Wilhelm Kraft (politician, 1884)
Wilhelm Kraft (* 28. October 1884 in Breitenstein , Kreis Sangerhausen , † May 8. 1945 declared dead) was from 1919 to 1932 commune administrator (mayor) in the then independent municipality Haßlinghausen in Ennepe-Ruhr district . For his political leanings, he was sentenced in 1934 to prison, came after being arrested again in 1944 to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and, after a witness report in 1945 on a death march shot .
The memory of Wilhelm Kraft is now in Sprockhövel , into which Haßlinghausen was incorporated in 1970, through a street named after him and, since the beginning of 2006, through the renaming of the comprehensive school of the Ennepe-Ruhr district to Wilhelm-Kraft-Gesamtschule des Ennepe-Ruhr district honored.
Life
Personal
Wilhelm Kraft was born Heinrich Wilhelm Kraft on October 28, 1884 in Breitenstein , Sangerhausen district.
At the age of 20 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) .
In 1907 Wilhelm Kraft married Franziska von Reth in Immenhausen , Hesse , in the Hofgeismar district. They both had four children together.
In 1908 Wilhelm Kraft moved to Haßlinghausen, which at that time was still an independent community. The first son Wilhelm was born there in the same year. Wilhelm Kraft himself found employment as a glassworks worker. The Haßlinghauser Glashütte , with over 100 employees, was one of the major companies in the Schwelm district and after the German colliery closed in 1925, it was the largest company in the Haßlinghausen district for decades.
According to the records of Kraft's daughter Grete Roland, Wilhelm Kraft was dismissed as an active trade unionist after a strike at the glassworks. The father of meanwhile three children found - the exact time can no longer be determined - at the latest by the beginning of the 20s, a job as branch manager of the consumer cooperative "Vorwärts" in Haßlinghausen.
Mayor of Haßlinghausen
For an immigrant, Wilhelm Kraft took an active part in political life in his community extremely quickly:
- Since 1910 the glass cutter was active as a councilor (a kind of councilor) of the community of Haßlinghausen.
- From 1919 Wilhelm Kraft was the mayor of the community , roughly equivalent to our current mayor's office; he remained the community leader until his resignation in 1932.
- From 1921 Kraft belonged to the (honorary) councilors of the Haßlinghausen office and to the representatives of the SPD in the Schwelm district assembly .
On February 2, 1932, Wilhelm Kraft announced his resignation from the office of mayor. This position then remains vacant until 1933.
Life and Persecution during the National Socialist Period
After Hitler came to power in Berlin in 1933 , the local NSDAP also succeeded in " bringing Hasslinghausen into line" : Wilhelm Kraft was immediately given leave of absence and replaced by NSDAP mandate holders or compliant citizens.
It was a difficult time for the Kraft family. The well-known social democrat with the high reputation in the population was a thorn in the side of the ruling class.
The consumer cooperative, meanwhile depoliticized as "Bergische Lebensmittel GmbH" and loyal to the regime, dismissed its Haßlinghauser branch manager. On June 8, 1934, Kraft's son Karl, now a father himself, was arrested, and on June 25, Wilhelm Kraft himself. Father and son were initially imprisoned in the Dortmund court prison. They were accused of “having prepared the treasonable undertaking to change the constitution of the German Reich by force.” On March 16, 1935, the trial began, led by the public prosecutor's office in Hamm. Together with Wilhelm and Karl Kraft, 44 men and women from Düsseldorf, Linderhausen, Gevelsberg and Haßlinghausen were charged with high treason. Mostly as members of the banned KPD, they had printed and distributed leaflets which, among other things, spoke out against wage cuts and in favor of independent trade unions and, above all, called for a “mass struggle against fascism”.
Wilhelm Kraft had admitted that he had donated 50 pfennigs to the KPD and “once bought the KPD newspaper Freiheit for 10 or 20 pfennigs”. According to his daughter, the donation was intended to support the families of imprisoned KPD members. It was enough to put Wilhelm Kraft behind bars for a year and 8 months.
In 1936 he returned to Haßlinghausen. He was forbidden to register his own business, as was permission to get his driver's license. Together with Alma Löhken, his former deputy from consumption, and under her name, Wilhelm Kraft founded a grocery delivery business in the former consumption rooms on Wechtenbruch, later on Gevelsberger Mittelstrasse. Wilhelm Kraft made the trips with a motorized tricycle for which he did not need a driver's license.
He could have had it better: his daughter Grete reported that the father had been offered NSDAP membership several times. With such a popular and well-known “defector” the Nazis would have gained respect and support among the population and would have rewarded the gain in prestige accordingly. Wilhelm Kraft always refused; even the prison had not bent him. A former Hitler boy still remembers in 1995 that Wilhelm Kraft commented on the marching past of the military offspring with a raised fist , the old greeting of the workers' movement.
When the attack on Hitler on July 20, 1944 was followed by a wave of arrests in the context of Aktion Gewitter , the insubordinate Social Democrat, now 60 years old, was arrested again, along with several other former district and community representatives of the SPD and KPD from the Ennepe-Ruhr -Circle. Kraft could no longer send any more signs of life to his family.
Erwin Schweinsberg from Gevelsberg later reported on his encounter with Wilhelm Kraft in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. So Kraft was imprisoned there. And written sources show that he was there in January 1945 in the infirmary.
Before the advancing front in the spring of 1945, the camp was partially evacuated. From April 20, the SS drove the exhausted prisoners on a death march. “In the forest of Bele,” Schweinsberg recalled, “hundreds of sick people who could no longer go were shot . In this way, the two SPD comrades Peter Alfs from Milspe and Wilhelm Kraft from Haßlinghausen perished. "
Since Wilhelm Kraft's murder is only documented by the contemporary witness from Gevelsberg, he, like many others for whom there are no written records, was subsequently declared dead on the day the war ended, May 8, 1945.
Appreciation
On June 23, 1951, a photo of Wilhelm Kraft was placed in the meeting room of the Haßlinghauser Amtshaus on behalf of the Haßlinghausen District Assembly (associated communities: Haßlinghausen, Hiddinghausen, Gennebreck, Linderhausen). The official assembly unanimously recorded the following on June 4, 1951:
“[...] his righteousness, his straight mind and his political stance earned him, as a community and official representative, the full confidence of all parties, including all official residents, until 1933. May he be a shining example for us and future generations. "
The reason for this decision and the naming of a street after Wilhelm Kraft are probably not least due to the following circumstances:
- Wilhelm Kraft was a very popular mayor, and even today (2006) the old people can tell you that.
- Two of his children were on the local council and his son was mayor in the 1960s.
- In addition, the SPD had a solid majority in Haßlinghausen and the Haßlinghauser SPD was then proletarian / left-wing.
- There were also communists in the office who had cooperated with Kraft in the resistance.
Wilhelm-Kraft-Strasse was probably built in the 1960s. The residential development in the area of this street started at this time.
The comprehensive school of the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis bears the name "Wilhelm-Kraft-Gesamtschule des Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis" from January 1, 2006. This was decided by the district committee of the Ennepe-Ruhr district at its last meeting in 2005.
Web links
- Wilhelm Kraft - on the homepage of the Wilhelm-Kraft-Gesamtschule - detailed information, made available by the Sprockhövel City Archives
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stadtarchiv Sprockhövel, D 320: Resolutions of the Haßlinghausen office 1939–1956, p. 114
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kraft, Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kraft, Heinrich Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Community leader in Haßlinghausen and victim of the Nazi regime |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 28, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Breitenstein in the Harz Mountains, Sangerhausen district |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 8, 1945 |