Karl Oltersdorf

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Karl Oltersdorf (born October 13, 1889 in Bromberg ; † December 10, 1973 in East Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a trade union official.

Life

Born out of wedlock in what was then Bromberg, he was taken in by a Polish foster mother when he was three days old. He spent his childhood in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Berlin, on Koppenplatz. Against his will, he had to live in his birth mother's household again and work as an errand boy when he was ten. After attending school, he was not allowed to start an apprenticeship and had to work in a Berlin department store. In January 1905 he joined the newly founded "Association of Apprentices and Young Workers" in Berlin, the first German workers' youth organization. As a shop steward, he organized a wage war for the transport workers in 1909 and was fired without notice. He evaded his draft for military service in 1914 on a hunger strike. He became a member of the SPD in 1914 . At times he belonged to the USPD , then again to the SPD. In February 1920 he became a full-time functionary of the German Transport Workers' Association in Berlin. In 1921/22 he attended the Academy of Labor at the University of Frankfurt am Main . In 1927, Oltersdorf was elected secretary of the Berlin district management of the "General Association of Workers in Public Enterprises and Passenger and Goods Transport" (general association) and at the same time chairman of the SPD parliamentary group within the association. He also worked as a regional labor judge for the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB).

From 1933 he built up resistance groups in the transport and trading companies in Berlin and was arrested by the Gestapo in May 1935 . From September 22nd to 26th, 1936, he stood before the People's Court with 13 other Social Democrats . His co-defendants and other convicts except for Heinz Wobschall were: Alfred Markwitz , Walter Riedel , Paul Siebold , Walter Löffler , Michael Hirschberg , Hans Rakow , Otto Schieritz , Rudolf Vogel , Jaroslav Hrbek , Otto Elchner , Erich Cichocki and Karl Pieper . The 2nd Senate, chaired by the People's Court Councilor Jenne, sentenced him to six years' imprisonment and loss of civil rights for a period of five years for “preparing a treasonous enterprise under aggravating circumstances”. His dungeon stations were: Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Columbia-Haus, Moabit, Sonnenburg and Brandenburg-Görden prison . He was released from prison in 1940 but placed under police supervision. From 1928 Oltersdorf lived in Berlin N58 (Prenzlauer Berg), Hiddenseer Straße 4, he was married, had no previous conviction and had a son who was murdered in 1945 in the Torgau prison.

tomb

After the liberation from National Socialism in 1945 he became a member of the SPD again and in 1946, through the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , he became a member of the SED , which he had campaigned for. In June 1945 he was entrusted with the management of the IG Public Enterprises and Administrations in Berlin and in the spring of 1946 with the establishment of a trade union for public enterprises and administrations for the entire Soviet occupation zone , whose first delegates' conference made him 1st chairman on June 13, 1946 in Meissen chose. At the 2nd delegates' conference in Jena in October 1947, he was re-elected 1st chairman. He had also become a member of the FDGB federal executive committee. In 1948 there was a controversy between the SED leadership and himself over the assessment of the technical nature of the readiness of the People's Police . Oltersdorf pushed for the police to be unionized, which was not in line with the intentions of the SED party leadership. He was soon released from his trade union function. In his résumé, which was published in 1969, he gives health reasons for this. After he was elected chairman of the newly founded administration, banks and insurance union in 1949, he had to go to hospital after nine months because of his poor health and give up his work as a full-time union official. From 1953 to 1963 he was a member of the Central Audit Commission of the FDGB . From 1958 to 1963 he was President, then a member of the Standing Committee of the German Workers' Conferences .

Oltersdorf died at the age of 84. His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Awards

literature

  • 1918 - Memories of the November Revolution (1914-1920) by veterans of the German trade union movement. 2nd edition, Berlin 1960.
  • We are all united. Memories of the founding of the SED. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1966.
  • A life for the working class. Berlin 1969.
  • Heinz Germany a . Ernst Egon Lange (Ed.): Wegbereiter - 32 portrait sketches , Verlag Tribüne Berlin, 2nd edition 1988, ISBN 3-7303-0169-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Neues Deutschland , October 31, 1964, p. 2.
  2. ↑ It was uncomfortable, but popular with workers . In: Tribune from October 13, 1989.
  3. ^ New Germany , April 20, 1963, p. 2.
personal data
SURNAME Oltersdorf, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oltersdorf, Karl Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and union official
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1973
Place of death East Berlin