Paul Gmeiner

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November Revolution in Braunschweig , November 8, 1918: The delegation of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council (from left to right: Friedrich Schubert, Henry Finke, August Merges , Paul Gmeiner, Hermann Schweiß and Hermann Meyer.)

Paul Gmeiner (born August 28, 1892 in Afferde ; † April 18, 1944 in the Heinkel-Werke Oranienburg subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a communist politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

The trained lathe operator settled in Braunschweig , where he joined the SPD in 1912 and the USPD in 1917 and was union secretary of the German Metalworkers' Association . In Braunschweig, Gmeiner belonged to the minority of local party members who supported the merger with the KPD to form the VKPD . In the following years he was one of the leading KPD functionaries in Braunschweig. After he had been commissioned by the Lower Saxony district management to purchase weapons in 1923, he was arrested after the failed Hamburg uprising and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison in September 1924. Since he was re-elected to the Braunschweig State Parliament in 1924, he was released early.

Always re-elected in the upcoming state elections in 1927 and 1930, Gmeiner headed the Braunschweig KPD from 1926 to 1929 and also headed the local Red Front Fighters League .

After the NSDAP came to power in 1933, Gmeiner went underground and organized the KPD's resistance activities in Braunschweig. After his arrest at the end of 1933 he was severely tortured and later imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he earned a high reputation among his fellow prisoners as a block elder in Barrack 53. Paul Gmeiner died in a bomb attack on an external unit of the concentration camp on April 18, 1944.

Honors

The Gmeinerstraße in the Braunschweig Schuntersiedlung is named after Paul Gmeiner .

See also

literature

  • Hermann Weber : The change in German communism. The Stalinization of the KPD in the Weimar Republic. Volume 2. Frankfurt / Main 1969, pp. 136f.
  • Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online [accessed August 10, 2011]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The street names of the Schuntersiedlung on schuntersiedlung-online.de
personal data
SURNAME Gmeiner, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Communist politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Afferde / Unna
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1944
Place of death Heinkel external command of Sachsenhausen concentration camp