Wilhelm Kreutz
Wilhelm Kreutz (born April 8, 1893 in Berghausen ; † after April 24, 1945 in northwest Berlin , exact place of death unknown) was a resistance fighter against National Socialism , a member of the Speyer Comradeship and a victim of National Socialism.
Life
Wilhelm Kreutz was born in Berghausen as the son of the skipper Johannes Kreutz and his wife Anna Maria (née Walburg) . During the First World War he was a soldier (pioneer) on the Western Front. The experiences of death there shaped his later life. The master plumber ran a shop at Schulstrasse 13 in Berghausen, was married to Anna (née Fischer) and had five children: Willibald (born September 16, 1922; † missing since February 8, 1945 in the former Czechoslovakia), Waltraud ( * 1928), Lotte (* 1929), Konrad (* February 2, 1936) and Roland (* March 2, 1937). When and where Kreutz was murdered by the SS guards on an evacuation transport is not known. He was last seen alive on the evening of April 24, 1945 by Karl Ackermann from Speyer in a barn between Nauen and Friesbeck.
The Speyer comradeship
In 1942 Kreutz became a member of the Speyer Comradeship , founded by Jakob Schultheis , which was discovered by the National Socialists in March 1944 through the betrayal of Herbert Lübbers . Kreutz came into closer contact with Schultheis in the summer of 1942 because Schultheis 'son had died on the Eastern Front, the son-in-law was not interested in Schultheis' business and so the idea arose between the two friends that the then eight-year-old son Konrad Kreutz became a painter To learn the whitewashing trade at Schultheis. Kreutz was arrested by the Gestapo on April 22, 1944 and imprisoned in the district court prison in Speyer. He was then taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from where his wife received the last mail on January 20, 1945. In Potsdam , from February 9, 1945, against Kreutz and nine other members of the Speyer comradeship before the 2nd Senate of the People's Court , chaired by Dr. Koehler negotiates. Representative for the prosecution as representative of the senior Reich attorney was District Court Director Leopold Renz (1888–?).
The verdict, announced on February 15, was four years in prison and four years in loss of honor. He was punished on the one hand for his financial support of the penniless family of Ernst Thälmann and on the other hand for having listened to " enemy broadcasters " together with other members of the Speyer comradeship . Because of the advancing Red Army , he was taken from the Haus-Neiedorf prison camp to Potsdam on April 11th. As the Allies were approaching, he was supposed to be taken to Hamburg. In the days after April 24, 1945, almost two weeks before the end of the Second World War , Kreutz was murdered by the SS in the northwest of Berlin during the march of the Brandenburg prisoners.
After 1945
The wife had her husband declared dead in 1949. Wilhelm Kreutz's family lived in poverty in the post-war years (the small plumber could no longer be operated after Wilhelm Kreutz's arrest) and had to suffer from the loss of their husband and father in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The perpetrators from the ranks of the judiciary, the Gestapo and the SS were not prosecuted or convicted. After the internment camp (after the end of the war), nothing is known about the whereabouts of the traitor Herbert Lübbers, who had smuggled in around the Thälmann family, in post-war Germany. He and the SS guards who murdered Kreutz were not held accountable for their actions. The Gestapo undercover agent Alfons Pannek was sentenced to twelve years in prison by the Hamburg Regional Court in 1949; the verdict did not become final for formal reasons. In October 1951, the Hamburg Regional Court dropped the proceedings on the grounds that he had not violated German criminal laws, but only reported criminal acts and participated in the “re-apprehension of escaped prisoners”. The court that sentenced Kreutz (2nd Senate of the People's Court) was chaired by Johannes Köhler, who worked as a public prosecutor in Wuppertal after the war. Nothing is known about the “further use in the judicial apparatus” of the representative of the prosecution, Leopold Renz.
literature
- Extract from the indictment against J. Schultheis and comrades (NJ 14 178) . From: Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED. Central party archive. Documentation center of the MdI (murder register). From: Antifa archive. Hermann W. Morweiser. Ludwigshafen-Edigheim
- Bernd Lohrbächer: Wilhelm Kreutz (1893–1945): Resistance fighter in the Third Reich from Berghausen. In: Local history in focus: people with profile. 20 life pictures and biographies of personalities from the villages of Berghausen, Heiligenstein and Mechtersheim. Association for Home and Customs Care Römerberg e. V. (Ed.), Römerberg 2011. pp. 175-182.
- Elisabeth Alschner: Workers' life in Berghausen from 1880 to 1936. DGB district of Ludwigshafen
- Elisabeth Alschner: The Römerberg Social Democracy through the ages. SPD Römerberg
- Bernd Lohrbächer: Speech by Bernd Lohrbächer on the 90th anniversary of the SPD Römerberg, 1995, Römerberg
- Ferdinand Schickel: The Nazi blow against the "Speyer comradeship", in Die Rheinpfalz, Speyerer Rundschau, No. 188 of August 14, 2004, Speyer
- Herman W. Morweiser: Antifascist Resistance, 1983. Ludwigshafen-Edigheim
Individual evidence
- ↑ District Court Speyer, Certificate II 137/49 from November 4, 1949
- ↑ Landesarchiv Speyer inventory J34 No. 639, p. 7
- ^ Indictment II of the Chief Public Prosecutor at the People's Court against Ludwig Schimpf and comrades (IML-ZPA-NJ 17 436) of October 28, 1944
- ↑ Landesarchiv Speyer inventory J34 No. 639, p. 7
- ↑ District Court Speyer, Certificate II 145/49 of 29 September 1949th
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kreutz, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Member of the Speyer comradeship |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 8, 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berghausen |
| DATE OF DEATH | after April 24, 1945 |
| Place of death | Berlin |