Kurt Kresse (resistance fighter)
Kurt Kresse (born May 15, 1904 in Leipzig , † January 11, 1945 in Dresden ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Kresse grew up as the eldest of three sons in a working-class family in Kleinzschocher . His younger brother was the future mayor of Leipzig, Walter Kresse (1910-2001). Kresse did an apprenticeship as a printer , but was initially unable to practice this profession. He therefore worked for a few years as a miner in the Ruhr area and in East Thuringia. Only in 1924 did he find a job as a printer in Leipzig. In April of the same year, Kresse, who had been a member of the KJVD since 1920 , joined the KPD and later became a member of the KPD district leadership for West Saxony. During the last years of the Weimar Republic , Kresse was chairman of the “Fichte” workers ' sports club in Leipzig.
After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, he was imprisoned twice for several months, including in the Colditz concentration camp . After his release, he organized solidarity campaigns for political prisoners and their families. From 1939 to 1944 he worked as a milling cutter in the Schelter & Giesecke printing machine factory in Leipzig.
In the early 1940s, Kresse became one of Georg Schumann's closest collaborators . Kresse made connections with workers in other Leipzig factories and with their help distributed leaflets which, among other things, advertised the goals of the NKFD and gave advice on sabotaging war production. He also organized aid campaigns for foreign forced laborers . Together with Schumann and Otto Engert he formed the so-called " Schumann-Engert-Kresse Group ".
Kresse was arrested on July 19, 1944, sentenced to death by the People's Court on November 24, 1944, together with Schumann and Engert , and executed on January 11, 1945 in the courtyard of the Dresden Regional Court .
Honors
- On August 1, 1945, the Ringstrasse in Leipzig-Kleinzschocher was renamed Kurt-Kresse-Strasse, and it still bears this name today.
- Kresses urn was buried at the end of the 1940s in the Socialist Grove of Honor in the Leipzig South Cemetery.
- During the GDR era, a sports facility, a barracks and a polytechnic high school in Leipzig bore his name.
literature
- Ilse Krause: The Schumann-Engert-Kresse Group. Documents and materials of the illegal anti-fascist struggle (Leipzig 1943 to 1945) . Dietz, Berlin 1960.
- Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and letters. Volume 1. Dietz, Berlin 1970, p. 528ff.
- Peter Steinbach , Johannes Tuchel : Lexicon of Resistance 1933–1945. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43861-X , pp. 120f.
- Cress, Kurt . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cress, Kurt |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (KPD) and resistance fighters |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 15, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leipzig |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 1945 |
| Place of death | Dresden |