Walter Dittmar

Walter Dittmar (born February 16, 1902 in Berlin , † December 4, 1980 in East Berlin ) was a German communist union official and resistance fighter .

Life

Dittmar grew up in Berlin-Kreuzberg . He attended elementary school from 1908 to 1916 and began an apprenticeship as a lathe operator , which he finished in 1920. In order to gain further qualifications, Dittmar also attended a technical school. During the November Revolution, Dittmar joined the German Metal Workers' Association (DMV), for which he took on functions at the company level. In the mid-1920s, Dittmar was at times organized in the Union of Manual and Brain Workers . In 1926 Dittmar organized in the KPD .

At the end of the Weimar Republic , Dittmar turned to the politics of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO), with which he agitated against the DMV in 1930 in his function as “red works council” in the Kämper works . In the course of the establishment of the Unified Association of Metal Workers Berlin (EVMB) in early November 1930, Dittmar took over the management of the association district in South Berlin (especially for Marienfelde, Mariendorf and Tempelhof). After he was replaced in this position by Wilhelm Haase at the end of 1931 , Dittmar took over the district management of the EVMB in Berlin-Schöneweide in 1932 . Due to his activities for the radical association and due to the global economic crisis, Dittmar lost his job in 1931. At the end of 1932 he found a new job, but only a few weeks later he lost it again for political reasons.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists to Dittmar involved in illegal efforts to maintain the activities of EVMB. The Gestapo arrested him for distributing leaflets from the EVMB , from which he was released at the end of October 1933. Later Dittmar tried again to set up illegal operating groups of the EVMB. He worked closely with Ewald Degen . At the end of June 1934, Dittmar was taken into custody. On November 2, 1934, the Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced Dittmar to two years and three months in prison for illegal trade union work and “preparation for high treason”. He served the time of imprisonment from November 7, 1934 to October 2, 1936 in Luckau prison . Even after his release from prison, Dittmar is said to have continued to be involved in Berlin metal works in the resistance against the Nazi regime.

Although Dittmar was initially excluded from military service several times for political reasons, the Wehrmacht finally drafted him in November 1942. At the end of the war, Dittmar was taken prisoner by the Soviets, where he was used as a teacher at an anti-fascist school among German prisoners of war from the end of 1945 .

Some time later, in 1947, Dittmar went back to Berlin and took part in the reconstruction of East Berlin. At the end of 1947 he joined the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) and the SED . Dittmar took on a number of functions in the metal industry. At times he was a member of their central board. From the beginning of the 1950s Dittmar was employed in the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS) with the rank of officer. Until 1962 he was employed full-time at the MfS.

Literature / sources

• Stefan Heinz , Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Functionaries of the unified association of metal workers in Berlin in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 2). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-062-2 , pp. 24, 95-99 (short biography).
• Stefan Heinz: Moscow's mercenaries? "The Union of Metal Workers in Berlin": Development and failure of a communist union. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89965-406-6 , pp. 152, 368, 373, 380, 383, 451, 528 f.
• Hans-Joachim Fieber et al., Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933–1945. A biographical lexicon, Vol. 2, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89626-352-8 , p. 69.
• Landesarchiv Berlin , inventory C Rep. 118-01, No. 17722 (documents in connection with the recognition as a “victim of fascism”).