Rudolf Eberhard (politician, 1891)

Grave of Rudolf Eberhard in the Südfriedhof in Wiesbaden

Rudolf Eberhard (born July 10, 1891 in Magdeburg , † July 12, 1965 in Wiesbaden ) was a German politician and Lord Mayor of the city of Magdeburg.

Life

Eberhard first grew up in Magdeburg and attended elementary and community school here. Then he moved with his family to Elberfeld , where he completed a commercial apprenticeship. After completing his military service, he took part in the First World War as a soldier from 1914 to 1918 . After the war, Eberhard took up a position as a manager at the Junkers works in Dessau . In 1919 he joined both the SPD and the union. He took over the management of the district cartel of the German Employees' Association . He also worked part-time as managing director of the Anhalt settlers' association.

With the dissolution of the Central Association of Employees after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Eberhard was dismissed without notice and temporarily placed in so-called protective custody. After retraining, he ran an orthopedic practice as a freelancer .

After the end of the Second World War he was initially involved in building up the SPD in Dessau. In September 1945 he became Lord Mayor of Bernburg , but then already took over the office of Lord Mayor of Magdeburg in January. In the course of the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , he became a member of the SED . Under his leadership, the municipal structures of the badly war-damaged city of Magdeburg were built and important progress was made in the reconstruction of the city.

In the semi-free state elections in the Soviet zone in 1946 , he was elected to the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt in constituency II ( Burg , Magdeburg , Schönebeck , Jerichow I , Wolmirstedt , Haldensleben , Wanzleben ) . In the state parliament he was a member of the committee for budgetary, financial and tax issues and the committee for reconstruction and resettlement. On April 3, 1948, he resigned from the mandate.

Campaign against Eberhard

In the course of a wave of cleansing carried out within the SED to remove parts of the Social Democrats , a campaign against parts of the local government began in 1949, which also affected Eberhard.

At the district delegate conference of the SED on November 12th and 13th, 1949, the 1st district secretary of the SED Erich Eichholz referred to the behavior of "certain reactionary elements in the two bloc parties LDP and CDU ". In a district executive committee meeting of the SED on December 23, 1949, Eberhard confirmed, upon presentation of current personnel statistics from the administration, "that the workers are not the main element in the administration". Walter Kaßner criticized departments of the city administration in which no members of the SED, but only members of the LDP or CDU are employed. Further criticism was initially aimed at the LDP city councilor Siegfried Klewitz , who incurred the anger of SED members through partly provocative motions in opposition to the SED line, but also personal verbal attacks.

After considerable pressure, Klewitz resigned his seat on February 21, 1950. Eberhard was criticized for not having given the reactionary the necessary rebuff. As a result, there were campaigns similar to those against Klewitz, also against the CDU councilors Paul Gold, Ludwig Münz and Franz Weichsel and the LDP councilors Erna Wenk and Hans Schmidt.

The 1st state secretary of the SED, Koenen, called for a general attack on “opportunism and formalism” also within his own party. “Brake blocks”, “compromisers” and “reactionaries” must be “exposed and eliminated”. In a district executive committee meeting of the SED on April 23, the “conciliatory attitude towards opportunism” and “lack of vigilance in the administrative bodies” were criticized. Eberhard failed to take any countermeasures. In the period that followed, various Magdeburg SED members, especially those with an SPD past, were forced out of their offices and the party as “ideologically weak comrades”, “degenerate elements” and “anti-party clique”. In a conference of officials of the Magdeburg SED, Koenen demanded that all opportunism be overcome by the beginning of June.

The SED checked the files of the municipal personnel office and initiated the dismissal of 60 people, including 32 members of the SED. Twelve SED city councilors, including Erich Koß , who was also brought in by Eberhard as city planning officer , were withdrawn. On May 27, 1950, Koenen accused Eberhard of having allowed “reactionaries and genuine opportunists to be very firmly established in the city administration” and “elements hostile to the state could move and act unabashedly”.

On June 30th, Koß also resigned as town planning officer. At the SED state delegate conference in Halle (Saale) from June 30th to July 2nd, 1950, to which Eberhard was not delegated, the SED district secretary Erich Eichholz described Eberhard as the strongest pillar of the now broken Magdeburg group and called for conclusions.

On July 2, 1950, Eberhard was asked to attend a meeting at his official residence and was arrested there on the pretext of economic offenses. He had previously been informed and warned of the Eichholz speech by SED member Prübenau . The former town planner Koß was also arrested. Dietrich's chamberlain was able to flee. The Magdeburg Volksstimme reported with articles such as “Magdeburg Schumacherclique operated sabotage. Illegal financial transactions should inhibit democratic development ”.

After 18 months of pre-trial detention, the charges against Eberhard were tried on January 17th and 18th in the Magdeburg Regional Court . Inadmissible lending and improper use of extraordinary income were accused, although the corresponding actions were approved by city council resolutions or resolutions of the state government. On January 18, 1952, Eberhard, like Koß, was sentenced to five years in prison for sabotage and economic offenses. He spent his imprisonment in Magdeburg, the Mecklenburg labor camp and in Neubrandenburg .

After his release from prison he fled the GDR to the FRG in 1958 , where he died in Wiesbaden in 1965.

After the political turning point in 1989 , the Magdeburg Regional Court overturned the judgment against Eberhard on November 3, 1991 as contrary to the rule of law.

literature

• Helmut Asmus: 1200 Years of Magdeburg , Volume 4: 1945–2005 . Magdeburg 2009, p. 274 ff.
• Ingrun Drechsler: Eberhard, Rudolf. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 , p. 152.
• Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 , p. 149.
• Beatrix Bouvier , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Eberhard, Rudolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Dr. Kurt Schwarze : Handbook of the State Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, 1947, p. 182
• Christina Trittel: The parliamentary groups in Saxony-Anhalt from 1946 to 1950: Analysis of state political action and the scope for action of collective actors in the emerging GDR, 2006, ISBN 9783835096684 , p. 246

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted from Asmus, 1200 Jahre Magdeburg, page 274
2. ↑ Quoted from Asmus, 1200 Jahre Magdeburg, page 277
3. ↑ Quoted from Asmus, 1200 Jahre Magdeburg, page 278
4. ↑ Quoted from Asmus, 1200 Jahre Magdeburg, page 278 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted from Asmus, 1200 Jahre Magdeburg, page 279