Rudolf Bahls

Rudolf Bahls (born February 16, 1884 in Berlin ; † July 1, 1967 there ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a trade union official in the early German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Life

After elementary school, Bahls learned the profession of lathe operator and in 1903 became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association and in 1908 of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Bahls fought in World War I and joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1917 . During the November Revolution of 1918, Bahls represented them as secretary in the executive council of the workers 'and soldiers' councils and later as an employee of the Berlin works council headquarters .

In 1920 Bahls became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and worked until 1923 as an employee of the Berlin magistrate . He was a member of the Berlin district leadership of the KPD and later a full-time employee of the Reich Union Department of the Central Committee of the KPD. From 1925 to 1933 Bahls was a member of parliament and chairman of the KPD parliamentary group in the Berlin-Reinickendorf district assembly and editor of the KPD newspaper Klassenkampf in Halle (Saale) .

From 1930 to 1933 Bahls was an employee of the Soviet trade agency in Berlin . In February 1933 he was arrested by the Sturmabteilung (SA), taken to the barracks in Hedemannstrasse and badly mistreated, but was released again. In 1937 and 1939 he was arrested again for a few weeks. In August 1944 he was able to avoid being arrested again in connection with the Gestapo action grid and lived illegally in Berlin until the end of the Second World War .

Immediately after the end of the war, Bahls became an employee of the Reinickendorf district office and from October 1945 headed the district housing office. He belongs again to the KPD, later to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in West Berlin , and in January 1947 became head of the wages and tariffs department of the IG Chemie of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB).

literature

• 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 ).
• Annett Kschieschan: Bahls, Rudolf (1884–1967). German Metalworkers Association, Chemical Industry Union . Sachsenhausen Memorial .