Karl Sare

Karl Säre (* June 19 ^{. Jul} / 2. July  1903 ^greg. In Tartu ; † 14. March 1945 in Neuengamme ) was an Estonian Communist and politicians.

Early years

Karl Säre was born into the family of a brewery worker and grew up in poor conditions. In 1917 he joined the communist movement in Livonia . In 1921, Säre moved to Soviet Russia . He studied in Leningrad . There, the talented and energetic Sare quickly caught the attention of the communist cadres who recruited him for the Soviet secret service. In 1925 he was sent to China for a secret mission to the Soviet mission . Allegedly, he should also have had contact with the top agent Richard Sorge .

agent

From 1927 Säre was prepared in Moscow for secret missions in Estonia. There he was supposed to promote the illegal underground work of the Communist Party of Estonia (EK (b) P). After the attempted communist coup on December 1, 1924, the party was almost crushed. As a result, Säre often stayed at the party's secret headquarters in Narva .

In the late 1920s, Säre was recalled to Moscow and given further training. At the beginning of 1930 he was sent to the USA on behalf of the Soviet secret service, and in 1934 to Scandinavia . Säre lived briefly in Copenhagen , then under an alias in Gothenburg . Säre is said to have played a key role in the murder of the alleged communist traitor Johannes Eltermann in Copenhagen in February 1936.

In Estonia

On May 7, 1938, the Estonian government issued an amnesty for all communists. A few days later, Säre applied to the Estonian embassy in Stockholm for a passport to settle in Estonia. He lived first on the island of Hiiumaa , later in Antsla . There he kept in contact with communist and socialist networks. Säre rose to the strength of EK (b) P in Estonia by 1940 and prevailed in the wing battles.

With the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the summer of 1940, his hour had come. On September 12, 1940, he was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia on the recommendation of Andrei Zhdanov , Stalin's governor in Tallinn . From now on the EK (b) P was the only admitted party in Estonia. The first mass deportations of the Estonian elite to Siberia took place during the time of Sare . All state and social organizations were brought into line along the lines of the Stalinist model.

captivity

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the German Wehrmacht occupied Estonia from 1941 to 1944. When the Estonian front approached in 1941, Karl Säre organized the partisan struggle that was emerging. However, on September 3, 1941, it fell into the hands of the Germans rather by chance. In order to save his own life, he is said to have given the Germans further names of Estonian communists and partisans as well as information about residencies of the Soviet secret service abroad. Karl Säre was therefore considered a traitor by Soviet historiography.

There is no reliable information about his further fate. In 1942 Säre was transferred from the Tallinn Central Prison to Germany to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In Copenhagen in 1943 he was tried as the alleged mastermind in the murder of Eltermann seven years earlier. It was not until 2013 that it became known that Karl Säre died shortly after the trial, on March 14, 1945, in Neuengamme concentration camp .

Aftermath

Karl Säres is a key figure in Einar Sands speculative novel Loojangul lahkume Tallinnast (Cardiff 1979).

literature

• Ohmann, Valdur: "EKP Keskkomitee I sekretäri Karl Säre arreteerimisest, reetlikkusest ja tema saatusest." In: Tuna , 2001 (No. 4), pp. 38-47.
• David Feest: Karl Säre. Life and afterlife of a traitor . In: Northeast Archives. Journal for Regional History, vol. 26, 2017, pp. 152–173.

Web links

• Detailed CV ( Mart Laar , Estonian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://kultuur.err.ee/v/varia/b39a2729-506b-4724-a274-fbc4ac89d53d
2. ↑ Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial