Otto Brenzel

Otto Brenzel (around 1928)

Otto Brenzel (born May 22, 1898 in Frankfurt am Main , † September 27, 1945 in Copenhagen ) was a German politician ( KPD ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was a member of the Reichstag .

Live and act

Brenzel attended primary school in Frankfurt. Then he learned the carpentry trade . In 1913 Brenzel joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and in 1916 the trade union. During the First World War , Brenzel became a prisoner of war , from which he was released in 1920.

In 1923 Brenzel left social democracy and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). For this he worked as a functionary in the following years. Brenzel headed the Red Aid in Frankfurt and belonged to the Hessian district leadership of the KPD. In September 1930 Brenzel was elected as a member of the Reichstag for constituency 33 (Hessen-Darmstadt) . He was a member of this until March 1933.

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " Brenzel participated in the communist resistance and later emigrated to Switzerland . Here he was arrested in 1936 and deported to France . In the following years he worked for the Comintern as head of the Red Aid in Strasbourg . He later emigrated to Denmark and worked there as a representative of the Red Aid. From the beginning of 1937 he lived in Copenhagen under the code name Peter and directed the work of the Red Aid for Denmark, Norway and Sweden . Submerged after the German occupation of Denmark , he had ties to the Danish resistance. Brenzel died of a heart attack during a meeting of the KPD foreign leadership in Copenhagen.

His wife Luise Wolf-Brenzel was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison in Germany in 1941.

literature

• Brenzel, Otto . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , p. 149.

Web links

• Otto Brenzel in the database of members of the Reichstag