Max Mayr

This article deals with the politician and resistance fighter. For other people see Max Mayr (disambiguation) .

Max Mayr (born January 3, 1896 in Kottern / municipality of St. Mang (today Kempten); † September 14, 1985 in Kassel ) was a German local politician ( SPD ) and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Mayr, whose father was a master weaver, trained as a locksmith and lathe operator from 1913 to 1916. He then took part in the First World War as a soldier and was employed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn after the war . During the Weimar Republic , Mayr lived in Kassel.

Mayr became a member of the SPD in 1919, from which he left again in 1925. Mayr was temporarily a member of the USPD . From 1921 to 1923 he belonged to the International Youth Union ( IJB) and in the second half of the 1920s he joined the International Socialist Combat Union (ISK). From 1931 Mayr was temporarily excluded from the ISK due to a rule violation. Nevertheless, from 1932 to 1933 he was an editor at the ISK newspaper Der Funken .

After the beginning of the Nazi era , the war opponent Mayr moved back to Kassel and worked as a lathe operator at the Henschel works in armaments production. Mayr was leader of an ISK resistance group in Kassel and from January 1936 also cooperated with the local KPD resistance group . Shortly afterwards the communist group was blown up by a Gestapo agent and with it Mayr's resistance group. Mayr was in custody from January to August 1936 and tortured by Gestapo officers during his interrogation. Because of this abuse, he attempted suicide . After the end of pre-trial detention, Mayr was arrested by the Kassel Higher Regional Court during the trial against Pfromm u. a. about two and a half years prison sentenced, he in Kassel-Wehlheiden was serving. After the end of his prison term, he was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp in July 1938 , where he was given prison number 2964. From 1939 Mayr was employed as a prisoner functionary in the camp clerk and from 1941 until the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp as a clerk in command. As a commanding clerk, he regularly had to record the occupancy of the blocks with prisoners, the manpower of the work details and the sick leave in the prisoner infirmary. Mayr belonged to the illegal camp resistance in Buchenwald and, as a command clerk, was able to protect prisoners from being transported to other extermination camps .

After the end of the war, Mayr returned to Kassel and in autumn 1945 founded the Bund of Former Political Prisoners , a forerunner of the later association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisteninnen und Antifaschisten (VVN). Mayr then officiated as the department head for reparation at the district president in Kassel as well as SPD city councilor. Mayr was involved in the working group of persecuted social democrats .

Honors

Max Mayr burial site in the main cemetery in Kassel

• Honorary grave of the city of Kassel in the main cemetery
• Max-Mayr-Platz in Kassel
• 1979: Wilhelm Leuschner Medal

literature

• Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald concentration camp. 1937-1945. Including biographical sketches. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X .
• Harry Stein: Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Accompanying volume for the permanent historical exhibition. Published by the Buchenwald Memorial. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-89244-222-3 .
• Jörg Kammler, Dietfrid Krause-Vilmar (Hrsg.): Volksgemeinschaft und Volksfeinde. Kassel 1933-1945. A documentation (= Kassel in the time of National Socialism. 1 = Kassel sources and studies. 5). Volume 1. Hesse, Fuldabrück 1984, ISBN 3-924259-01-1 , pp. 360-363.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X , pp. 297-298.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Helge von Horn / Ulrich Schneider u. a. (Ed.): Days of Liberation 1945 - Kassel - "Tiger" City, Rubble City, Dreams of a New Era ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.1 MB), Kassel 2005, p. 45. 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Harry Stein, Buchenwald Memorial (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent historical exhibition, Göttingen 1999, p. 302
4. ↑ Helge von Horn / Ulrich Schneider u. a. (Ed.): Days of Liberation 1945 - Kassel - "Tiger" city, rubble city, dreams of a new time , Kassel 2005, p. 15.
5. ↑ Helge von Horn / Ulrich Schneider u. a. (Ed.): Days of Liberation 1945 - Kassel - "Tiger" city, rubble city, dreams of a new time , Kassel 2005, p. 32.