Max Schlosser (politician)

Max Karl Schlosser (born April 3, 1894 in Klingenthal ; † March 15, 1968 ibid) was a German politician, active in the SPD , later in SAP and SED .

Life

Max Schlosser grew up in poor conditions in the Vogtland , but had the opportunity to complete a teaching degree in Auerbach before he was drafted as a soldier for the First World War in 1915.

In the November Revolution of 1918 he was a member of a soldiers' council, and in 1919 he returned to Klingenthal. There he joined the Social Democrats and became a city councilor and city councilor. Towards the end of the 1920s, Schlosser came into conflict with his party and in 1931, together with like-minded people, founded a local group of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP) , a split from the social democracy.

In 1933, Schlosser was dismissed from school, arrested and mistreated by the SA in several early concentration camps. However, his charges of high treason before the Dresden Higher Regional Court ended in 1934 with an acquittal. Schlosser was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1939 and served as a motor vehicle sergeant. According to his own statements, he did not take part in combat operations.

After the liberation from National Socialism in 1945 he worked in an anti-fascist committee for Klingenthal. He was appointed mayor by the American occupation forces. When Soviet troops took control in July 1945, he also became mayor of the surrounding towns.

Schlosser joined the re-founded KPD and eventually became a member of the SED. Since 1946 he has also been involved in the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime (VVN).

From 1946 to 1953, Schlosser served as district administrator until he was deposed by the SED's district party control commission because of his previous membership in the SAP. Schlosser got caught up in the purges that ended careers in the wake of the Prague Slansky Trial between 1952 and 1953. While former social democrats lost their posts in the SED in 1948, former members of left communist or left socialist dissident groups from the Weimar Republic followed in 1952 - including locksmiths.

In 1953, Schlosser was transferred to Brand-Erbisdorf, 100 kilometers away, and tried a fresh start there, but returned to the Vogtland in 1954 and worked there as a teacher. In 1964 he received the GDR Medal of Merit , which amounted to rehabilitation. Schlosser died in 1968.

literature

• Peter Giersich: Max Schlosser - from the life of a critical socialist. In: Work - Movement - History . Issue III / 2018, pp. 129–146.