Otto Heckert (politician)

Otto Heckert (born April 15, 1905 in Chemnitz , † December 3, 1963 in Leipzig ) was a German politician , party functionary ( KPD / SED ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism . Heckert was the second secretary of the SED district leadership in Leipzig and chairman of the District Party Control Commission (BPKK) Leipzig of the SED.

Life

Heckert, the son of a blacksmith and a seamstress , attended elementary and vocational school in Chemnitz from 1911 to 1919 . His mother died in 1914. Between 1919 and 1922 he completed an apprenticeship as a gardener in Lunzenau (Mulde) , then from 1922 to 1924 an apprenticeship as a carpenter . He worked in this profession until 1930.

In 1920 he joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany and in April 1923 the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1923 he became head of the young Spartakusbund Chemnitz-Süd. In 1924 he joined the Red Front Fighter League (RFB) and in 1928 became Gau leader of the Red Young Front, then second Gau leader of the RFB. From 1929 he was Gaufführer of the illegal RFB Erzgebirge-Vogtland. In 1929 he stayed in Vienna and did illegal work as an instructor for the federal government of the RFB, Heckert was arrested and expelled. In 1930 he visited the Soviet Union with an RFB delegation . He was arrested on August 29, 1931 and remained in custody until January 1933. The trial for “high treason” before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig ended in January 1933 with an acquittal for “lack of evidence”.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Heckert was arrested again on March 2, 1933 and in so-called " protective custody " until July 1934 in the Sachsenburg concentration camp . From September 1935 to March 1936 he was again imprisoned in Sachsenburg concentration camp. He was arrested for one and a half years in prison, which he served from May 1936 to November 1937 in Zwickau prison. From 1939 to 1945 Heckert was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp as an opponent of the Nazi regime . Here he was a member of the center of the illegal KPD leadership.

In March 1944, Heckert and Werner Türpe had a conversation with the Social Democrat Rudolf Breitscheid on behalf of the leadership of the illegal organization of the KPD in the Buchenwald concentration camp . The meeting was disguised as a "repair investigation" in the Fichtenhain special camp, in which Heckert participated as a carpenter. They discussed the political and international situation, the situation on the front lines as well as the prospects of developments after the defeat of the Nazi regime and the necessary cooperation between social democrats and communists.

Immediately after his return, on May 27, 1945, Heckert became the first chairman of the presidium of the “Antifascist Front” in Chemnitz. From October / November 1945 he was a political employee of the agitation and propaganda department of the Central Committee (ZK) of the KPD and the party executive of the SED. From June 1946 to 1947 he was assistant and teacher, from October 1947 to March 1949 secretary of the SED party organization at the party college "Karl Marx" . From April 1949 to February 1954 he worked as head of the industrial and urban agitation sector in the agitation department of the Central Committee.

From February 1954 to 1962 he served as second secretary of the SED district leadership in Leipzig and 1962/63 as chairman of the BPKK of the SED Leipzig. From 1954 to 1962 he was also a member of the Leipzig District Assembly .

Otto Heckert was the younger brother of the KPD and Comintern functionary Fritz Heckert, who died in exile in Moscow in 1936 .

Awards and honors

• Patriotic Order of Merit in silver (May 6, 1955) and in gold (1963)
• Medal of Merit of the GDR (1959)
• In Mittelbach near Chemnitz a polytechnic high school was named after him.
• The combat group battalion of the SED city district leadership Leipzig-Südost and a VP readiness in Leipzig received the honorary name "Otto Heckert".

literature

• Hella Karden: Heckert, Otto . In: Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr . KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p.
• Mario Niemann :  Heckert, Otto . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Mario Niemann , Andreas Herbst : SED squad: The middle level. Biographical encyclopedia of the secretaries of the state and district managements, the prime ministers and the chairmen of the district councils 1946 to 1989 . 1st edition. Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76977-0 , p. 223 f .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X , p. 152.
2. ↑ Mike Schmeitzner, Clemens Vollnhals, Francesca Weil (eds.): From Stalingrad to the SBZ. Saxony 1943 to 1949 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-525-36972-2 , p. 242.