Willi Bleicher

Willi Bleicher (born October 27, 1907 in Cannstatt ; † June 23, 1981 in Stuttgart ) was a German trade unionist .

Life

While his father was working as a locksmith at Daimler in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim , Bleicher learned the baker's trade and in 1925 he joined the German Food and Beverage Workers' Association (one of the forerunners of today's union of food and drink restaurants ). In 1927 as an unskilled worker in his father's company, he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). In the 1920s he joined the KPD , but was excluded in 1929 because of criticism of what he saw as a left-wing radical line and a lack of “internal party democracy”. In the same year he became a member of the Communist Party Opposition (KPO). After the Nazi seizure of power , Bleicher emigrated first to Switzerland and then to France, but returned to Stuttgart, found work there, and integrated himself into the illegal communist resistance activity in the Stuttgart Neckar suburbs. Betrayed by spies, he was arrested by the Gestapo on January 3, 1936 while working on the Daimler premises . In November 1936 he was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for endangering the state security and preparing for high treason , which he served in Ulm . After the end of his prison sentence, he was not released, but initially sent to the Welzheim protective custody camp and then held in Buchenwald concentration camp in October 1938 , where he remained until liberation in 1945. Bleicher belonged to the resistance organization there and gained a reputation among the prisoners for his willingness to help. During this time he worked closely with his other imprisoned KPD-O members Ludwig Becker , Eugen Ochs and Robert Siewert .

In his novel Nackt unter Wölfen , published in 1958, the author Bruno Apitz describes the rescue of a small Polish child by a group of prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1963 it became known that one of the protagonists, the Kapo of the Effects Chamber, was modeled after Willi Bleicher, who had held this function. When Bleicher learned that the address of the "Buchenwald child", Stefan Jerzy Zweig , who was now 22 years old , had been found, he invited him to Stuttgart.

After the war , Bleicher became involved as a trade unionist, was a full-time trade union official from 1948 and rose to the top of IG Metall in Baden-Württemberg in the 1950s . After rejoining the KPD in 1945, he resigned in 1950 and joined the SPD in 1953 . At the trade union day of IG Metall in September 1950, a coup by the social democratic delegates expelled Bleicher (who had already left the KPD) together with the communists Fritz Salm and Karl Küll from the executive board of IG Metall. At that time the KPD pursued a policy of confrontation against the union leadership, which Bleicher undoubtedly disapproved of. It culminated in “Thesis 37” of the party congress in March 1951, which insinuated that the “right-wing trade union leaders” were “on behalf of and in the interests of American imperialism and in harmony with the German monopolists” with the union organization “in the service of war preparations” try to ask. As a result, various industrial unions demanded that communist functionaries distance themselves in writing from this statement, which the KPD in turn forbade its members, but this no longer affected Bleicher himself.

In 1959, succeeding Ludwig Becker , Bleicher took over the management of the IG Metall district of Stuttgart (with the three tariff areas North Württemberg / North Baden, South Württemberg / Hohenzollern and South Baden). He was considered a prominent speaker who put the interests of workers above everything else. He successfully led two major strikes to raise wages (1963 and 1971). In 1972 he retired. His successor was Franz Steinkühler .

Bleicher died where he lived in Stuttgart. He is buried in a family grave in the Steinhaldenfriedhof .

Honors

Willi Bleicher by Klaus Mausner in the DGB building in Stuttgart

• Yad Vashem honored him in 1965 as Righteous Among the Nations
• In 1977 he and Dr. Helmut Simon the Carl von Ossietzky Medal , which is awarded annually to people or groups who have made a special contribution to the defense of human rights.
• The Baden-Württemberg state capital Stuttgart awarded Bleicher its highest award in 1979: the Citizen's Medal. Stuttgart's former mayor Manfred Rommel said to great applause: "Willi Bleicher combines the charisma of the workers' leader with the reason of the expert and the humanity of those who had to endure more inhumanity than others."
• In the same year he was honored by the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists with their "Medal of Honor of the German Resistance". As a member of the Honorary Presidium of the VVN-BdA, Willi Bleicher never adhered to the SPD's incompatibility resolution , which was in force from 1948 to 2010.

These were the only honors he accepted during his lifetime.

• The Stuttgarter Kanzleistraße was renamed Willi-Bleicher-Straße in 1982.
• In 1999 in Stuttgart-Mitte , a bust of Willi Bleicher created by Klaus Mausner and donated by IG Metall was unveiled at the main entrance to the trade union building at Willi-Bleicher-Strasse 20.
• In Göppingen , Diagonalstrasse was renamed Willi-Bleicher-Strasse. In this city he had worked as a representative of IG Metall in the 1950s.
• There are streets with this name in Ditzingen , Düren , Hemmingen , Kirchheim unter Teck and Lohr am Main , where a central educational institution of IG Metall is located.
• The federal youth education center of the DGB youth is located in Hattingen . This is named in memory of the union leader and fighter against fascism "Willi-Bleicher-Haus".

Movies

• Willi Bleicher: Resistance fighters and workers leaders - whoever does not fight has already lost a film portrait by Hermann G. Abmayr, 60 min, Federal Republic of Germany 2007
• You should never bend down in front of a living person! - Willi Bleicher by Hannes Karnick and Wolfgang Richter - Federal Republic of Germany 1976–1978, short documentary film

literature

• Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Silberburg, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-87407-123-5 .
• Hermann G. Abmayr: Willi Bleicher (1907-1981) - Helper rescuing a child in Buchenwald concentration camp . In: Angela Borgstedt et al. (Ed.): Courage proven. Resistance biographies from the south-west (= writings on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg , published by the State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg, vol. 46), Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 9783945414378 , pp. 197–206.
• Georg Benz u. a. (Ed.): Willi Bleicher - A life for the trade unions. News publishing company, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-88367-050-2 .
• Detlef Prinz , Manfred Rexin : Examples of upright gait: Willi Bleicher. Helmut Simon. In the spirit of Carl von Ossietzky. European Publishing House, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-434-00402-5 .
• Theodor Bergmann : Against the current. The history of the KPD (opposition). Hamburg 2004 (therein: short biography of Willi Bleicher).
• Rainer Fattmann: Willi Bleicher. October 27, 1907 - June 23, 1981. "And if the world were full of devils ..." a consequent life for human dignity and justice. A portrait. Ludwigsburg: Info & Idea, Medien-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-931112-22-6 .
• Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (eds.) With the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Emigrated metal trade unionists in the fight against the Nazi regime (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 3). Metropol, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-210-7 , pp. 63, 65, 636, 817-818 (short biography).
• Zacharias Zweig, Stefan Jerzy Zweig: Tears alone are not enough. A biography and a little more. With epilogue, contemporary illustrations, pictures, texts and satires ed. v. Stefan J. Zweig. Epilogue: Elfriede Jelinek. Vienna (self-published by the Verf./Hrsg.) 2005, 2nd edition 2006; ISBN 978-3-200-00264-7

On-line

• Willi Bleicher 1938-1945 , interview with Bleicher 1973 on the website of Stefan Jerzy Zweig ("Kind von Buchenwald")

Web links

• Literature by and about Willi Bleicher in the catalog of the German National Library
• Willi Bleicher, the last great workers leader
• IG Metall Baden-Württemberg - Brochure for the 100th birthday

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Stuttgart 1992, p. 36. Bleicher's first union membership book is shown there.
2. ↑ Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Stuttgart 1992, p. 53.
3. ↑ Hermann Langbein: "Not like sheep to the slaughter": Resistance in Nazi concentration camps . Frankfurt / Main 1980, p. 134ff.
4. ↑ Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Stuttgart 1992, p. 78.
5. ↑ Hans-Otto Hemmer, Kurt Thomas Schmnitz (ed.): History of the German trade unions in the Federal Republic. From the beginning until today . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1990, p. 134.
6. ↑ Willi Bleicher on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
7. ↑ The day Willi Bleicher died . In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten June 23, 2006.
8. ↑ Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Stuttgart 1992, p. 131.
9. ↑ Hermann G. Abmayr: We don't need a memorial. Willi Bleicher: The workers leader and his heirs. Stuttgart 1992, p. 82 ff.
10. ↑ The audio track of the DVD of this film contains an 11-hour tape interview that WDR radio journalist Klaus Ullrich conducted with Willi Bleicher in 1973. It covers the period up to 1948 and is an authentic source for Bleicher's biography.
11. ↑ The report by Stefan Jerzy Zweig's father, printed in the first part of this book, testifies to Willi Bleicher's role in rescuing the child in Buchenwald with many details from p. 54 ff.