Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization

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The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization was an underground resistance organization during the Second World War that illegally published the journal Die Innere Front .

In the 1940s, the KPD , which worked underground, tried to set up a central "operational management" in Germany with support from the USSR . This was particularly active in 1943 and 1944. It was one of the largest groups in the German resistance movement against the Nazi state . Their center was Berlin. Many members were arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and later murdered.

Emergence

After the KPD functionary Anton Saefkow was released from prison in July 1939, he resumed illegal work. After the arrest of the resistance groups around Robert Uhrig in February and those around Wilhelm Guddorf and John Sieg in the autumn of 1942, Saefkow reestablished the KPD's resistance contacts in Berlin.

The aim was to give the split resistance a central line. Together with Bernhard Bästlein and Franz Jacob, Saefkow formed the head of the organization, later also referred to as the operational management of the KPD in Germany . There were firm ties to resistance groups in numerous major German cities such as Magdeburg , Leipzig , Dresden and Hamburg . A united front for the overthrow of Adolf Hitler was to be formed together with anti-fascist circles of social democracy and the bourgeoisie . The more than 500 actors in the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein group included not only workers but also doctors , teachers , engineers and artists . About a quarter of the members were women. In 1944 over 280 members of the group were arrested after betrayal by Ernst Rambow . 104 of them were executed by the National Socialists or died in concentration camps .

The End

Memorial plaque for the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization at the Alfred Teves company in Berlin-Wittenau

In April 1944, the social democrat and member of the Kreisau district, Adolf Reichwein, contacted Saefkow through Ferdinand Thomas in order to involve his communist organization in the conspiracy of July 20, 1944 . At the end of June 1944 the communists met with Reichwein and Julius Leber . However, the Gestapo had succeeded in smuggling Ernst Rambow into the ranks of the organization as an informant . In July 1944 Saefkow was arrested, sentenced to death and executed on September 18 in Brandenburg prison.

See also

literature

  • Annette Neumann, Susanne Reveles, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: Berlin workers' resistance 1942–1945. "Away with Hitler - end the war!" The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization. Berlin Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime - Bund der Antifaschisteninnen and Antifaschisten , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-027768-9 .
  • Annette Neumann, Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization 1942 to 1945. In: Hans Coppi , Stefan Heinz (ed.): The forgotten resistance of the workers. Trade unionists, communists, social democrats, Trotskyists, anarchists and forced laborers. Dietz, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-320-02264-8 , pp. 144–157.
    • this: "Freedom, it is the crop." Resistance in the Askania Werke AG against the Nazi regime . A contribution to Berlin's workers' resistance in World War II. Employee Chaja-Charlotte Boebel. Self-published, Berlin 2013 ISBN 9783000414817 .
  • Karen Holtmann: The Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein group in front of the People's Court. The high treason proceedings against the women and men of the Berlin resistance organization 1944–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76931-2 (Simultaneously: Hannover, Univ., Diss., 2008: Between Politicization and Depoliticization: Perceptions, Attributions and (Self) Interpretations of Women and Men in High Treason Trials before the National Socialist People's Court using the example of the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein group. ) (Review) .
  • Ursel Hochmuth : Illegal KPD and movement “Free Germany” in Berlin and Brandenburg 1942–1945. Biographies and testimonials from the resistance organization around Saefkow, Jacob and Bästlein (= writings of the German Resistance Memorial Center. Series A: Analyzes and Representations. Volume 4). Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 1998, ISBN 3-933471-08-7 .

Web links

Commons : Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein-Organization  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lifesaver , Neues Deutschland June 30, 2009
  2. ↑ with 99 pages. Content on the German National Library server