Slogan (resistance group)

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Parole was the name of a resistance group against National Socialism in Berlin-Neukölln . Its members were social democrats who sought to work with the illegalized KPD . It existed since the summer of 1933 and had about 120 members. It was broken up in September 1934 by two arrests.

The group consisted of young members of the " Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold ", the SAJ , trade unionists and workers' athletes . Important members were the printer Hellmut Bock and the dentist Rudolf Schuch , two former Reichsbanner officials, the former Young Socialist Rudi Zimmermann , the painter Otto Wilcke , nine years chairman of the workers' sports organization “ Freie Turnerschaft Neukölln ”, the head of the Neukölln SAJ, Friedel Schmiedel and her later husband Ernst Hoffmann . They formed in spring 1933 before the SPD was banned. Deviating from the policy of the SPD executive committee, they pleaded for an active fight against National Socialism, also with illegal means and in cooperation with the KPD. They viewed the cooperation of social democrats and communists as a basic requirement for the overthrow of the Nazi regime .

After the SPD was banned in June 1933, the group established illegal contacts with other social democrats. Your contact person at the KPD was the main author of the illegal newsletter "Neuköllner Sturmfahne", Alfred Schaefer . Its organization was opposed to the contact because the members were former social democratic functionaries. According to the KPD, cooperation between social democrats and communists was only possible as a “ united front from below” with simple SPD members to the exclusion of the functionaries. The “watchword” was divided into groups of four or five. From April to September 1934 she brought out several editions of the underground publication “Die Parole - Das Neukölln United Front Organ”. Each issue was about 12 pages. Most of the content was taken from the "Press Service of the Communist Party", some articles were written by the members themselves. They also distributed around 1,000 copies of a leaflet "Hitler in the Pillory", in which the NSDAP was blamed for the Reichstag fire . Around 230 copies of the magazine were produced per issue and passed on to friends and sympathizers at a price of 10 pfennigs. Leading members also put the magazine in publicly accessible places themselves.

In September 1934, the leading members of the group were arrested in two waves. Several of them were severely ill-treated while in police custody. Nevertheless, the Gestapo was only able to get hold of some of the members. Whether the group was exposed through betrayal or the carelessness of the members cannot be determined. On March 29, 1935, the trial of 24 members began before the Berlin Superior Court . Around 60 spectators were present. Among them were observers of the KPD youth magazine “The Young Guard”, which the group, after the initial rejection, now praised in a leaflet as a “role model for the united front”. The accused denounced the mistreatment by the Gestapo during the trial .

The verdicts were pronounced on March 29, 1935. The main defendants were sentenced to long prison terms: Hellmut Bock: 5 years in prison, Rudolf Zimmermann: 4 years in prison, Otto Wilcke: 4 years in prison, Ernst Hoffmann: 3 years in prison. Friedel Schmiedel approved the court of having been seduced into her deeds out of idealism. As a result, its sentence of six months' imprisonment fell well short of the prosecution's request, which had requested two years. The remaining defendants received prison terms ranging from 6 months to two years, with some acquittals. The resistance group was thus crushed.

Even after their release from prison, the convicts were under police supervision and, as political convicts, could not find a job for a long time. After their release from prison, Otto Wilcke and Friedel Schmiedel again made contact with resistance groups from former social democrats: Otto Wilcke joined a social democratic resistance group led by Hans Schiftan , Friedel Schmiedel belonged to an illegal group of social democrats and communists in Britz who also made contact through Kurt Schmidt to the group New Beginning held. Ernst Hoffmann was drafted into Penal Division 999 in 1942. Rudolf Schuch was arrested in July 1944 for " decomposing military strength " and listening to foreign radio stations and sentenced to death by the Central Court of the Army in February 1945 . Due to the defeat of National Socialism, the judgment could no longer be enforced. The head of the group, Hellmut Bock, was abducted again by the Gestapo without a court order after serving his sentence in September 1939 and remained imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the end of the war in 1945. After the war he became head of the main office “Victims of Fascism” at the Berlin magistrate .

After the war, Hellmut Bock, Rudi Zimmermann and Ernst and Friedel Hoffmann (née Schmiedel) approved the union of the SPD and KPD to form the SED and became citizens of the GDR after the division of Berlin . However, Rudolf Schuch, Otto Wilcke and other members of the group soon left the new unity party SED in disappointment.

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