Paul Grünewald

Paul Grünewald (born January 15, 1912 in Frankfurt am Main , † October 20, 1996 in Oberursel ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

The commercial employee Paul Grünewald became a member of the Central Association of Employees (ZDA) in 1927 . In 1930 he became a member of the SPD and its youth association, the Young Socialists . At this time he also led a youth group of the ZDA and already experienced first clashes with Nazis in Frankfurt am Main. With the founding of the Socialist Workers' Party (SAP) in 1931, he joined this party. After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the CSP was in May 1933 into line and in the DHV transferred. Grünewald stayed with his group in the DHV, but under the guise of legal excursions, many young people were able to be organized and immunized against the National Socialist propaganda through political discussions and political training. At the same time, Grünewald and his group supported illegal political work and produced and distributed leaflets and magazines. The resistance group obtained passports, members drove comrades who had to flee out of Frankfurt by car. On May 1, 1934, the group specifically produced and distributed a leaflet for Frankfurt police officers who had entered the police force before 1933. Grünewald himself had been a member of the KPD since 1932 and later had contact with the “illegal” district leadership of the KPD.

In 1934 Grünewald was arrested along with 30 other members of the resistance group after treason by an informant. In 1935 he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, which he spent in the prisons in Preungesheim and later in Zweibrücken . On the day of his release in 1938, he was arrested again because the Gestapo was convinced that Paul Grünewald had worked closely with the illegal district leadership of the KPD. He was then taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Thanks to the solidarity of his comrades, Paul Grünewald survived a serious illness in 1939. He becomes a clerk in the prison area, paramedic and autopsy assistant. There he formed a resistance group with Karl Peix and Walter Krämer . During this time he also wrote a dissertation on tattoos at the behest of the camp doctor Erich Wagner and on his behalf. At the instigation of his father and his fiancée Gertrud Liebig, Grünewald was released from the concentration camp on probation in October 1940. He was able to do several party and private assignments from prisoners in Frankfurt.

After his release, Grünewald worked for the American company Bostik in Oberursel . At the beginning of 1941 he became a department head there and worked in the company until he retired.

After 1945 Grünewald co-founded the KPD Obertaunus. He was active as a works council. From 1948 to 1952 he was a district member of the KPD in Obertaunus and a member of the Oberursel city parliament. He later gave numerous lectures at schools and universities about the time of National Socialism and also appeared on television.

In 1991 Paul Grünewald was awarded the Johanna Kirchner Medal of the City of Frankfurt am Main.

Works

• Paul Gruenewald was a member of the internationally staffed editorial, on behalf of the International Federation of Résistants , the International Buchenwald Committee and the Anti-Fascist resistance fighters in the German Democratic Republic the book Buchenwald. Reminder and obligation. Has published documents and reports (Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1960).
• Osthofen concentration camp. Material on the history of an almost forgotten concentration camp , Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1979, ISBN 978-3-87682-709-4 (2nd edition 1983).
• Bernd Langer : Did we do everything right? , Interview on the resistance in Buchenwald concentration camp with Paul Grünewald, CD, Berlin 2013.

Web links

Biography. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; accessed on October 9, 2019 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  

• Frankfurt am Main 1933–1945: Paul Grünewald
• Frankfurt am Main 1933–1945: Gertrud Liebig . The future wife of Paul Grünewald, was also arrested in 1934 at the age of 17 and was in the Frankfurt prison on Klapperfeld until 1935. A biographical overview of her can be found on the website A portrait of the resistance in the Rhine-Main area: Gertrud Grünewald .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Link to CD Did we do everything right?
2. ↑ to the history of the Klapperfeld .