Karl Springer (resistance fighter)

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Karl Springer (born March 30, 1895 in Rauschken , Osterode ; † October 18, 1936 in Bochum ) was a German miner, trade unionist, journalist and resistance fighter .

Life

Weimar Republic

In 1920/1921 Karl Springer moved with his wife Emilie to the Ruhr area, where he initially worked at the Prinz Regent colliery in Weitmar . The family lived with their three children at Wiemelhauser Strasse 17 (today Markstrasse 406) in a house belonging to the Wohlfahrt consumer association , of which he became a member.

Springer also became a member of the miners' association , organized himself in the KPD and soon became head of the KPD group in Weitmar. From 1925 on he worked as an editor for the communist daily Ruhr-Echo , first in Bochum, then later in Essen . At the local elections on June 13, 1926, Weitmar had just been incorporated into Bochum, Springer was elected as a city councilor in the Bochum city council and confirmed by re-election in 1929.

Disputes over trade union policy led in 1929 to Springer's expulsion from the miners' association by the main board under Fritz Husemann . At a staff meeting, Springer had campaigned for opposition candidates to be nominated and called for a consistent policy against wage cuts. Despite this experience, Springer campaigned for the common struggle of social democrats and communists against the growing fascist danger and against Hitler and appeared as a speaker at numerous rallies.

National Socialism

In March 1933, more than a hundred active KPD and SPD members were abducted by SA troops in Bochum to the SA barracks and their torture cellars. Karl Springer was among them. He was beaten up, dragged through the streets and, in the end, seriously injured, left helpless in a busy square in Bochum in order to paralyze the population's will to resist. From June to December 1933, Springer was locked up in the Esterwegen concentration camp .

After his release, Karl Springer and a few other communists met under conspiratorial conditions in 1935 to support persecuted people and their relatives in solidarity. B. by collecting money. The aim was initially to help persecuted people from the premises of the Konsumverein Wohlfahrt. But their commitment expanded quickly. The production of anti-fascist leaflets, looking after the families of imprisoned comrades, slogans against Hitler painted on walls were some of their activities. Also from Holland about boatmen to land smuggled brochures and leaflets were distributed in Bochum. Some of the brochures distributed by the Springer group were disguised as harmless writings about horticulture or cactus cultivation, but contained writings on the anti-fascist struggle.

In autumn 1936, the Gestapo succeeded in smashing the Bochum resistance group. In the "high treason against Springer and others" a total of 48 men and 2 women from Bochum, Wattenscheid and Essen were arrested. During the interrogations at the Bochum police headquarters , Springer was so severely tortured and mistreated by the Gestapo that he died on October 18, 1936 in the Bochum police prison as a result of his injuries. Despite the surveillance by the Gestapo, a large number of comrades attended the funeral in Weitmar.

Commemoration

In memory of Karl Springer, the Bochum City Council decided in 1947 to rename the former Moltke-Platz in Bochum to Springerplatz. At the suggestion of the Bochum VVN chairman, Klaus Kunold , a stumbling block in front of the Markstr. 406, in which Karl Springer lived in Bochum, published.

Since 2013, however, the naming of an evening market on Springerplatz has sparked political explosions. A businessman who had named the evening market, where culinary delicacies were to be sold, Moltkemarkt and thus had devalued the name Springerplatz and the memory of the resistance fighter in the eyes of many , saw no problem in naming Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke , to honor a Prussian general in a space dedicated to a resistance fighter against the Nazi dictatorship .

See also

literature

  • Günter Gleising, Franz Heiserholt: Street names tell history - memories of class struggle and resistance - communists on the Rhine and Ruhr. RuhrEcho Verlag, Bochum 1998, ISBN 3-931999-05-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Konsumverein Wohlfahrt. City of Bochum, accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  2. ^ Police headquarters in Bochum. City of Bochum, accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Archive: Collection of articles on the subject of Moltkemarkt. bo-alternativ, accessed on May 12, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Springer, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German miner, trade unionist, journalist and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Rauschken , Osterode
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1936
Place of death Bochum