau , he was acquitted in September. According to his own statement, he nevertheless spent more than a year in Lichtenburg. In 1944, Okonsky was arrested again for allegedly distributing communist pamphlets and interrogated by the Gestapo. After that he remained under police supervision until the end of the war.

estate

Okonsky's estate is now in the Archives of Social Democracy (AdsD) and at the Haus Oberschlesien Foundation (SHOS). Adalbert Kurzja from the Maria Laach Abbey handed over part of the inventory to the AdsD in July 1994. Kurzja had known Okonsky personally and had received the documents in 1993 from his son-in-law, Ernst Kuiczek. The inventory has a volume of 0.5 running meters of shelf. In terms of content, it contains correspondence, manuscripts (some with autobiographical references) and personal documents (party ID cards, etc.) as well as copies of the court files from 1936 stored in the Federal Archives handed over the second part of the SHOS portfolio in Ratingen.

Fonts

  • The Upper Silesian question of autonomy and social democracy , 1922.
  • Upper Silesia before the abyss? , 1924.
  • The Siege of Katowice in the Third Polish Uprising in 1921 , 1925.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Forward April 12 and 13, 1912.
  2. ^ Indictment, 1st Criminal Senate, Breslau, March 30, 1936.
  3. ↑ Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation 1933-1945. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-5162-9 , p. 419.

literature

  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Okonsky, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Rummelsburg
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1974
Place of death Kuźnia Raciborska