Red Navy
The Red Navy was a section of the German Red Front Fighters Association (RFB), the paramilitary protection and defense organization of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) after the First World War in the Weimar Republic .
One year after the founding of the RFB, the first local branch of the Red Navy was founded on June 9, 1925 in Hamburg at a meeting of the RFB . In the following months further local groups u. a. in Lübeck , Kiel , Wismar , Bremen , Stettin , Swinemünde , Danzig and Königsberg in East Prussia . The Red Navy groups were only founded in port and coastal cities and were an integral part of the RFB. The tasks of the Red Navy groups were determined at the 5th Reich Conference of the Red Front Fighter League. According to this, the Red Navy should be the link between the RFB and the people at sea. In addition, the Red Navy should bind members of civil and nationalist naval associations to itself. This was especially true for members of the proletariat . Similar to the operational groups of the RFB in the factories, the Red Navy was supposed to form on-board groups among the crews of all sea and merchant ships.
One focus of the political work was the close ties to the Soviet Union , the Soviet fleet and the CPSU . The Red Navy organized z. B. Meetings with Soviet seamen. The Kiel branch of the Red Navy received its flag in 1926 from the crew of the former Soviet destroyer Karl Liebknecht, and the Szczecin branch received its flag in 1927 from the staff of the Soviet state machine factory Ryazan . In 1928 sailors from the German steamer “Arnfried”, led by members of the Red Navy, took part in the celebrations for the day of the October Revolution in Russia in Batumi . In 1929 the Red Navy organized a large meeting of seafarers from 11 nations in Kiel.
On September 16, 1928, at a rally attended by 20,000 people in the military cemetery of the barracks in the Wahner Heide near Cologne, a tombstone was laid by the RFB and the Red Navy for the leaders of the 1917 sailors' revolt who were sentenced to death and shot there in 1917 German war and imperial navy , Albin Köbis and Max Reichpietsch , revealed. In the same year, the RFB and the Red Navy actively supported the KPD's fight against the construction of new armored cruisers for the Reichsmarine . In the election campaigns of the Weimar Republic , the Red Navy, together with the RFB, secured communist rallies; she distributed leaflets, organized choirs and agitation missions.
After the conflicts on May 1, 1929 in Berlin ( Blutmai ) and the resulting minor state of siege, the RFB and the Red Navy were banned by the Reich government. The RFB and the Red Navy continued to be active in the illegal act and, despite the ban , competed against the growing National Socialist movement . T. publicly. Members were also accepted. Members of the Red Navy participated in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Numerous members of the Red Navy then went into exile in the Soviet Union , while the majority stayed in Germany during the period of National Socialism . Some of them participated in the resistance, were imprisoned or even executed . Among them was John William Jasper . He was accused of participating in attacks on the SA , which he denied despite torture and refused to testify. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to death by a special court at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court for "attempted murder and serious breach of the peace". The death sentence was carried out by the hand ax. The leadership of the Red Navy was sentenced to death and executed in the "Red Navy Trial", also known as the "Adlerhotel Trial" in 1934, including Jonny Dettmer , the leader of the Red Navy, and Hermann Fischer (see → Heinrich Jauch (1894–1945) , First Public Prosecutor in Hamburg ).
After the end of the Second World War , former members of the Red Navy took part in building up the GDR's naval forces . For example, the former political director of the Red Navy in Hamburg- Hammerbrook , Walter Steffens, was from April 1946 the commissioner for the formation of a water protection police in Mecklenburg , from 1950 head of the Parow Seepolizeischule and in 1955 the first commander of the GDR's fleet school in Stralsund / Schwedenschanze.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stolpersteine in Meldorf, Johann Wilhelm Jasper ( Memento from March 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Walter Steffens on parow-info.de