Stefan Heymann

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70th birthday of Robert Siewert on December 30, 1957, from l. To the right: Robert Siewert, Stefan Heymann, Walter Bartels

Stefan Heymann (born March 14, 1896 in Mannheim ; † February 3, 1967 in East Berlin ) was a German - Jewish communist , editor , concentration camp prisoner, cultural functionary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), ambassador of the GDR in Hungary and Poland as well as university professors .

Life

Heymann came from a Jewish family of German national convictions. After attending the community school , he attended grammar school in Mannheim and then did a banking apprenticeship. Heymann volunteered for army service during World War I and was wounded several times as a lieutenant in the reserve as an aviator. After connecting with Ernst Toller and Erich Mühsam in 1919 , he took part in the proclamation of the Electoral Palatinate Republic . He then worked in the military apparatus of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) under the code name Dietrich . Professionally he was employed at a Mannheim bank. He was actively involved as the works council chairman and in the general association of German bank employees, which led to his dismissal. In 1923, Heymann became the leader of the KPD in Unterbaden and took part in the Upper Baden uprising in September 1923. After the KPD was banned in November 1923, he was arrested at an illegal meeting in Stuttgart. In 1924 he was sentenced by the State Court in Leipzig to three and a half years in prison for "preparation for high treason", but was given amnesty in 1926 . He became a member of the Red Front Fighters Union (RFB), Red Aid (RH) and International Workers Aid (IAH). From 1926 he was editor-in-chief of the Mannheimer Arbeiterzeitung and from 1930 to 1932 he was the political editor of the Rote Fahne in Berlin. From 1928 to 1929 he was a member of the state parliament of the Republic of Baden as the successor to Paul Schreck .

From January 1933 Heymann was editor-in-chief of the workers' newspaper in Breslau. After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, Heymann was arrested in 1933 and in 1936 he was sent to the Kislau concentration camp as a "protective prisoner" . In 1938 he was "pushed" from there to the Dachau concentration camp and in 1940 to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was employed as a block elder in Block 3 for young Jewish prisoners , later as a disinfector . In 1942 he was sent to the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp , where he was a clerk in the infirmary, and in January 1945 he was sent again to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he worked in the labor statistics of the small camp .

Stefan Heymann was first married to Erika Geck (Heymann), the daughter of the Reichstag member and publisher Adolf Geck from Offenburg. The marriage resulted in two children, the daughter Sonja Heymann (Nerlich) and the son Prof. Dr. Dieter Heymann.

After the liberation from Nazi rule , Heymann was a member of the KPD regional leadership in Thuringia and founder of the Antifa Committee in Thuringia. He then took on a role in the Culture and Education Department in the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED . From late 1950 to 1953 he was ambassador to the People's Republic of Hungary and from 1953 to 1957 to People's Poland. Afterwards he was head of the press department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR and in 1960 professor at the Academy for Political Science and Law Walter Ulbricht . He was retired in 1963 .

tomb

His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Award

Fonts

  • Textbooks for distance learning / Course 9. / Subject series 2. / Part 3. / Chap. 15. The formation u. Development d. Workers-and-peasants power as d. Base d. Fight d. German people under the leadership of d. Working class u. their party to d. Fuse d. Peace and national rebirth of Germany . / Section 1945–1949 / T. 1.1961.
  • Marxizmus a rasová otázka . Tatran, Bratislava 1951.
  • Balzac, the greatest critical realist in French literature . Volk u. Knowledge, Berlin 1950.
  • Economy, Horatio! Economy! Becoming and working, Weimar 1949.
  • Marxism and the Race Question . Dietz, Berlin 1948.
  • Struggle for truth and freedom . Thür. Volksverlag, Weimar 1948.
  • The People's Catechism of the Altenburg Republicans. In: Douai, Adolf. Thür. Volksverlag, Weimar 1948.
  • Buchenwald concentration camp . Thüringer Volksverlag, Weimar.

literature

  • Karl Otto Watzinger: History of the Jews in Mannheim 1650-1945. (= Publications of the Mannheim City Archives. 12). 2nd Edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-17-009646-X , pp. 101-102.
  • Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Stefan Heymann . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • David Kurz: Stefan Heymann (1896–1967) - convinced communist and functionary of the SED. In: Wilhelm Kreuz, Volker von Offenberg (ed.): Jewish students of the United Grand Ducal Lyceum - Karl-Friedrich-Gymnasium Mannheim - portraits from two decades. (= Series of publications by the Karl-Friedrich-Gymnasium Mannheim in cooperation with the Mannheim City Archives - Institute for City History. 2). Mannheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-95428-153-4 , pp. 209-218.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ New Germany . February 8, 1967, p. 8. (Obituary notice)
  2. ↑ Heinz Koch, Udo Wohlfeld: The German beech forest committee. The period from 1945 to 1958. Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-935275-14-9 , p. 179.
personal data
SURNAME Heymann, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist resistance fighter, political concentration camp prisoner, member of the state parliament and ambassador
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1967
Place of death East Berlin