Kurt van der Walde

Kurt van der Walde (born January 20, 1915 in Posen ; † May 27, 2003 in Hamburg ) was a German teacher and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Live and act

Van der Walde, born in Poznan, grew up on Haynstrasse in Hamburg-Eppendorf . Early on he belonged to the German-Jewish Wanderbund Kameraden , which had a decisive influence on him. Van der Walde, nicknamed "Kuvo" as a group leader, drove to the Lüneburg Heath with other members . Ingeborg Hecht wrote about the travels and other experiences from this time in her book When invisible walls grew .

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists van undertook the forest together with other young people to organize an illegal resistance group attempting. For this reason, the Gestapo arrested him in May 1936. In the detention documents it was particularly emphasized that van der Walde was of Jewish faith. Thereupon proceedings came before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court . The judges sentenced him to two years and six months in prison in May of the following year. Van der Walde served the sentence in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp .

Since his mother had stood up for him, Kurt van der Walde was able to travel to England in December 1938, where he met Liesel Cohn (1912–1991), who was also one of the Hamburg refugees. Both married there and had a daughter named Norma. After the end of the Second World War , the family returned to the Hanseatic city, where Kurt van der Walde studied English and history. He then taught at the Ernst-Schlee-Gymnasium , which was located in Groß Flottbek . Van der Walde belonged to the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - the Association of Antifascists , for which he was committed to an old age. Together with the Landesjugendring Hamburg he accompanied tours through Hamburg that led to places of persecution and resistance during the time of National Socialism. His second wife Elfie (1920–2003) supported him on visits to history classes, during which van der Walde reported on his experiences as a contemporary witness. In addition, he regularly took part in discussions and commemorative events.

Kurt van der Walde, who followed the principles of the First Free German Youth Congress for life , died in Hamburg in May 2003.

literature

• Wilfried Weinke: Walde, Kurt van der . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 366-367 .

Web links

• Wilfried Weinke: A good comrade taz.de from May 31, 2003. Retrieved on October 16, 2015.