Max Rölz

Max Rölz (born July 17, 1897 in Hammerbrücke , Vogtland , † June 19, 1980 ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ) and trade unionist .

Life

Rölz, son of a well builder, worked as a weaver and carpenter after attending primary school . Since 1915 he was organized in a union. In 1916 he was drafted into military service as a soldier . In 1917 he suffered severe gas poisoning. In 1919 he became a member of the KPD, later also of the Red Aid and the RGO . From 1927 he was chairman of the local KPD group in Falkenstein and city councilor there. In the early 1930s, Rölz attended a military-political school in the Soviet Union . He was then from 1932 to 1933 head of the intelligence service of the KPD district leadership in Saxony .

After 1933 he participated in the resistance against Nazism and became three years prison sentenced. After serving his sentence, he was then taken to Buchenwald concentration camp . After his release in 1939, Rölz worked as a farmer. In 1944 he was arrested again and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

After his liberation in 1945 he became chairman of the KPD in Auerbach (Vogtland) and later headed the local police. A member of the SED since 1946, he was first secretary of the SED district leadership in Auerbach from 1947 to 1952. In 1952/53 he was chairman of the District Party Control Commission (BPKK) and member of the office of the SED district leadership in Leipzig , between 1953 and 1958 chairman of the BPKK and member of the office of the SED district leadership in Erfurt . From 1958 to 1960 he was finally chairman of the district board of IG Bau-Holz in Erfurt. Rölz was a member of the committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters of the Auerbach / Reichenbach districts.

Awards and honors

• Rölz received the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze (1955), silver (1972) and gold as well as the GDR Medal of Merit and was the holder of the medal for fighters against fascism from 1933 to 1945 .
• In GDR times there was a street in Auerbach, a high school in Bergen (Vogtland) and the volunteer fire brigade in Grünbach named after Max Rölz.

Works

• The activists from the very beginning . In: Culture mirror for the Auerbach district (1961), pp. 37–40.
• November 1918 in the Auerbach district . In: Culture mirror for the Auerbach district (1968), pp. 134-136.

literature

• Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 3: Lexicon of functionaries (= rororo manual. Vol. 6350). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16350-0 , p. 279.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 729.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland , June 30, 1972, p. 2.
2. ↑ Obituary . In: Neues Deutschland , June 27, 1980, p. 8.