Willy Mehlhorn

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Willy Mehlhorn (sometimes also: Willi Mehlhorn ; born January 11, 1892 in Hartenstein / Saxony ; † September 5, 1963 there ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ). He was a member of the Saxon state parliament in the final phase of the Weimar Republic and chairman of the SED Zwickau after the war .

Life

Mehlhorn came from a working class family. He himself worked as a farm and miner . In the First World War he had to do military service. In 1917 he joined the SPD and in 1920 the KPD. He was a member of the Miners' Association and later the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). During the Kapp Putsch in 1920, Mehlhorn played an outstanding role in setting up the workers' fighters in the Zwickau - Oelsnitzer coal district. From 1923 he was chairman of the general works council of the “Germany” mine in Oelsnitz . Mehlhorn was a member of the Zwickau city ​​council and was elected to the Saxon state parliament in 1930, to which he belonged until 1933. In 1931 he was head of the KPD sub-district of Zwickau. From January to June 1932 he was the organ leader of the KPD in Dresden . In September 1932 he became - as the successor of Johann Knöchel - head of the Kampfbund against fascism in Saxony .

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he began working illegally as a polling officer in the KPD district of West Saxony from February. On May 14, 1933, the district management in Saxon Switzerland held a meeting on the fire . In addition to Mehlhorn, Karl Ferlemann , Kurt Kretzschmar , Rudolf Lindau , Widmayer, Oskar Plenge , Martin Schneider and Otto Heinig also took part. Mehlhorn was arrested in early November 1933. He was taken to a concentration camp Hohnstein abducted and on November 17, 1934 by the People's Court to three years in prison convicted. In December 1936 Mehlhorn was released from Waldheim prison, but immediately taken into so-called “ protective custody ” and imprisoned in Sachsenburg concentration camp and later in Buchenwald concentration camp . After his release in April 1939, Mehlhorn returned to work as a miner. On August 22, 1944, he was arrested again as part of the “ Aktion Gewitter ” and spent three months in “protective custody”. Mehlhorn then lived in illegality until the US troops marched in.

After the war he was first secretary of the KPD sub-district of Zwickau in 1945 and then chairman of the SED Zwickau in 1946/47, and later communal secretary. In May 1948 he became plant manager of the “Karl Liebknecht” hard coal works in Oelsnitz. From 1951 Mehlhorn was a disability pensioner.

Awards and honors

literature

  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdL The end of the parliaments in 1933 and the members of the state parliaments and citizenships of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation 1933–1945 . Droste, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-77005-189-0 , p. 103.
  • Mehlhorn, Willi . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carsten Voigt: Combat leagues of the workers' movement: the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and the Rote Frontkampfbund in Saxony 1924–1933 . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2009, p. 553.
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , October 7, 1958, p. 3.
  3. ↑ BSZ celebrates its 70th anniversary .
personal data
SURNAME Mehlhorn, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mehlhorn, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD / SED), MdL Saxony
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Hartenstein (Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1963
Place of death Hartenstein (Saxony)