Otto Hafner

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Otto Hafner (born October 1, 1904 in Karlsruhe ; † October 26, 1986 there ) was a German engineer, opponent of National Socialism and deputy head of the State Office for Reparation.

Life

Otto Hafner's parents were the owners of a wallpaper shop in downtown Karlsruhe. He attended secondary school and studied engineering at the Baden State Technical College. In 1923 he joined the German Democratic Party and was involved in the pro-democratic Bund Reichsbanner . He lost his job shortly after the National Socialists came to power in 1933 due to his political attitude, and he could not find a new job in Karlsruhe. Also in 1933 he married Hedwig Maria Anna Günter.

In 1934 he moved to Monthermé in France with his wife and two children , where he found work in an ironworks, first as a worker and later as a manager. From 1934 to 1938 he helped at least 24 Jews to flee Germany by smuggling them across the German-French border in his car on trips from Karlsruhe to Montherné near Lauterbourg . In 1938 the neighbors of the Hafner family, the Yoné family, took in their 17-year-old niece, Klara Pereg, from Austria, who fled from there after the annexation of Austria . After the deportation of family Yone is Pereg hidden nine months at the Hafner, then she fled to her sister in the Netherlands.

Shortly before the start of the Second World War , Hafner returned to Germany with his family in 1939 and Hafner was obliged to work in the Junkers factories in Dessau. After the ceasefire agreement between France and Germany, incriminating French files fell into the hands of the Germans, whereby the escape aid provided remained undiscovered. On the basis of the files, Hafner was arrested in 1941 and convicted in Berlin in 1942 for establishing treasonous relationships . After serving his sentence, he was taken into protective custody, which he served in Magdeburg prison before he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . There he was used for forced labor in the Heinkel works and appointed as a hall manager, he campaigned for the many Polish and French forced laborers. After the destruction of the production site by an Allied air raid, he was sent to the Buchenwald subcamp in Halberstadt in 1944 , from where he was deported to Auschwitz . When the camp was evacuated in January 1945 because of the approaching Red Army , Hafner was not sent on a death march , but was deployed in the SS Storm Brigade Dirlewanger .

After the war he was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets , from which he was released in autumn 1945. He returned to Karlsruhe, worked briefly at the Stadtwerke Karlsruhe , before he set up the regional office for reparations in Karlsruhe in 1947. Until his retirement in 1952 he was deputy head of the authorities there. In 1947 the conviction for treason was overturned. Until 1950 he worked on a voluntary basis in the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime . Hafner died on October 26, 1986 in Karlsruhe, shortly after he was awarded the Ordre national du Mérite by French President Mitterrand for his work for the French forced laborers in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Schuhladen-Krämer: Otto Hafner. In: stadtlexikon.de. City of Karlsruhe, 2012, accessed on June 3, 2020 .
  2. ^ Israel Gutman, Daniel Fraenkel, Jacob Borut: Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations: Germans and Austrians . Wallstein Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-89244-900-3 ( google.de [accessed on June 3, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Otto Hafner's help for Jews to flee. ka-news , January 19, 2006, accessed on June 3, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Hafner, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and Nazi opponent
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1986
Place of death Karlsruhe