Walter Benninghaus

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Walter Benninghaus (born January 25, 1898 in Kierspe near Altena , † April 19, 1947 in Krefeld ) was a German trade unionist and politician (SPD).

Live and act

After the First World War, Benninghaus worked as a tool and machine fitter for the Deutsche Reichsbahn . In 1916 he joined the German Metal Workers 'Association , later he switched to the railway workers' union . In 1917 he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Benninghaus held his first political office from 1924 to 1930 as a member of the city council of Gummersbach . From 1931 to May 1933 he worked as secretary of the Union of German Railway Workers in Düsseldorf . He also worked as a journalist.

In March 1937 Benninghaus emigrated to the Netherlands . After his expulsion from that country, he settled in Belgium . There he worked in the group of the International Transport Workers Organization (ITF) in Antwerp . In particular, he was tasked with distributing anti-fascist propaganda among German seamen and river boaters. In addition, he collected material for the Germany reports published by the executive committee of the exile SPD.

After his emigration, Benninghaus was classified as an enemy of the state by the National Socialist police: In April 1939 he was expatriated in Germany and his expatriation was announced in the Reichsanzeiger . In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin - which mistakenly assumed his whereabouts to be in Great Britain - placed him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, would be accompanied by subsequent SS special commands special priority should be located and arrested.

Benninghaus was involved in espionage activities in Antwerp on behalf of the British secret service. He worked closely with Hans Eckart . On behalf of the British, Benninghaus and Eckart carried out an arson attack on a German ship in Antwerp in May 1940. However, the damage allegedly caused by the arson attack remained minor.

After the German occupation of France in the early summer of 1940, Benninghaus was interned in Camp de Gurs . His sympathetic friend Stefan Appelius Heine finally managed to buy him out for 5000 francs. When he subsequently crossed the Spanish border - probably on the way to Portugal - he was arrested there. In September 1943 he was freed from the Spanish prison and from there finally made his way to Lisbon .

In October 1944 Benninghaus went to Great Britain , where he was interned until November of the same year . He then worked at ITF headquarters in Kempton .

After the war, Benninghaus was ÖTV secretary in Krefeld . He died in 1947 in a serious traffic accident in which Michael Rott and Franz Sinzig were also killed.

family

Benninghaus was married to Hulda Clemens (* 1895), with whom he had a son, Karl (* 1920).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Benninghaus on the special wanted list (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London).
  2. ↑ Enne Klein: Refugee Policy and Refugee Aid 1940-1942: Varian Fry and the Committees for the Rescue of Politically Persecuted People in New York and Marseille , 2007, p. 329.
personal data
SURNAME Benninghaus, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists and politicians (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Kierspe near Altena
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1947
Place of death Krefeld