Willi singer
Heinrich Max Willi Sänger (born May 21, 1894 in Berlin ; † November 27, 1944 in Brandenburg ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Willi Sänger was born on May 21, 1894 in his parents' Berlin apartment at 3 Cuvrystraße. His father was the master carpenter Karl Friedrich Otto Sänger, his mother the Heinriette Sänger, née Neumann, both of whom were Protestant denominations. After school he completed a commercial apprenticeship. He took part in the First World War as a simple soldier .
At the age of 18 he became a member of the SPD in 1912 . Because of their too moderate attitude towards the war , he first switched to the USPD in 1917 , and finally joined the KPD in 1919 .
Willi Sänger was an enthusiastic athlete and also took part in international competitions as a high jumper . In the 1920s, he became chairman of the workers 'sports club "spruce" in Berlin -Südost and in 1928 he was a functionary of the fighting community for red sports unit , the communist counterpart to the Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Association .
In 1933 Willi Sänger worked as an accountant at the Soviet travel agency " Intourist " and looked after a workers' library. During the book burnings in May 1933 , he was able to partially save their holdings from being attacked by the National Socialists.
From about 1938 Willi singer member of the resistance group around Robert Uhrig . After it was broken up in 1942, he joined the KPD's largest resistance group around Anton Saefkow , Franz Jacob and Bernhard Bästlein , where he mainly worked as a liaison to the Leipzig Schumann-Engert-Kresse group around Georg Schumann . At the beginning of 1944, Willi Sänger succeeded in obtaining the Gestapo's “German wanted man's book” , and so he was able to save many members of the resistance from arrest . A spy denounced the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization at the beginning of July 1944, and Willi Sänger was arrested on July 6, 1944. On October 21, 1944, he was sentenced to death by beheading by the People's Court . On November 27, 1944, the sentence was carried out in the Brandenburg-Görden prison .
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Honors
Willi Sanger's resistance to National Socialism is commemorated in the memorial of the socialists in the Friedrichsfelde central cemetery in the Lichtenberg district of Berlin . For decades, the "Willi-Singer Memorial Run" took place in the GDR in the Plänterwald .
A plaque set in the sidewalk reminds of him on his former home at Oppelner Strasse 45 in Berlin . In the National People's Army of the GDR , the name "Willi Singer" was one of the names of honor . The Luftsturmregiment 40 of the NVA was named after him.
In the southeastern Berlin district of Treptow, the Willi Sänger sports facility bears the name of the worker athlete and resistance fighter. The football clubs FC Treptow and Grün Weiss Baumschulenweg play here.
In addition, several streets, schools and sports groups in East Germany bear his name.
literature
- Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters 1933 to 1945. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, Volume 2, pp. 132-134
Individual evidence
- ↑ Willi Sänger's birth certificate, Register Office Berlin Vb, No. 1173, born in 1894, digitized from ancestry.de
- ^ Small encyclopedia of physical culture and sport . Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig, Leipzig 1960, p. 599 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Singer, Willi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German communist and resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 27, 1944 |
| Place of death | Brandenburg |