Kurt Laube

Kurt Laube (born May 25, 1905 in Rathenow ; † October 18, 1987 in Potsdam-Babelsberg ) was a German communist resistance fighter against National Socialism , interbrigadist , secretary of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) in the state of Brandenburg and in the VVN General Secretariat .

Life

Laube came from a Rathenow working class family . When he finished elementary school and vocational training , he moved to Nowawes . He joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) and in 1930 became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Laube was also involved in the Red Front Fighters Union (RFB).

When government power was transferred to the NSDAP in 1933 , however, he organized a demonstration of the Potsdam workers with the demand for a general strike to be called . Since then, Laube has continued to work illegally against the Nazi regime in Nowawes and Berlin . On the instructions of the KPD , he emigrated to Czechoslovakia . In 1936 he followed the Comintern's call to support the Spanish republican fighters in defense of the republic against General Franco's coup . He was there as a commissioner in the 2nd company of the "Edgar André " battalion of the XI. International Brigade deployed in the Thälmann battalion . Here Laube also met former comrades-in-arms again. After the defenders of the republic were defeated, Laube fled to France in 1939 , but was apprehended there, interned in a camp and extradited to the German Reich in 1941 . From his prison in Potsdam prison Lindenstraße 54 he was before the People's Court accused and to ten years prison sentenced, he in Brandenburg prison should settle. In 1944 he was, however, in the penal battalion 999 of the Wehrmacht pressed. Together with others, he was able to disarm his guards there and deserted to the US Army .

After the Nazi rule was eliminated, Laube went back to Potsdam and worked politically to overcome the division of the working class . He was first the first district chairman of the KPD and later took on leading positions in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Laube made his experiences as a persecuted person available for the remembrance work of the Association of Persecuted Persons of the Nazi Regime (VVN) in the state of Brandenburg . He also became a member of the General Secretariat of the VVN in Berlin. Other socio-political functions, he took over as district secretary of the Society for Sport and Technology (GST), and from 1957 as editor of the company magazine of the DEFA true.

Kurt Laube remained politically active until old age. On May 6, 1955, he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver, 1980 in gold and 1985 the clasp for this medal.

After his death he was buried in the Neuendorf cemetery on Großbeerenstraße.

Publications

• On the trail of Red October , [Neuenhagen b. Berlin]: G [esellschaft f.] S [port u.] T [echnik], 1967
• Publication series Education and Training / Shooting Sport. / 1968, 1st shooting sport and class struggle , [1968]
• Explanatory booklet for the slide series / [134]. Shooting Sports and Class Warfare , 1968

as editor:

• Lepp, Adolf: A German chansonnier: from the work of Adolf Lepps / ed. by Ursula Muenchow u. Kurt Laube. -Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 1976. - XXXV, 224 p. (Text editions on early socialist literature in Germany; 16) Bibliogr. Pp. 224 - [225], 1979/592

literature

• Elke Reuter, Detlef Hansel: The short life of the VVN from 1947 to 1953: The history of those persecuted by the Nazi regime in the Soviet Zone and GDR. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-929161-97-4 , p. 574

Individual evidence

1. ^ New Germany , 27./28. April 1985, p. 2