Otto Gruneberg

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Otto Grüneberg (born February 7, 1908 in Charlottenburg ; † February 1, 1931 in Berlin-Charlottenburg ) was a German anti-fascist and victim of the Charlottenburg SA storm 33 .

Life

Memorial plaque Schloßstraße 22

Otto Grüneberg was a member of the "Red Young Front" in Charlottenburg, the communist youth organization of the Red Front Fighter League . He was involved in one of the house protection squadrons, which were originally founded to protect tenants from official measures such as evictions, in his residential area known as the " Red Kiez ". Due to the brutalization of the political struggles, the main task of the house protection squadrons from around 1930 was to protect the residents from attacks by the SA . Grüneberg also belonged to the Red Aid and was a member of the International Workers Aid (IAH). He was also a member of the Jiu-Jitsu department of the “Libertas” workers' sports club. On the evening of February 1, 1931, he came from an IAH meeting, encountered the Charlottenburg SA Storm 33, notorious as the “murder storm” at the corner of Schloßstrasse and Hebbelstrasse, and came under fire from all sides. Shortly afterwards he died in the restaurant "Wascher" (today "Kastanie") on the ground floor of his house at Schloßstraße 22.

In the week before his murder, Grüneberg had received threatening letters. The reason: He was supposed to testify as a witness in a trial against National Socialists who a few days earlier had wounded the worker Max Schirmer with knife wounds so much that he died two days later.

According to the KPD newspaper Die Rote Fahne on February 7, 1931, “tens of thousands” of Berliners came to the funeral to protest against the terror of the SA. In the Berlin newspaper on the morning of February 7, 1931, on the other hand, there were 8,000 to 10,000 participants.

The main defendant in the trial of Otto Grüneberg's murder, Paul Foyer, was sentenced to five years and four months in prison, with two others receiving lesser sentences. Another defendant was acquitted. However, the convicts were released after just 10 months.

Honors

Grüneberg is one of the first political victims of an SA storm. In addition to the memorial plaque in front of the “Kastanie” (Schloßstraße 22), the Otto-Grüneberg-Weg between Schloßstraße and Hebbelstraße, classified as a private street , has been remembering him since November 9, 1989 .

Jan Petersen created a literary monument for Otto Grüneberg with the novel Our Street . The novel, published in Bern in 1936, has been translated into 12 languages.

literature

  • Heinrich-Wilhelm Wörmann: Resistance in Charlottenburg. Series of publications by the German Resistance Memorial Center , Berlin 1998 pp. 43, 47.
  • Harald Marpe: crime scene Schloßstraße. The murder of Otto Grüneberg on February 1, 1931 . ( Kiez-Histories , issue 3), publisher: Kiezbündnis Klausenerplatz eV, self-published, Berlin 2011, DNB 1063293758 .

Web links

Commons : Otto Grüneberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sven Reichardt : Fascist combat leagues. Violence and community in Italian squadrism and in the German SA. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2002, p. 490.
personal data
SURNAME Grueneberg, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist, SA murder victim
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1931
Place of death Berlin-Charlottenburg