Otto Gratzki

Otto Ernst Albert Gratzki (born April 14, 1895 in Tafelbude ; † August 28, 1976 in Delmenhorst ) was a German teacher who resisted National Socialism .

Life and education

Otto Gratzki was born on April 14, 1895 in Tafelbude near Osterode in East Prussia . He lived together with his parents and his two siblings in the poorest of circumstances. In order to support his parents financially, he worked alongside school from the age of ten and earned between 150 and 200 marks a year. From 1901 to 1909 he attended elementary school in Tafelbude and graduated successfully. With the support of his teacher, he then received a scholarship to train as a primary school teacher from 1909 to 1914 at the seminar for preparation workers in Osterode. On August 23, shortly after the beginning of World War I , he completed his first teacher examination.

After being wounded, Gratzki returned to school in East Prussia. In November 1914 he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for his war service. After the end of the war, Gratzki joined the SPD and in 1919 became a member of the district council for it . In 1921 he passed a second teacher examination. From 1923 to 1924 Gratzki attended the university and the Königsberg commercial college . In 1924 he moved to the Berlin School of Management , where he completed various training courses. Presumably during this time he was a member of the German Pacifist Student Union , which he stated in his denazification file. In October 1925 he completed his diploma in business teaching, followed in February 1926 by the diploma in business administration. In 1928 he passed the technical teacher examination. In 1929 Gratzki moved to Delmenhorst , where he worked as a commercial graduate student at the commercial school.

Resistance to National Socialism

In 1932 Gratzki published an economics book under the pseudonym Ernst Seelemann with the title “National sovereign economy, nationally conditioned goods clearing world economy” (Verlag Gebrüder Wehner, Delmenhort-Bremen), in which he opposed the self-sufficiency efforts and the so-called four - year plan the National Socialists pronounced.

For Gratzki, this self-sufficiency meant foregoing all amenities and any imported goods, which for him amounted to an undersupply of the population. Instead, he advocated a balanced economy in which as much as possible is imported so that as much as possible can be exported. With this policy, which he dubbed the “national economy”, it should be possible to secure long-term prosperity.

As a result of this criticism, however, Gratzki came under the attention of the Gestapo as early as 1933 . He himself later formulated it as follows:

“In 1933 a tragedy began for me. The Gestapo had me monitored by agents who were not afraid to climb onto the roof themselves to see if I was listening to foreign broadcasters. My neighbor was instructed to pay attention to every visit and to check the radio reception. "

Since he refused to become a member of the NSDAP , he was banned from taking classes in civic studies.  

In order not to lose his job as a teacher entirely, Gratzki joined the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLV) in 1934 or 1935 . Also in 1934 he joined the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization (NSV). However, even after 1933, Gratzki made negative comments about the National Socialists towards his students. In 1937 he interpreted one of his dreams in front of his school class as "that in 50 years no one would say Heil Hitler any more". He also criticized the state's social system in front of his students. These statements were rated as “anti-subversive attitudes” and punished with a severe reprimand, a minor penalty, as comparable cases show.

After this reference, Gratzki apparently took care not to attract further attention, at least for the next few years no further occurrences of this kind are known. In an assessment in 1943 it can be read that Gratzki belonged "to those people who stubbornly insisted on their wrong political views and who had failed to join the national community ".

The correspondence between him and his former student Bernhard Sanders shows that this assessment was not fundamentally wrong. Sanders was depressed by his labor service experiences and became more and more desperate. Gratzki replied to him on August 10, 1943, among other things, that Sanders had to grow a thick skin and that he could not expect much from his comrades. They would only think, but think ahead, none of them could.

During the now more frequent correspondence, Gratzki not only expressed himself critical of the leadership, but also repeatedly criticized the war.

On August 27, 1943, he wrote to Sanders again after learning that one of his friends had been arrested. In this letter he asked him to burn all of his letters and suggested that all correspondence be handled immediately through Sander's parents. He also made it very clear that from now on they would no longer be able to write openly about things that they did not want the Gestapo to read.

However, Sanders did not comply and kept all of Gratzki's letters in his locker. He also kept a diary in which he dealt with Gratzki's letters and recorded his doubts about a final victory.

The diary was finally found on his desk in the office of the Reich Labor Service . Sanders was reported, arrested and his locker, which contained Gratzki's letters, was searched. The police took their time to investigate Gratzki. As a punishment for Sanders, it was decided that he would be transferred to the Wehrmacht.

In January 1944, Sanders was at Gratzki's door. He explained that he deserter wanted to be. Gratzki managed to calm him down at first and also put in a good word for him with the superiors of the fugitive. In November 1944, Sanders was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to five years in prison for decomposing the military force , with the sentence suspended, only to be sent back to the front, where he died.

On January 21, 1944 Otto Gratzki was arrested by the Gestapo . It took a few more months before the trial came. On January 23, 1945, he was sentenced to death for undermining military strength . As in all of these judgments, the costs of the proceedings had to be paid by the convicted himself.

Contrary to Adolf Hitler's order to carry out such death sentences within three weeks, Otto Gratzki took his time. For 96 days he waited for his death in the prison in Brandenburg . Finally he was liberated by the Red Army on April 27, 1945 . During his time in prison, he said he had finished his life every day.

How Gratzki got from the Soviet to the British occupation zone in the following months is not entirely clear. Allegedly he pretended to be a French prisoner in order to get back to Delmenhorst.

Post-war Germany

On December 23, 1945 Gratzki filled out the British questionnaire on denazification in Delmenhorst because he wanted to work as a city treasurer. On December 5, 1947, he was assigned to category 5, because according to his own statements he was only a member of the NSV and the NSLV . With this categorization he was considered exonerated.

Until 1949 Gratzki kept the job as city treasurer. In 1952 he finally came back from his short retirement and was again a teacher in the Delmenhorst commercial schools. In 1959 he finally retired.

He was active again for the SPD even after the Second World War. Among other things, he was a council member from 1956 to 1961. In 1961, he and another SPD member founded the Delmenhorst Independent Voting Association after he was refused entry into the Bundestag and worked for them on the city ​​council until 1968 .

Otto Gratzki died on August 28, 1976 at the age of 81. He was buried in the Bungerhof cemetery . Although the grave has since been closed, the tombstone can still be seen next to the entrance gate.

Honors

Otto-Gratzki-Straße in Delmenhorst was named after him in 2012 . A portrait of him, painted by Josef Pollack , is on the first floor of Vocational Schools I - Commercial Teaching Centers at Richtstraße 26 . Below this portrait is a brass plaque with a quote from Gratzki:

“If you make yourself zero, you make the 'one' very large when you put it behind it - and if there are millions of zeros, then the simple one becomes Lord God, but not because it is God's gift, but because of the many zeros who like to stand behind the one and look for support there. Only when the one gets lost does the zeros suddenly discover their inferiority and then it's over - completely over! "

literature

• Otto Gratzki (1895–1976) - resistance fighter, politician and teacher at the commercial college . In: Hus un Heimat , vol. 56 (2005), no. 36, p. 68
• Otto Gratzki. In: Glöckner, Paul Wilhelm: The resistance. In: Delmenhorst under the Hakenkreuz Volume 2 , Delmenhorst 1983, pp. 33–37
• Otto Gratzki . In: Glöckner, Paul Wilhelm: Delmenhorst under the swastika 1933 to 1945: The brown years in a medium-sized town. In: Oldenburger Forschungen 15 , Oldenburg 2001, pp. 96-98.
• Aden, Gerhard Johannes: In grateful memory of my late friend Otto Gratzki: 1895 - 1976 , Rastede 1976

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Seelemann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Andreas D. Becker: Upright in rejection. In: weser-kurier.de / Delmenhorster Kurier . June 14, 2018 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Otto Ernst Albert Gratzki. In: Günther Wieland : That was the People's Court. Investigations, facts, documents. entaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989, p. 147. ISBN 3-890-85365-X
2. ^ ^{A b} Paul Wilhelm Glöckner: Sentenced to death and saved at the last minute. In: Delmenhorster Kreisblatt , September 10, 2005, p. 68.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Glöckner, Paul Wilhelm: Delmenhorst under the swastika 1933 to 1945: The brown years in a medium-sized town, (Oldenburger Forschungen 15), Oldenburg 2001, pp. 96–98.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Andreas D. Becker: Resistance in Delmenhorst. Upright in denial. Delmenhorster Kurier , June 14, 2018.
5. ↑ Seelemann, Ernst: National sovereign economy, nationally conditioned goods clearing world economy, Bremen / Delmenhorst, 1932, p. 5f.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Paul Wilhelm Glöckner: Delmenhorst under the Hakenkreuz , Volume 2, Delmenhorst 1987, pp. 33–37.
7. ↑ Heuzeroth, Günter (ed.): Under the tyranny of National Socialism 1933–1945. Represented on the events in the Oldenburger Land (Volume 2), Osnabrück 1985, p. 643.
8. ↑ Denazification files Otto Gratzki, NLA OL , Rep 980, Best. 351 No. 38084.
9. ↑ Otto Gratzki: A wedding and two baptisms in the cemetery. Delmenhorster Kurier, July 18, 2011.
10. ^ Eva Siebenherz : Renamed streets in Lower Saxony. Alfeld to Hanover. neobooks, 2016, ISBN 373-8-08209-3
11. ↑ Frank Hethey: Exterior wording on the previous Magnus-Mueller site [by the former Nazi regime opponents, such as: Albert Goldenstedt, Elfriede Gollsch, Otto Gratzki, Paul Schipper and Wilhelm Schroers]. In: Hus un Heimat , Vol. 61 (2010), No. 2, p. 55.