Kurt Albrecht (soldier)

Kurt Albrecht (born June 4, 1927 in Rodenbach , † April 28, 1945 in Osterholz-Scharmbeck ) was a German deserted soldier in World War II . He is one of the few executed deserters of the Wehrmacht , after whom several public streets and squares were named.

Life

Kurt Albrecht grew up in a working-class family in Rodenbach near Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate as the only child of the former Richard Albrecht and the housewife Anna (née Lettemann). After a commercial apprenticeship, he was drafted into military service in the summer of 1944 at the age of 17 and served as a sailor in the navy . Most recently he was deployed at the front as a detector in the 5th Marine Grenadier Regiment . Shortly before the end of the war, he withdrew from the troops near Rotenburg . He was arrested on his bike. Picked up again after attempting to escape, he admitted during interrogation that he wanted to go home.

"The young Marine was not a resistance fighter or had political motives that made him a deserter." He just wanted to be no longer a soldier and wanted nothing more ardently, "but to return to his parents in the Palatinate." According to an eyewitness account entered the court-martial of the 2nd Marine Infantry Division on April 28, 1945 in a private house in Buschhausen - a district of Osterholz-Scharmbeck. He owned the naval chief magistrate Dr. Kurt Göller. By this time the Red Army had already reached the city center of Berlin and with the front advancing from the south the British troops had taken Bremen . To protect against the expected artillery bombardment, the population in Osterholz-Scharmbeck was asked to stay in cellars and bunkers. A few days later the war was over.

The field court sentenced Kurt Albrecht to death , denying his military capacity and losing his civil rights . On the evening of the same day he was taken to the shooting range of the Scharmbeck rifle club and shot dead . As stipulated by the service regulations of the Wehrmacht, the remains were buried on May 1st without any military or religious ceremony in the Scharmbeck cemetery.

estate

Historical processing

Kurt Albrecht's fate only became known to the public through the project work of students from the Osterholz-Scharmbeck vocational schools. The basic history course of the 12th year of the technical high schools researched the case in 2005 and convinced the local city council to name a public street, the walkable path in Osterholz-Scharmbeck from the train station to the school premises, after Kurt Albrecht.

At the “n21 competition www.internetatlanten.de 2005”, the pupils of the BBS Osterholz-Scharmbeck were awarded the special prize for their project work.

Memory of Kurt Albrecht

Until recently, only a few people in their hometown knew the true story of the man sentenced to death: On the tombstone that his parents had erected on his grave in Rodenbach after Osterholz-Scharmbeck was reburied, the date of death was written next to “fallen”. He is also listed by name as a deceased soldier on the memorial in his home community.

A path in Osterholz-Scharmbeck was named after Kurt Albrecht. Kurt-Albrecht-Platz got his name in his hometown Rodenbach. A sculpture was also erected there and an inscription plaque was placed on it that reads "He sought freedom and found death".

literature

• Sarah Freiberg, Sarah Pols, Tina Tapking: Execution of the 17-year-old deserter Kurt Albrecht on April 28, 1945 on Schützenplatz. In: Ulrich Schröder (Red.): Stations in the history of the 20th century in Osterholz-Scharmbeck. Booklet accompanying a historical tour through the district town, 3rd, improved and expanded edition, Association for the Promotion of Vocational Schools Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Osterholz-Scharmbeck 2004, OCLC 253650063 .
• Friederike Gräff: History lessons with consequences. taz of June 27, 2005.
• Lutz Rode: The father said nothing about this chapter. Osterholzer Kreisblatt , April 28, 2009, p. 3.
• Ulrich Schröder: “A sign is durable.” Why the city of Osterholz-Scharmbeck named a path after the Wehrmacht deserter Kurt Albrecht. In: Labor Movement and Social History. Journal for the regional history of Bremen in the 19th and 20th centuries. Issue 16/17 (July 2006), pp. 65–70.

Web links

• Memory of Kurt Albrecht and all Wehrmacht deserters of the Second World War on geschichtsatlas.de
• Overview of the "historical atlases" on the website of the Osterholz vocational schools
• Ludwig Baumann : The injustice to the deserters on socialist positions
• The Bonn monument to the unknown deserters of the Association for the Promotion of Peace Work

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Lutz Rode: "The father said nothing about this chapter", Osterholzer Kreisblatt , April 28, 2009, p. 3.
2. ^ War diary of the Wehrmacht Command Staff North.
3. ↑ Press release on the award ceremony on December 8, 2005 ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 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. (PDF; 81 kB)