Wilhelm Hagedorn (communist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Hagedorn (born July 11, 1894 in Rhinow ; † June 17, 1953 in Rathenow ) was a German communist and police officer of the GDR .

Life

Wilhelm Hagedorn worked as a milker, transport worker, painter and farm worker. He was married to Helene Hagedorn (1904–1968). In 1920 he joined the KPD and became a member of the Red Front Fighter League . During the time of National Socialism he was locked up in a concentration camp and after his release he worked as an unskilled worker in the Rathenow harbor.

After 1945 Hagedorn was employed in the political management of the police for three years. Afterwards he let himself be released from the police for reasons of age and became head of the operational security of the HO stores in Rathenow.

In 1951, Hagedorn boasted in a restaurant that he had exposed and locked up around 300 “fascists” and “agents”. That made him hateful in Rathenow and the West Berlin radio station RIAS had also warned against Wilhelm Hagedorn by name.

During the uprising of June 17, 1953, following the demonstration in Rathenow, Hagedorn was recognized, hunted and mistreated by some of the participants. An MfS member from Rathenow reported the matter to the head of the operational staff of the Potsdam district administration on June 17th at 11:15 p.m.

“Death of the former member of the criminal police Wilhelm Hagedorn. After the rally was over, Hagedorn was near Karl-Marx-Platz in Rathenow. Some demonstrators must have recognized Hagedorn from his work with the criminal police and harassed him. Hagedorn fled from the harassment of the demonstrators in the direction of Fehrbelliner Platz. However, he was caught and beaten. Nevertheless, with the help of some comrades, he was able to get to safety in a room in the dairy. When Hagedorn was about to be brought from the dairy in an ambulance, the demonstrators made preparations to overturn the ambulance and seized it again. They dragged him to the lock canal and threw him into the water. When Hagedorn appeared, he was hit on the head by two young people with the oar. Now the criminal police, which had been brought in, intervened and Hagedorn was brought to safety. At the criminal police, Hagedorn gave details of the people who had mistreated him. Wilhelm Hagedorn died of a cerebral haemorrhage on June 17th, 1953 at 4:50 p.m. after being admitted to the hospital. Extensive measures to identify and apprehend the perpetrators have already been initiated. "

Wilhelm Hagedorn received a state funeral from the GDR. In the criminal trial that followed, Franziska May was sentenced to 10 years in prison for inciting murder. Her husband had been arrested in July 1945 after the police officer Hagedorn reported him because he had been an SS Sergeant. The tractor driver Werner Reinelt and the worker Horst Sieberling, as the main participants, first received the death penalty , which was then changed to 15 years in prison.

In 1997, the gravestone of Wilhelm Hagedorn and his wife was removed from the Rathenower cemetery with the consent of the monument protection authorities and the grave was leveled.

Web link

Remarks

  1. ^ Documents from the Stasi authorities
  2. Deutschlandfunk, June 17, 2003