Rudolf Friedrichs

Rudolf Friedrichs (1945)

Rudolf Friedrichs (born March 9, 1892 in Plauen , † June 13, 1947 in Dresden ) was Prime Minister of Saxony from 1946 until his death .

Life

Rudolf Friedrichs attended the elementary school in Plauen and the grammar school in Dresden. He then began studying political science, law and economics at the University of Leipzig , which he was not able to complete until 1919 , interrupted by the First World War . He joined in 1922 the SPD in and worked from 1923 as Regierungsassessor and from 1926 as a Councilor in the Ministry of the Interior . From 1927 he was a member of the local political committee of the SPD, from 1930 to 1933 also an honorary city councilor in Dresden.

In 1933, when the NSDAP came to power , he was removed from office and briefly imprisoned. He worked as a legal advisor and in the grocery trade. The harassment of the Nazis did not deter him from supporting illegally active anti-fascists .

Rudolf Friedrichs' grave on the Dresden Heidefriedhof .

After the war he was on 10 May 1945 by the Soviet city commander for mayor of the city of Dresden appointed whose destruction had hit hard by British and US bombers in February of the same year it. The forced unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED in 1946, largely driven by the SMAD , was supported by Friedrichs. From June 1946, Rudolf Friedrichs was President of the State Administration of Saxony and was elected Prime Minister in October of the same year. Friedrichs endeavored to work across the zone boundaries and met with representatives of the Bavarian state government in Hof in October 1946 and May 1947 .

Tensions existed from the outset between Friedrich's social democrat and his deputy, the communist Kurt Fischer , which escalated into an open confrontation in 1947. This led to rumors that Fischer was linked to Friedrich's sudden death. According to an investigation commissioned by the Free State of Saxony, these could neither be refuted nor confirmed in 1999. The cause of death of Friedrichs has not been conclusively clarified.

Friedrichs was buried in the Weißer Hirsch forest cemetery. In 1980 he was reburied in the Ehrenhain in the Dresden Heidefriedhof . Since September 2014, after extensive renovation, the old tombstone in the forest cemetery has been reminding of Friedrichs.

Honors

View from Dr.-Rudolf-Friedrichs-Ufer on Dresden (photo from before 1945)

In 1947 Rudolf Friedrichs was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena . In the same year he received the honorary citizenship of his hometown Plauen .

The new building of the Dresden Carolabrücke , which was destroyed in the war, was named Dr.-Rudolf-Friedrichs-Brücke in his honor from 1971 to 1991 . In addition, from 1947 to 1991 the Königsufer adjoining the bridge on the Neustadt side of the Elbe was named Dr.-Rudolf-Friedrichs-Ufer . There is a Dr.-Rudolf-Friedrichs-Strasse in the neighboring town of Radebeul , as well as in Radeberg and Wurzen . In Zwickau the city ring is named after him Dr.-Friedrichs-Ring ; There are Dr.-Friedrichs-Strasse u. a. in Görlitz , Zittau , Dippoldiswalde and Hoyerswerda . A children's and youth sports school with his name was opened in Leipzig in 1985 .

A memorial plaque on the enclosure of Wackerbarth Castle still commemorates the meeting between the Soviet military ( Anastas I. Mikojan and Iwan S. Konew ) and German politicians ( Hermann Matern , Kurt Fischer and Rudolf Friedrichs) on May 8, 1945.

literature

Short biography for: Friedrichs, Rudolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
Christoph Wielepp, Swen Steinberg (Ed.): Dr. Rudolf Friedrichs (1892–1947). Life and work of the Lord Mayor of Dresden and the Prime Minister of Saxony. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Dresden office, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-89892-752-9 .
Mike Schmeitzner , Michael Richter, Saxon State Center for Political Education : “One of the two must be removed as soon as possible”. The death of the Saxon Prime Minister Rudolf Friedrichs against the background of the conflict with the Saxon Interior Minister Kurt Fischer in 1947. Expertise of the Hannah Arendt Institute on behalf of the Saxon State Chancellery. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-378-01021-5 .
Association for Vogtland History, Folklore and Regional Studies eV (Ed.): Famous Vogtlanders. Volume II. Red. Werner Heyne. Satzart, Plauen 1999, DNB 958 534 454 .

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Friedrichs - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Rudolf Friedrichs in the catalog of the German National Library
Literature by and about Rudolf Friedrichs in the Saxon Bibliography
Rudolf Friedrichs in the Stadtwiki Dresden

Individual evidence

^ Gravestone of Dr. Rudolf Friedrichs restored on the White Deer. In: dresden.de. State capital Dresden, September 15, 2014, accessed on August 17, 2015 (press release).
↑ Memento of Dresden's first mayor after 1945 - Friedrichs' tombstone on the White Deer restored. In: spd-fraktion-dresden.de. SPD parliamentary group in the Dresden City Council, September 15, 2014, archived from the original on October 12, 2014 ; accessed on August 17, 2015 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Adalbert Wolpert	Lord Mayor of Dresden 1945	Johannes Muller

personal data
SURNAME	Friedrichs, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician (SPD, SED), Lord Mayor of Dresden, Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony (1945–1947)
DATE OF BIRTH	March 9, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH	Plauen
DATE OF DEATH	June 13, 1947
Place of death	Dresden

[1] Gravestone of Dr. Rudolf Friedrichs restored on the White Deer. In: dresden.de. State capital Dresden, September 15, 2014, accessed on August 17, 2015 (press release).

[2] Memento of Dresden's first mayor after 1945 - Friedrichs' tombstone on the White Deer restored. In: spd-fraktion-dresden.de. SPD parliamentary group in the Dresden City Council, September 15, 2014, archived from the original on October 12, 2014 ; accessed on August 17, 2015 .