Wenzel Verner

Wenzel Verner (born April 4, 1887 in Prague ; † 1938 ) was a co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Chemnitz and a victim of Stalinism.

Life

Verner learned horizontal drills and then went on a hike. He settled in Chemnitz in 1906 and became a member of the SPD in 1909 . In 1914 he became a soldier on the Eastern Front and was taken prisoner by the Russians. He returned in July 1918. He joined the USPD and became one of the co-founders of the KPD in Chemnitz in 1919. Verner worked in his profession, at times he was chairman of the works council . In 1924 he was employed as an agitprop secretary in the district leadership of the Erzgebirge-Vogtland of the KPD . In the wing battles of the twenties he was a supporter of Ernst Thälmann , in 1930 he became political leader in the Plauen sub-district . From 1932 Verner was active in Dresden , most recently in the sub-district of Bautzen .

In 1933 he was arrested and sentenced to eight months (two years according to other sources) in prison. Verner and his family were stripped of their German citizenship. After his expulsion in October 1934, he was able to emigrate first to Czechoslovakia and then to the Soviet Union . There he was arrested by the NKVD in October 1937 and expelled from the party on October 27. Wenzel Verner is said to have perished in the Gulag in 1938 .

family

Verner's wife Anna was also a member of the KPD. The sons Paul (1911–1986) and Waldemar (1914–1982) were functionaries of the KJVD before 1933 and active in the anti-fascist resistance after 1933. After 1945 both became functionaries of the SED .

Honors

• A street, a square and a park in Chemnitz-Helbersdorf are named after Wenzel Verner . The later Immanuel-Kant-Gymnasium was called the Wenzel-Verner-Oberschule in GDR times .

literature

• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).