Otto Niebergall
Otto Niebergall (born January 5, 1904 in Kusel ; † February 13, 1977 in Mainz ) was a German politician of the KPD and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Otto Niebergall was born on the Breitsester Hof near Kusel, where he also grew up. In 1918 he became head of the youth organization of the SPD in Saarbrücken and co-founder of the German youth metalworkers of the German Metalworkers' Association in Saarbrücken. In 1919 he became a member of the Socialist Proletarian Youth of the USPD . In 1920 he moved to Hamborn in the Ruhr area . There he became a member of the Communist Youth Association of Germany and a member of its sub-district leadership in Hamborn. During the Kapp Putsch he was active as a courier for the Red Ruhr Army .
In 1922 he became a member of the KPD and returned to Saarbrücken. In 1923 he became head of the KJVD and a member of the Saar-Palatinate district management.
In 1924 he was elected district leader of the KJVD and a member of the district leadership of the KPD. In 1925 he was a founding member and head of the Red Front Fighters Association (RFB) in the Saar area , at the same time he was elected a member of the KPD's district secretariat. From 1926 to 1935 he represented the KPD in the city council of Saarbrücken . However, during this time in 1932 he was imprisoned for eleven months in Zweibrücken because of the continuation of the now banned RFB. From March to October 1934 he attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow.
In February 1935 he moved to France and became section leader of the KPD for the Saar area and the Palatinate. From 1937 he was section leader for the Rhineland and a member of the working committee for the formation of the Popular Front in the Saar area. In 1939 he was one of the delegates of the Bern Conference of the KPD . In 1940 he was arrested in Belgium and deported to the concentration camp in Saint-Cyprien in the south of France . After fleeing this camp, he became head of the German communist resistance movement in France and president of the “ National Committee Free Germany in the West ” (CALPO). His secretary at CALPO was Luise Kraushaar .
Niebergall was the KPD's liaison to the Resistance in France . During the liberation battle for Paris from mid-August 1944, he was in direct contact with the military leadership of the uprising and directed the deployment of the CALPO fighters.
After his return in August 1945 he became an instructor of the KPD Central Committee for the French Zone of Occupation (FBZ), and from 1946 to 1948 he was 1st Chairman of the KPD's Liaison Secretariat in the FBZ. In 1946 he was re-elected as a city councilor in Saarbrücken.
In 1947, however, he was expelled from the Saar region by the High Commissioner Gilbert Grandval because of his collaboration with the SED . In 1948 he was elected a member of the party executive committee of the KPD and until 1950 he was state chairman of the KPD Rhineland-Palatinate , then chairman of the central party control commission .
In the first federal election in 1949 he was elected member of the Bundestag for the KPD and into the leadership of the parliamentary group. In 1952 he was elected to the top management of the KPD.
He spent the years 1953 to 1955 in the GDR . 1956 to 1957 he was again a member of the city council of Saarbrücken. After the Saarland regional association of the KPD was banned in 1957, they moved again to the GDR. During his time there from 1957 to 1971, he was a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo, which operates from East Berlin, of the KPD, which is illegal in West Germany.
In 1971 he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany and became chairman of the commission for research into the history of the labor movement at the party executive of the DKP and member of the district executive of the DKP in Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1972 he was elected chairman of the interest group of former German resistance fighters (IEDW).
Otto Niebergall is considered the political foster father of the later GDR head of state and party Erich Honecker .
literature
- Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Dietz, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-320-02044-7 , pp. 534-535.
- Dora Schaul : Resistance. Memories of German anti-fascists. Dietz-Verlag: Berlin 1973, 2nd edition ibid. & Röderberg, Frankfurt 1975 (also on Gerhard Leo , Roman Rubinstein , Walter Beling , Werner Schwarze , Luise Kraushaar and others) 3rd edition Berlin 1985.
- Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul : The splintered no. Saarlanders against Hitler. Dietz, Bonn 1989, p. 197ff.
- Bernd-Rainer Barth : Niebergall, Otto . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Karlheinz Pech : Six decades of struggle for peace and socialism. Otto Niebergall . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . Vol. 27, No. 1, 1985, pp. 83-93.
Web links
- Literature by and about Otto Niebergall in the catalog of the German National Library
- Interest group of former German resistance fighters
Individual evidence
- ^ The Germans in the French Resistance
- ^ Hans Kluth: The KPD in the Federal Republic: Your political activity and organization 1945 - 1956. Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne / Opladen, 1959, p. 129
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Niebergall, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (KPD, DKP), Member of the Bundestag, resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 5, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kusel ( Palatinate ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 13, 1977 |
| Place of death | Mainz |