Willi Engels
Willi Engels (born June 12, 1902 in Cologne , † January 17, 1986 in Berlin ) was an anti-fascist resistance fighter , interbrigadist and most recently a military attaché of the GDR in Poland .
Life
Willi Engels' parents ran an inn in Cologne-Ehrenfeld , but died when he was only 15 years old. He attended the Volks- u. Middle school, trained as a waiter and then worked in this profession. Engels moved to Berlin in 1924 and joined the KPD in 1927 . He worked in the Berlin coffee roasters Wilhelmshallen and Café des Westens , where he was soon elected chairman of the works council, and in 1929 organized a strike by employees of the hotels, restaurants and cafés around the Bahnhof Zoo . He was then dismissed without notice for “communist propaganda at work”. In his lawsuit, however, the later GDR Justice Minister Hilde Benjamin represented him as a lawyer . After a long period of unemployment he found work in the canteen at the KPD headquarters . From 1931 to 1933 he was chairman of the Berlin trade union Food and Enjoyment of the RGO .
In 1933 he was doing illegal political work, but was arrested in April and taken to the Sonnenburg concentration camp . After his release in August 1933, he was again doing illegal political work in Berlin-Charlottenburg . When there were arrests in his environment, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1936 , then to the Netherlands , Belgium and Luxembourg. In 1937 he went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades. There he becomes political commissioner of the XI. International Brigade , later adjutant in the military headquarters in Barcelona . He was a co-founder of the Unity Committee of German Social Democrats and Communists in Albacete . After the war in Spain he was detained in the French internment camps of St. Cyprien , Gurs and Le Vernet and later extradited to Germany. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for “preparing to commit high treason ” and then imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . There he managed to get a job in the kitchen, where at risk of death he bought diet food for comrades who urgently needed this help, including Max Reimann . In April 1945 he managed to escape from an outside command.
After the liberation, in May / June 1945, he initially worked for the Berlin-Britz Criminal Police Inspection . From July 1945 he was then in the IG food u. Enjoyment when FDGB -Bundesvorstand, most recently to 1949 as chairman of the union. From 1946 he was a member of the SED and attended a course at the party college of the SED in 1949/50 , from 1951 to 1954 he completed a distance learning there. From 1950 to 1952 Engels was a trainer at the headquarters of the German Border Police . From November 1954 to January 1961 he was chairman of the party control commission of the SED in the political administration of the Barracked People's Police (KVP) and from 1956 of the NVA . From 1956 to 1963 he was also a candidate for the Central Party Control Commission of the SED. In 1961/62 he was appointed military attaché in Poland. As a colonel , Engels was retired.
Willi Engels was buried in the VdN facility of the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery .
Awards
- Medal for fighters against fascism
- Merit medal of the NVA in gold
- 1956 and 1962 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver and 1977 in gold
- 1982 Karl Marx Order
literature
- Andreas Herbst : Engels, Willi . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Christine Fischer-Defoy (ed.): Waiter, cook, communist , autobiography, Lukas Verlag , Berlin, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-209-6 .
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Engels, Willi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Anti-fascist resistance fighter, interbrigadist and, most recently, GDR military attaché in Poland |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cologne |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th January 1986 |
| Place of death | Berlin |