Robert Gladitz

Robert Gladitz (born June 9, 1892 in Eichenberg ; † April 5, 1945 in Tiefurt near Weimar ) was a socialist resistance fighter against National Socialism and was murdered in a final phase crime on April 5, 1945 together with 148 other prisoners by an SS commando.

Life

Robert Gladitz comes from the working class family of bricklayer Emil Gladitz and his wife Friederike née Schmidt. After attending an elementary school in his home town, the “forest school”, he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer at the Hopf brothers in Suhl as one of seven children . Since 1919 he was organized in the building trade union. Since then he has been employed by the Hopf & Sons company. At the beginning of the First World War he was drafted as a soldier and promoted several times, most recently to Sergeant in Infantry Regiment 143 . After being wounded twice, he was decorated with the Iron Cross II. Class and the Front Fighter Cross of Honor. After the war he found his political home in the USPD . With the left wing of the party, he converted to the KPD in 1920 . He became a member of the Red Front Fighter League . In 1927 he joined the Lenin Bund with Guido Heym and in the spring of 1928 he joined the SPD . In the spring of 1933 he registered with the " German Labor Front " (DAF). In his community Eichenberg he was a member of the local council . He was arrested for the first time in 1937 and sentenced by the higher regional court in Jena to one year and nine months in prison for preparing for high treason . After his release he got in contact with Guido Heym again and worked in his group as one of the most active members. The illegal treasury of the resistance group was administered by him. At the “Dombergwanderern”, the resisters met every Sunday in the Heyms workshop, every Friday in the “Armory”, in the “Waldschlösschen” or in other inns, but also in the Heym family's garden shed. In addition to him and Karl Heym, they included Lene Deckert, Anna Heym, Käthe Recknagel, Alfred and Willi Ehmann (all from Suhl), Hugo Endter from Grub , Johann Endter from Albrechts , Bernhard Kleffel, Justus Triebel from Dietzhausen , and foreman Kurt Schulze from Eisfeld . They discussed the political and military situation, foresaw the downfall of the Nazi state in the two- front war and hoped for the construction of a new Germany in line with the Weimar Constitution to forestall the communists . Nevertheless, they also tried to join the communist Adolf Anschütz and the Suhl resistance group. In the course of a first mass arrest, Robert Gladitz was also arrested by the Gestapo on September 3, 1943 . On January 16, 1945, the People's Court sentenced him to death, losing his honor for life . Contributors to the judgment: District Court Judge Noetzold , Dr. Großpietsch, Oberstgeneralführer Dortschy , SS-Standartenführer Richard Lammel and the general of the flak cartillery Alfred Haubold . On April 4, he and Guido Heym, Erhardt Schübel and over a hundred other anti-fascists had to face the execution . During the day and night they were driven by a Gestapo and SS command into the Webicht forest between Weimar and Tiefurt, where they were shot from behind by an escort and special command and buried in bomb craters. Responsible for this crime was the head of the Gestapo Weimar, SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Helmut Wolff , who withdrew with his cronies via Bohemia into the western zones .

memory

• A common gravestone for Robert Gladitz and Alfred Anschütz and their wives in the main cemetery in Suhl was removed after 1990

• In the Webicht there is a memorial stone for the victims of the Weimar murder.

literature

• Gerd Kaiser (ed.), Upright and strong , in it Dagmar Schmidt with a memory of Robert Gladitz, p. 49ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Memorials for the Victims of National Socialism II, p. 885