Werner Stertzenbach
Werner Stertzenbach (born April 4, 1909 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † July 10, 2003 in Düsseldorf ) was a German journalist and communist.
Life
Werner Stertzenbach was the son of Max Stertzenbach and Helena Sara Cahn, and thus came from a Jewish family of craftsmen. A member of the KPD since 1929 , he was arrested by the National Socialists in March 1933. After his release he fled to the Netherlands in the same year (1933), where he was later arrested as a foreigner living illegally in the country and interned in the Westerbork transit camp after Germany's attack on the Netherlands in May 1940 . In Westerbork he played a central role in the camp resistance; around 20 prisoners owed their freedom to him. In 1943 he managed to escape himself; he survived the war in hiding in Amsterdam.
After 1945 Werner Stertzenbach continued his journalistic and political work in the Federal Republic. In the early 1950s he was a correspondent for the German broadcaster in Düsseldorf. From 1960 to 1972 he was editor-in-chief of the weekly “ Die Tat ”. He took part in numerous trials as an observer ( Eichmann trial (1961), Auschwitz trials (from 1963), Majdanek trial (from 1975)). Later he was State Secretary North Rhine-Westphalia of the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists (VVN-BdA.)
Werner Stertzenbach and his wife Alice (1909–1996) received the Johanna Kirchner Medal from the City of Frankfurt am Main in 1994 .
literature
- Werner Stertzenbach, Sophie Molema, Dirk Mulder and others: Rood en jood. (= Getuigen van Westerbork). Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork, 2005, ISBN 90-72486-33-1 .
- Dirk Mulder, Ben Prinsen: Verhalen uit kamp Westerbork. 1995.
- Dirk Mulder: Portraits van overleven. (= Getuigen van kamp Westerbork). 1998, ISBN 90-232-3376-X , p. 11 ff.
- Sophie Molema: Beroep: gevangene: de lotgevallen van de Duitse Jood en communist Werner Stertzenbach in de jaren 1909 to 1945. 2012, ISBN 978-94-91018-14-5 .
- Patrick Henry: Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis. The Catholic University of America Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-8132-2589-0 .
Web links
- The union of those persecuted by the Nazi regime ... (VVN-BdA) on the death of Werner Stertzenbach
- Alice Stertzenbach at exilarchiv.de
- Interview with Werner Stertzenbach by the USC Shoah Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Database Joods Biografisch Woordenboek , as well as according to information from the VVN-BdA in Essen
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stertzenbach, Werner |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German journalist and communist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mülheim an der Ruhr |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 10, 2003 |
| Place of death | Dusseldorf |