Paul Fliedner

Paul Fliedner (born December 10, 1889 in Ilmenau (Thuringia), † July 26, 1970 in Hamburg ) was a German communist politician . He was one of the leaders of the 1918 November Revolution in Saxe-Gotha and from 1945 to 1950 Lord Mayor of Ilmenau.

Life

Paul Fliedner was born as the son of the Ilmenau glass manufacturer Arnold Fliedner. He grew up in Ilmenau, where he went to school from 1896 to 1904. He then began training as a glassblower in his parents 'factory and in 1904 joined the Ilmenau workers' youth . At the age of 18 (1907), Fliedner became a member of the SPD . In 1914 he was drafted into the First World War. He was seriously wounded in the process, which led to the insight that he was no longer “holding out the bones for the emperor”. Therefore he resigned from the SPD in 1917 and joined the USPD . In 1920 he switched to the KPD . Fliedner headed the workers 'and soldiers' councils in Gotha , and conditions there were similar to civil wars. After massive protests and sometimes street fights in Gotha, Duke Carl Eduard abdicated on November 13, 1918. The uprisings in Gotha were at that time the worst in the context of the November Revolution in all of Thuringia, in which Fliedner, as the leader of the workers 'and soldiers' councils, played a major role. On November 14th, he proclaimed the takeover of power by the councils in Saxe-Gotha , which could only be put down by the intervention of troops led by General Maercker from other Thuringian states.

Fliedner lived in Hamburg between 1924 and 1935. There he worked in a chemical glass company. In 1935 he returned to Ilmenau with his family. He bought a small thermometer factory and ran it until 1945. During this time, in 1939, together with some teachers and students from the Thuringian technical center, he founded a group that wanted to carry out various resistance actions against the Nazi regime. However, this could never be completed, on the other hand he was not exposed by the Gestapo .

After 1945, Fliedner was entrusted with various tasks in the city and district of Ilmenau by the SMAD . First he was appointed chairman of the anti-fascist committee of the city of Ilmenau. On July 13, 1945 he was appointed the first mayor of Ilmenau. As First Mayor, he put the focus of his work on rebuilding the city's infrastructure and industry. In 1946 he joined the SED . In 1950 Charlotte Gleichmann succeeded Fliedner in the Ilmenau mayor's office. Fliedner, who had meanwhile been expropriated, moved to West Germany in May 1952 and moved to Hamburg with his wife. In the meantime, the Thuringian public prosecutor's office has launched an investigation against him. In 1953 he was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison for “economic crimes” . He had illegally hoarded various goods in his home. The politically motivated background for the conviction, however, was his flight from the GDR . After the verdict, his property left behind was confiscated and made state-owned. Fliedner spent the last 20 years of his life in seclusion with his wife in Hamburg, where he died on July 26, 1970.