Paul Apel

This article deals with the resistance fighter. For the writer Paul Apel (1872–1946) see Paul Apel (writer) .

Paul Apel (born June 27, 1896 in Nordhausen , † March 16, 1965 in Oberhöchstadt / Taunus ) was a German resistance fighter during the Third Reich .

Information about the person

During his apprenticeship, he joined the working youth in 1911 . From 1915 to 1918 the trained upholsterer served as a soldier in the First World War , after which he worked as an upholsterer. In 1919 he became a member of the SPD and in 1924 of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold . There he worked from 1929 to 1933 as managing director in the Gau Hessen-Nassau.

Role as a resistance fighter

From 1934 he organized a distribution network for the information sheet Sozialistische Aktion in the Rhein-Main area . Its activities were covered by the distribution of the legal newspapers Green Post and Blick in die Zeit . He was supported above all by former Reichbanner activists as well as SPD and trade union members who maintained bases in numerous cities in the Rhine-Main area. The financing of the conspiratorial work ran u. a. on the sale of the Socialist Action . The focus of this work was the gathering of information on the social situation in the Third Reich , on strikes, terrorist measures and on German armament. Most of the information was sent via Luxembourg to the Sopade in Prague . In addition, secret meetings of various groups and people at home and abroad were organized in order to better coordinate and network the work in the resistance.

In a wave of arrests in 1935, Apel and more than 100 colleagues were arrested. On January 28, 1937, Apel was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment by the Kassel Higher Regional Court. In 1944 he was taken to the Dachau concentration camp . He survived the death march from April 26, 1945 after being liberated by American troops on May 2, 1945 near Bad Reichenhall.

After 1945

After the war, Paul Apel helped rebuild the SPD in Frankfurt / Main and was involved in the persecution of Nazi perpetrators and denazification . He refused to take over the development of the Frankfurt police force, as well as the organization of the railway police. He then became head of the training department at the Deutsche Bundesbahn (central school for officials in the driving service in Bad Schwalbach i.Ts.), as well as the traffic and press departments. He later reduced these offices to training. For health reasons, mainly due to his imprisonment, he had to give up his service with the Deutsche Bundesbahn at the beginning of 1963. In parallel to his service at DB, he took part in political life in his new home in Oberhöchstadt and was chairman of the municipal council for a long time.

swell

• Social Democratic Party of Germany. Board (ed.): Committed to freedom: memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century . Schüren, 2000, ISBN 978-3-89472-173-2 ( Google Books ).
• Website about the death march from Dachau