Klaus Trostorff

April 4, 1970: The director of the Buchenwald memorial and memorial explains his experience of the prisoners' uprising in April 1945 to participants in the preparations for the youth consecration

Klaus Trostorff (born November 12, 1920 in Breslau ; † August 7, 2015 in Erfurt ) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime and director of the Buchenwald National Memorial .

Life

Trostorff came from the family of a carpenter and singing teacher . He was raised primarily by his mother and grandmother. His grandmother was a member of the SPD has, along with Rosa Luxembourg economics taught and was the first Socialist councilor in Wroclaw. His mother had been a member of the Social Democratic Party since 1918. He attended elementary and middle school and then entered an apprenticeship as a merchant on. During World War II he became the rail Place in the Reichsbahn conscripted and once as a prosthetist . When he discussed Hitler's propaganda successes with them in a group of young people in 1943 , he was betrayed to the Gestapo . After six weeks in Gestapo imprisonment, he was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp and had to do forced labor in the Fritz Sauckel armaments factory . He was housed in Block 1 with the Soviet prisoners of war . He had been transferred there to increase his punishment “because of anti-subversive activities and a pro-Soviet attitude.” In 1944, he experienced the bombing with and, as on April 11, 1945, shortly before the arrival of the 3rd US Army , like the now armed members of the camp resistance after their escape the SS guards in front of the US Army took control of the camp.

Trostorff went back to Breslau in June 1945. He found his mother, who had been imprisoned in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp . The father was killed in a bomb attack. From this time he reported a special experience:

“One day we wanted to get potatoes from rent outside of town. A Soviet officer said: First work! I didn't feel like it, I had worked enough in the last few years. Suddenly a Russian soldier rushed up to me, hugs me: 'Nikolai'! - Russian for Klaus. It was one of those in my barrack where he had lived. I had to eat, drink ... "

He drove back to Thuringia in a Red Army omnibus and came to Erfurt in August 1945 , where he lived until his death. After the years in Buchenwald, he did not want to live in Weimar . He became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and then took a course to train as a new teacher. In 1948 he began to study: Law , his childhood dream, and social sciences at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . After his studies he went into the state apparatus , became a political employee of the SED state leadership Thuringia, the district leadership Erfurt, once deputy mayor and mayor of Erfurt. In September 1969 he became the director of the first national memorial in the GDR in Buchenwald. He liked to work here to convince people of the importance of advocating that fascism and war never get a chance again.

His grandson Steffen is one of those who symbolically took over the legacy of the survivors from the International Buchenwald Committee in 2005 - and renewed the oath that the prisoners took on April 19, 1945: “The destruction of Nazism with its roots is our slogan . Building a new world of peace and freedom is our goal. "

Trostorff was a member of the central management of the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters .

Honors

• 1979 Patriotic Order of Merit of the GDR
• 1985 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold

Publications

• Buchenwald, I cannot forget you , in it: Life picture. Series: Texts of the RLS, Vol. 35, ISBN 978-3-320-02100-9
• Antifascist art in the GDR, Buchenwald National Memorial and Memorial , Weimar 1988
• The political department in the terror system of the Buchenwald concentration camp , NMG, Weimar-Buchenwald 1984
• Buchenwald , German publisher d. Wiss., Berlin 1983
• Calendar of events and facts in the Buchenwald concentration camp / July 16, 1937 - August 1939 , 1976

Movie

• FBW002651. Documentary. Country / Year: German Democratic Republic, 1982. Original Title ELSE WE WOULD BE LOST ... BEECH FOREST CHILDREN REPORT. Other Title (s): STRENGTH OF SURVIVORS [AT]. Directed by Peter Rocha . Produced by DEFA-Studio for documentary films (group effect), Berlin / East; for television of the GDR, Berlin / East. Staff: Editor: Siegfried Hanusch , Hans-Jürgen Lehmann; Production manager: Michael Sohre; Script: Mira Lüders, Hans-Jürgen Lehmann, Siegfried Hanusch, Peter Rocha; Script supervision: Siegfried Hanusch; Text: Janusz Korczak , Johann Wolfgang Goethe , Georg Maurer , Christa Müller ; Camera: Peter Milinski ; Cameraman assistant: Heinz Schendzielorz; Process camera: Jürgen Bahr; Editing: Viktoria Dietrich; Assistant editing: Edeltraud Theurig; Sound: Carsten Gebhardt, Lutz Laschet; Mixing: Eberhard Schwarz (sound mixing); Narration: Peter Sturm, Dirck Waeger, Helena Muehe; Consultant: Klaus Trostorff, Heinz Albertus; Special thanks: Vera Rückert, Heinz Albertus. Mentioned: Bruno Apitz; Robert Siewert; Karl Müller; Emil Schulze. Statement (s) by Franz Leitner; Jerzy Stefan Zweig; Günther Pappenheim; Robert Siewert; Gregori I. Krav * 3cenko. Length: 500 m / 45'35 ". Format: 16mm / color / 1: 1.37. Dates: - Apr 10, 1983: First broadcast

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Trostorff, Klaus . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus Trostorff in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary on the Buchenwald and Mittelbau Dora Memorials Foundation ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ Marlies quantity: GDR biographies (VIII): The Buchenwald director . In: The time . No. 33/1986 ( online ).
3. ^ Gabriele Oertel: 65 Years of Liberation: Renewed Buchenwald Oath. In: neue-deutschland.de . May 8, 2010, accessed December 18, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Neues Deutschland, October 4, 1985, p. 4
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.