Kurt Ritter (resistance fighter)

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Memorial plaque on the house, Matternstrasse 16, in Berlin-Friedrichshain
Grave site
Memorial plaque on Gürtelstrasse

Kurt Ritter (born December 31, 1909 in Ostramondra , † August 28, 1944 in Brandenburg ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Kurt Ritter, the son of a bricklayer, learned Schumacher, came to Hohenstein-Ernstthal after the First World War and worked as an apprentice weaver. Here he found connection to the workers' sports club and the Communist Youth Association of Germany . From then on, Ritter was an active member of the workers' sports movement (ATSB). At the time of the Great Depression , he became unemployed and went to Berlin . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he joined the resistance group around Robert Uhrig . At the beginning of the Second World War , Kurt Ritter worked in the Berlin Knorr-Bremsenwerk in the armaments industry and at the same time worked underground together with Werner Seelenbinder , Ernst Knaack and others in the resistance against the Nazi regime. In 1942 Kurt Ritter was arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin-Mariendorf and, after two years in pre-trial detention, sentenced to death by the People's Court on July 6, 1944 . On August 28, 1944, he was executed (beheaded) in Brandenburg prison .

Commemoration

In Berlin, a memorial plaque on his house at Matternstrasse 16 commemorates him. Another plaque on the Kurt Ritter sports stadium named after him (today Kurt-Ritter-Sportplatz) in the Gürtelstrasse was removed in 1996. The Friedrichshainer and Langenchursdorfer schools that bore his name were renamed after the end of the GDR . There is a grave for Kurt Ritter (together with Fritz Riedel and Willi Heinze ) in the cemetery of the Georgen Parochial Congregation in Boxhagener Strasse in Berlin .

In Gamengrund there has been a memorial stone since 1974 commemorating the communists Josef Römer , Willy Sachse , Fritz Riedel and Kurt Ritter.

literature

  • Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters . Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970, Volume 2, p. 92 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sports stadium "Kurt Ritter" . In: District lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
Commons : Kurt Ritter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Knight, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Ostramondra
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1944
Place of death Brandenburg