Richard Gladewitz

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Richard Gladewitz (born August 30, 1898 in Zwickau , † November 23, 1969 in Bucharest ) was a German party functionary ( KPD / SED ), resistance fighter and Spain fighter . He was deputy chairman of the Society for Sport and Technology (GST).

Life

Gladewitz, son of Gustav Gladewitz, August Bebel's private secretary , learned the profession of waiter and worked in this profession. In 1917/18 he had to do military service as a soldier in the First World War .

Gladewitz joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1919 and switched to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920. From 1919 to 1921 he was a laborer in Chemnitz , from 1921 to 1923 he worked as a waiter in Cuxhaven . Gladewitz was temporarily the local chairman of the KPD Cuxhaven, then in Chemnitz. From the end of 1928 to the spring of 1929 he worked as a secretary for the Red Aid in the Erzgebirge-Vogtland district. From 1929 to 1933 he was chairman of the Chemnitz tenants' association. He was disciplined several times in the Weimar Republic for political reasons. In August 1932 he took part in the World Congress against the Imperialist War in Amsterdam . In the same year he was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment by the Imperial Court, but was released again through the Christmas amnesty. In January 1933 he was elected city councilor and city councilor in Chemnitz.

After the " seizure " of the Nazis Gladewitz emigrated in February 1933, the Czechoslovakia . There he headed the KPD border work for East Saxony and worked illegally in Germany from July 1934. He was the organ leader of the KPD in Berlin and acted from October 1934 to May 1935 as political leader of the KPD in Upper Silesia . In February 1935 he took part in the KPD border conference under the leadership of Franz Dahlem and Walter Ulbricht in Czechoslovakia, in the summer of 1935 at the VII World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow and was a delegate of the “Brussels Conference “of the KPD in Kunzewo near Moscow. Then Gladewitz worked again in Germany. With Elli Schmidt, he took over the illegal leadership of the KPD in Berlin.

In July 1936 he emigrated again to Czechoslovakia and came to Spain via Denmark and France . There he took part in the Spanish Civil War from September 1937 as a member of the International Brigades . In 1938/39 he was cadre commissioner of the " Hans Beimler Battalion ". In 1939 he stayed in France and temporarily in Belgium and did illegal work. Gladewitz was interned in the Gurs camp from September 1939 to 1941 .

After the occupation of France by German troops, Gladewitz was active in the Resistance under the name "Charles Berger" . From the end of 1943 Gladewitz was a member of the KPD-Westleitung and the Committee "Free Germany" for the West ( French Comité "Allemagne libre" pour l'Ouest , CALPO) and was the representative of the CALPO for Paris and the surrounding area. In particular, he was entrusted with the infiltration of members of the Wehrmacht . After the liberation of Paris , Gladewitz acted as head of the front office of the CALPO and in 1945 was a co-signer of the joint appeal of the SPD and KPD regional groups for unconditional surrender.

In July 1945 Gladewitz returned to Chemnitz. From August 1945 he worked as first secretary of the KPD in Plauen and from September 1945 - together with Arthur Helbig (SPD) - as chairman of the district committee of people's solidarity . From December 1945 to 1948 Gladewitz was head of the information office of the state government of Saxony , later a member of the state commission for state control. In 1946 he became a member of the SED's state leadership in Saxony. Later he headed the main department “Soviet Union and People's Democracies” at Berliner Rundfunk in the Funkhaus Masurenallee Berlin (West) . Here, in West Berlin, he and three other employees (Alfred Hartmann, Dagobert Löwenberg and Ernst Schmidt) were arrested on December 6, 1950 and charged with "kidnapping". Friedrich Karl Kaul took over the defense . In August 1951, Gladewitz, Hartmann and Löwenberg were acquitted for lack of evidence, Schmidt for proven innocence. From 1952 to 1954 Gladewitz was editor of the "Tälichen Rundschau", then from 1954 deputy chairman of the GST. From 1956 to 1962 he worked at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED .

Grave of Richard and Hilde Gladewitz.

Gladewitz died on November 23, 1969. He was buried in the Pergolenweg cemetery in the Friedrichsfelde central cemetery.

family

Gladewitz was married to Hilde Janka (1906–1967), the older sister of Albert (1907–1933) and Walter Janka (1914–1994) , since 1928 . His daughter Sonja married the later head of the Permanent Mission of the GDR in the Federal Republic, Ewald Moldt .

Awards

literature

  • Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED: Even then we fought together. Memories of German and Czechoslovak anti-fascists of their border work from 1933 to 1938 . Dietz, Berlin 1961, p. 130 et passim.
  • Federal Ministry for All-German Issues (Ed.): SBZ biography . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 106.
  • Author collective under the direction of Eva Chirrek: Richard Gladewitz. Stations from the life of a revolutionary fighter (= series of publications on the history of the FDJ , 24). Young World Publishing House, Berlin 1972.
  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933 . Volume I: Politics, Economy, Public Life . Saur, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , p. 223.
  • Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr . KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 225 f.
  • Gladewitz, Richard . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , p. 297.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Serre: Quatre lieux d'internement dans la Drôme . In: Écarts d'identité , no.115 (2009), p. 69.
  2. ↑ Andreas Krone: Plauen 1945 to 1949 - from the Third Reich to socialism. Denazification and personnel-structural restructuring in municipal administration, economy and education (doctorate). TU Chemnitz-Zwickau 2001, p. 78.
  3. ↑ Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde - Birthdays and deaths of those buried in the cemetery in 2009
personal data
SURNAME Gladewitz, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German party functionary (KPD / SED), resistance and Spain fighter
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Zwickau
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1969
Place of death Bucharest