Konrad Skrentny

Konrad Skrentny (born April 23, 1894 in Usch , Province of Posen , † April 20, 1955 in Düsseldorf ) was a communist, later social democratic politician during the Weimar Republic and in the post-war period .

Live and act

The Catholic family of Zimmermann Thomas Skrentny and his wife Pauline geb. Spicker moved with five children from Usch, who owned a glassworks, to Gerresheim ( Gerresheimer Glashütte ) near Düsseldorf around 1905 . This happened in the course of east-west immigration during the high industrialization of the empire .

After eight years at the Catholic school in Düsseldorf-Vennhausen, Konrad Skrentny began training as a glass blower or bottle maker in the Gerresheim glassworks in 1908 , where his father Thomas and his brothers Peter and Franz were also employed. As early as 1908, at the age of 14, he co-founded the Urania 08 football club , a forerunner of today's TuS Gerresheim . In 1913, at the age of 19, he joined the German Metalworkers' Association and the SPD .

From 1914 to September 1918 Skrentny was a soldier in the First World War, then he was in British captivity until October 1919. During the war he was an instructor and most recently had the rank of non-commissioned officer . Before he was captured on the Western Front, in August 1918 he married Helene Kark, who came from a glassmaker family that had migrated to Gerresheim from Nienburg / Weser. Both met in the workers' sports club Freie Turnerschaft (FT) Gerresheim.

In 1920 Skrentny joined the KPD . He was also head of the communist RGO on the Lower Rhine and was also represented in the Reich leadership. For this organization he was chairman of the works council of the Phönix Lierenfeld company in Gerresheim. Because of his participation in the demonstration on May 1, 1930, he was fired along with 200 other workers. In Gerresheim he also represented the KPD on the city council.

As an active member of the KPD, he was a member of the Reichstag between 1930 and 1933 . He was also elected to the Prussian state parliament in 1933 , but was no longer able to exercise this mandate due to the National Socialist seizure of power . After the beginning of the National Socialist rule he was imprisoned. From 1933 to 1935 Skrentny was initially in prison, later he was sent to a concentration camp . After his release, he worked as a construction worker before he was arrested again in 1937 and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for a few months . He then worked as a welder before being imprisoned again for a few weeks in 1939. From 1940 to 1943 Skrentny worked in a glassworks in Gerresheim.

In 1943 and 1944 he participated in the war and was taken prisoner by the British. From this he was released in 1945 and immediately became active again in the KPD. During the Third Reich, Skrentny was involved in the preparation of the unified trade union alongside Karl Arnold , Georg Glock , Hans Böckler and others . After the founding of the DGB he also sat on the board of the organization.

He became a member of the Appointed Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia and was Vice President of Parliament. In 1947 he became Labor Director of the Phoenix-Hütte in Duisburg . Since he could no longer support the policy of the KPD, he resigned from the party in 1948 and turned to the SPD.

His biographer Peter Rütters (see below) writes: “ When Konrad Skrentny died on April 20, 1955 (...) a few days before he was 61, an extraordinary life came to an end. The by no means continuous rise of the trained glassblower and bottle maker (...) to Labor Director is unusual. The discontinuities of this 'rise' were shaped by the political and social breaks and changes in the first half of the 20th century. The labor movement was able to open up unusual political and union career opportunities for politically and unionized people, even if they came from a working-class family and had to experience the educational limits that this imposed. "

Skrentnystraße in Duisburg-Meiderich in the Ratingseesiedlung is named after Skrentny .

literature

• Skrentny, Konrad. In: Martin Schumacher: M. d. R. The members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation 1933-1945. A biographical documentation. 3rd edition, Düsseldorf 1994, pp. 481-482.
• Peter Rütters: Skrentny, Konrad. In: Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the concentration camps Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen. Biographical manual. Volume 3. Berlin 2005, pp. 158-172.
• Werner Skrentny: Through Gerresheim: In the kingdom of the Glass King: Dark Room, Red Square. In: Udohaben (ed.): Düsseldorf on foot. 17 city tours through history and the present. Hamburg 1989, pp. 181-197.
• Werner Skrentny: "Konrad run, they are coming!" In: State capital Düsseldorf in connection with the memorial and the city archive (publisher): Experienced and suffered. Gerresheim under National Socialism. 2nd edition, Düsseldorf 1995, pp. 223-227.
• 60 years of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country and its deputies . Düsseldorf 2006, p. 596.
• Skrentny, Konrad . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945. 2., revised. and strong exp. Edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Web links

• Socialist communications 1947 (references to Konrad Skrentny in the editorial notes)
• TuS Gerresheim
• Konrad Skrentny in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Konrad Skrentny at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia