Magnus Poser

Magnus Poser (born January 26, 1907 in Jena ; † July 21, 1944 in Buchenwald concentration camp ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Magnus Poser was born as the youngest of four children as the son of a carpenter in Jena. He attended the Jena East School and after the end of the First World War he joined the Free Socialist Workers' Youth , the predecessor organization of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD). After graduating from school, he began training as a carpenter, which he completed as a journeyman in 1925. After passing the journeyman's examination, Poser went on the “ roll ” that took him through Switzerland , Austria , Hungary , Czechoslovakia , Denmark , Finland and the Soviet Union . In the latter, he attempted to take up a worker course, which he did not succeed.

Poser returned to Germany in 1928, shortly afterwards joined the KPD and found a job at the Jena company Carl Zeiss . Poser became socially and politically active. He was involved in the Jena section of the Friends of Nature , through which he also met trade unionists, socialists, social democrats and supporters of other left currents. In 1929 he joined the Freethinkers Association . A year later he became a board member of the Proletarian Freethinkers (opposition) . On November 26, 1930, Poser lost his job after having previously been sentenced to three months in prison for "breaching the peace".

After the so-called seizure of power by the National Socialists, Poser joined an illegal resistance group. He was arrested again on November 26, 1933, sent to the Bad Sulza concentration camp and sentenced on April 20, 1934 by the Jena Higher Regional Court for “preparation for high treason” to two years and four months imprisonment, which he served in the Ichtershausen state prison. After that Poser worked again as a carpenter. A few weeks after his release, he married Lydia Orban on September 26 , whom he had known for a long time from the KJD and who had also been sentenced to two years in prison with him. Despite police surveillance, he formed a resistance group in Jena that owned, among other things, an illegal printing company, and made contact with Theodor Neubauer in early 1942 . From then on, Poser was one of the leading members of a resistance organization with extensive branches in Thuringia, which had connections in Berlin with Franz Jacob and Anton Saefkow as well as the military opposition around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the Kreisau Circle .

Magnus Poser was arrested at his place of work on July 14, 1944 and transferred to the Weimar Marstall, the headquarters of the Gestapo . After interrogation and torture, he allegedly tried to flee on the night of July 20-21, 1944, but is said to have been shot five times in the adjacent park, as a result of which he died in the infirmary of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Memorials

Portrait bust of Poser at the memorial in the North Cemetery

In the mid-1980s, a monumental memorial for the victims of the anti-fascist resistance was laid out in Jena North Cemetery . During the GDR era, it served, among other things, as a venue for political manifestations by party officials and social organizations on commemorative and public holidays. A portrait bust of Magnus Poser stands on a pedestal in front of an approximately 3 m high concrete block with the inscription "Fame and honor the heroes of the anti-fascist resistance struggle" and the triangular emblem. Magnus Poser's urn was originally buried elsewhere and was reburied in the redesigned grove of honor.

Magnus Poser (right)
postage stamp of the GDR 1970

In Magnus Poser's house at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 55 in Jena, a plaque was erected in his memory in 1967 with the inscription: "This is where the anti-fascist resistance fighter Magnus Poser lived from 1908-1944, who was murdered by the fascists on July 21, 1944" appropriate. From 1977 to 1989 a memorial dedicated to the life and work of Magnus Poser was located in this building. This was closed in 1989.

The GDR's Deutsche Post issued a special postage stamp in honor of Theodor Neubauer and Magnus Poser in 1970.

Honorary names

schools

• After Magnus Poser, polytechnic high schools were established in Jena, Frauenprießnitz , Lehesten (Thuringian Forest) , Ottendorf (Thuringia) , Mittelpöllnitz , Saalfeld , Bad Salzungen , Gera , Lengfeld (Thuringia) , Lippersdorf-Erdmannsdorf , Bürgel (Thuringia) and Zella- Mehlis named. There were vocational schools with his name in Delitzsch and Zwochau . A special school in Apolda also bore his name.

Military units

• The traditional name "Magnus Poser" carried the 13 VP-readiness in Meiningen and continue the missile branch 11 of the 11 motorized rifle division of NVA in Hermsdorf from 1 March 1968th

Streets

• In Jena, Fürstenwalde , Oberhof and Zella-Mehlis there is a Magnus-Poser-Straße. There is also a Poserstraße in the new building district of the Schönefeld district of Leipzig . In 1991, Magnus-Poser-Straße in Gera was given its old name Untermhäuser Straße again .

Others

• The feeder trawler with the fishing identification number ROS 420 of the "Artur Becker" series got its name.
• In Jena, a print shop and a youth club of the FDJ were named after him.
• In Stadtroda one was kindergarten named after him. However, this was closed after the fall of the Wall.
• In Remschütz the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena maintained a company holiday camp "Magnus Poser".
• From 1977 to 1989, the Jenaer Kernberglauf was subtitled “in memory of Magnus Poser”; his widow Lydia Poser was the patron.
• In Bad Blankenburg , the FDGB convalescent home bore his name until 1990.

literature

• Gertrud Glondajewski, Heinz Schumann: The Neubauer Poser Group. Documents and materials from the illegal anti-fascist struggle (Thuringia 1939–1945) . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1957.
• Ruth Bahmann: Magnus Poser. Life picture of a communist , ed. v. District leadership Gera of the SED, commission for researching the history of the local labor movement and district leadership Jena-Stadt of the SED, commission for researching the history of the local labor movement (= life will be our program. Life pictures of revolutionary fighters , issue 1), Jena 1981/82.
• Willy Schilling: In the resistance. Magnus Poser (1907-1944) . In: Mario Hesselbarth, Eberhart Schulz, Manfred Weißbecker (eds.): Lived ideas. Socialists in Thuringia: biographical sketches . Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Thuringia, Jena 2006, pp. 331–341.
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Magnus Poser  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center