Karl Schabrod

Karl Schabrod (born October 19, 1900 in Perleberg , † March 31, 1981 in Düsseldorf ) was a German communist politician .

Live and act

After elementary school in Perleberg, Schabrod completed an apprenticeship in his father's carpentry business from 1915 to 1918. In 1919 he attended the arts and crafts school in Leipzig for a few months and then worked until 1927 in various cities in the trade he had learned.

Since 1920 Schabrod was a member of the free trade union German Woodworkers Association. From 1921 he was also a member of the "Monist Youth" and an employee of their club magazine. Politically, he was a member of the SPD from 1922 and switched to the KPD in 1924 . He subsequently became active for the youth organization of this party. In addition, he was a member of the Red Front Fighters Association and a Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Association from 1926 to 1929 . From 1927 to 1929 he was an editorial apprentice for the communist Bergische Volksstimme in Remscheid , where he also sat on the works council. Due to political differences, Schabrod had to leave the editorial office in 1929 and worked temporarily as a carpenter. From 1930 to 1931 he went to Moscow to study and on his return worked as an editor of the communist newspaper Freiheit in Düsseldorf.

After the beginning of the National Socialist rule, Schabrod was arrested by a leaflet campaign by Düsseldorf anti-fascists and was imprisoned in the Börgermoor concentration camp until 1934 . After his release in May 1934, he went into hiding in the Ruhr area , was arrested again in July 1934 and taken to the Steinwache in Dortmund , where he was physically abused. In December of the same year there was a high treason trial against Schabrod. Although the prosecutor had requested the death penalty, the sentence was life sentence. Until 1945 he was in the Werl and Münster penitentiaries before he was liberated by the Americans.

During the First Parliament of the FDJ in June 1946 (from left to right): Erich Glückauf , Paul Verner , Elly Winter , Wilhelm Pieck , Erich Honecker and Karl Schabrod.

From 1945 onwards, Schabrod played a leading role in the rebuilding of the KPD in the Ruhr area and was a full-time party secretary in the Lower Rhine-South Westphalia district until 1946. He was also the license holder of the newspaper Freiheit in Düsseldorf and at times editor-in-chief. In addition, Schabrod was involved in the union of those persecuted by the Nazi regime . He was also a member of the city council in Düsseldorf from 1950 to 1954 and at times chairman of his party. Schabrod was a member of the Appointed State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1946. He was a member of the elected state parliament until 1950. There he was parliamentary group leader of his party from 1947 to 1950.

After the KPD ban in 1956, Schabrod worked for a short time as a carpenter, after which he was temporarily employed by the “Central Council for the Protection of Democratic Rights” and from 1958 to 1960 editor of the magazine Freie Opinion . In 1958, Schabrod ran as an independent candidate for the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, but was suspected of working undercover for the banned KPD and was subsequently sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He also ran as an independent candidate in the 1961 federal election. Because conspiracy he was sentenced to more than two years in prison and was banned as a journalist. At the same time, his status as persecuted by the Nazi regime was revoked. In 1965 the ban was lifted. In 1968 he finally belonged to the DKP and was a member of the district board for North Rhine-Westphalia

Karl Schabrod is an honorary citizen of the city of Perleberg. His grave is in the Düsseldorf North Cemetery .

literature

• 60 years of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country and its deputies . Düsseldorf 2006, p. 547f.
• Bernd Haunfelder : North Rhine-Westphalia. Country and people 1946–2006. A biographical manual . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2006, p. 399f.
• Schabrod, Karl . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Mareen Heying: A communist relationship in areas of tension. Klara Matthies and Karl Schabrod, 1934–1945 . In: Work - Movement - History. Journal for historical studies, vol. 2, 2019, pp. 9–26.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Schabrod in the catalog of the German National Library
• Klara Tuchscherer (née Schabrod): "My father was not a criminal"
• Biography of Karl Schabrod in the magazine antifa
• Karl Schabrod at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia