Walter Maschke

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Walter Maschke (born October 6, 1891 in Berlin ; † September 15, 1980 there ) was a German trade union official . During the Nazi period he resisted National Socialism and was imprisoned in several concentration camps.

Life

Maschke, whose father was a woodworker, completed a commercial apprenticeship from 1905 to 1908 after attending elementary school . From 1908 he was unionized and a member of the SPD . From 1912 to 1914 Maschke was employed as a clerk in the Vorwärts bookstore . He took part in the First World War from 1915 to 1918 as a soldier in the German Army . After the end of the war, Maschke worked from 1920 to 1922 as secretary for youth work in the Central Employees' Association and from 1922 to 1933 as youth secretary in the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB).

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he continued his work in illegality. Because of unauthorized contact with SPD members, Maschke was taken into “ protective custody ” in December 1934, taken to the Lichtenburg concentration camp and charged with high treason . For lack of evidence, however, Maschke was acquitted and released from prison in February 1936.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Maschke and other former trade unionists were arrested again on September 1, 1939 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from which he was only released in August 1940. Then Maschke was in contact with the union resistance group around Wilhelm Leuschner and Hermann Maaß , where the formation of a unified union and its tasks after the liberation from National Socialism was planned. After the Beck / Goerdeler shadow cabinet, Maschke was supposed to be responsible for youth work within a newly organized trade union, but wanted to focus more on foreign workers in Germany. From 1941 to 1944 Maschke worked as a commercial clerk. During this time he was only in sporadic contact with the trade union resistance, as Leuschner feared that the Gestapo would observe Maschke after he was released from the concentration camp. Maschke, however, was informed of the plan for a coup d'état against Adolf Hitler . After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Maschke was also arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in August 1944 . On January 19, 1945, Maschke was sentenced to two years in prison by the People's Court and transferred to Bayreuth prison . There he was liberated by members of the US Army towards the end of the war in 1945 .

After the end of the war, Maschke rejoined the SPD and became a member of the SED in 1946 after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD . In the same year he was elected to the board or executive board of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) Greater Berlin . From 1946 to 1963 Maschke was a member of the federal executive committee of the FDGB and from 1946 to 1950 additionally the executive federal executive committee of the FDGB. From 1948 to 1950 Maschke headed the main training department at the federal board of the FDGB. From 1947 to 1950 Maschke was second chairman of the Bund Deutscher Volksbühne and from 1950 to 1953 secretary of the central management of the Deutsche Volksbühne. From 1948 to 1960 he was a member of the Presidential Council of the Kulturbund for the Democratic Renewal of Germany . From March 1948 to April 1950 Maschke was a member of the German People's Council . In addition, from 1952 to 1959 he was a deputy chairman of the central board of the art union and was then secretary of the GDR's cultural fund until 1969. In 1969 Maschke retired . He then worked as chairman of the working group of merited union veterans on the central board of the art union.

As early as the summer of 1945, Maschke wrote memorial reports about the resistance of trade unionists under National Socialism and in particular the trade union resistance in connection with July 20, 1944. In December 1977, he wrote down his experiences from the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Works

  • Youth without employment and without training opportunities . In: Die Arbeit , Vol. 9 (1932), pp. 246-251.
  • Educational and cultural work of the trade unions . The Free Trade Union, Berlin 1947.
  • Burgfrieden and working group. A contemporary trade union policy review . The Free Trade Union, Berlin 1948.
  • An argument with Fritz Tarnow . The Free Trade Union, Berlin 1948.
  • The importance of trade union education for the state and society . The Free Trade Union, Berlin 1949.
  • The cultural tasks of the trade unions . In: The Cultural Responsibility of the Working Class. Four presentations by Willi Bredel , Wilhelm Girnus , Stefan Heymann , Walter Maschke on the occasion of the activists' Weimar Days from 9 to 12 June 1949 . The Free Trade Union, Berlin 1949, pp. 52–57.

Awards

literature

  • Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 974.
  • Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 516.
  • Hans-Joachim Fieber et al. (Ed.): Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Volume 5. Trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2005, p. 167.
  • Carsten Gansel , Tanja Walenski: Remembering as a task? Documentation of the II. And III. Writers' congress in the GDR in 1950 and 1952. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2008, p. 212ff. and 604f.
  • Andreas Herbst : Maschke, Walter. In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (eds.): FDGB-Lexikon - function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990.) Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 .
  • Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Maschke, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Dieter Dowe, Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (ed.): FDGB-Lexikon , Berlin 2009, entry: Maschke, Walter
  2. ↑ a b c d Ulla Plener: Two documents on the trade union resistance 1933-1945. From the estate of Walter Maschke (1891–1980) (PDF; 909 kB). In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . trafo verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 88f.
  3. ↑ Walter Maschke biography. German Resistance Memorial Center, accessed on August 4, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Ulla Plener: Two documents on the trade union resistance 1933-1945. From the estate of Walter Maschke (1891–1980) (PDF; 909 kB). In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . trafo verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 91ff.
  5. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , October 6, 1961, p. 4
personal data
SURNAME Maschke, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists, resistance fighters, concentration camp prisoners and politicians, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1980
Place of death Berlin