Hans Kippenberger
Hans Kippenberger | |
---|---|
Germany | |
Died | 3 October 1937 Moscow, Soviet Union | (aged 39)
Cause of death | Execution by shooting |
Nationality | German |
Alma mater | Universität Hamburg |
Occupation(s) | Bank administrator, foreign correspondent, political militant and politician |
Political party | USPD KPD |
Spouse | Thea Niemand (1901–1939) |
Children | Margot (1924–2005) Jeanette (1928–2016) |
Parent(s) | Friedrich Wilhelm Johann Kippenberger (1871–1941) Katharina Leicht (1869–1942) |
Hans Kippenberger (15 January 1898 – 3 October 1937) was a
Like many Communist Party members at the time, he also operated under "party names", by which he may be identified in sources. These included "A. Neuberg", "Leo Wolf" and "Ernst Wolf".
Early life
Hans Kippenberger was born in Leipzig. His father was a secular preacher. He attended school up to the middle level, and then became an intern at a printing machine factory, still in Leipzig,[4] shortly afterwards embarking on a traineeship for bank work.[1]
In 1915, Kippenberger he volunteered for military service, and spent the rest of the
Early in 1919 he embarked on a commercial traineeship which led to a clerical job in Leipzig. From June 1921 he was based in Hamburg, employed as a foreign languages correspondent for various firms, and working with the English, French, Italian and Spanish languages.[2]
Radicalization
Kippenberger had already, in Leipzig, joined the Independent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / USPD), and when this broke apart he was part of the Pro-Soviet faction that joined with the newly formed Communist Party. By 1922 he was employed full-time by the Party and part of what one source identifies as the Party's "secret apparatus".[1]
Meanwhile, he attended lectures at the University of Hamburg on socioeconomics ("Volkswirtschaft") although it is not clear that he was formally enrolled as a student at the university.[6]
He became a leader in the Communist Party student group and played a leading role in the
It was thanks to his careful oversight and military training that the communist fighter groups were able to retreat in good order.
While living in Moscow, Kippenberger was personally recruited by General Yan Karlovich Berzin into the Soviet military intelligence service, or GRU. After the Weimar Republic amnestied those who had taken part in the Hamburg Uprising, Kippenberger returned to Germany, where he became, according to John Koehler, "the most important link between the Soviet secret service and Germany's Communist Party, functioning at various times under the code names Alex, Adam, and Wolf."[8]
Sources differ over whether he returned from the Soviet Union at the end of 1924 and then lived illegally (unregistered) in Germany[2] or stayed in the Soviet Union till 1926 (or beyond).[4] There is also a suggestion that in Moscow, as well attending a military academy, he studied at the "Communist University of National Minorities in the West".[9] During 1924/25 he was still being sought - apparently without success - by the Hamburg police in connection with the part he had played in the Hamburg uprising.[2]
Red Stormtroopers
Towards the end of the 1920s, Kippenberger was ordered by the
In response, Kippenberger created the Parteiselbstschutz, or "Party Self Defense Unit."According to John Koehler, "
According to John Koehler, members of the Parteiselbstschutz "served as
According to Koehler, the KPD's Selbstschutz men "always carried a Stahlrute, two steel springs that telescoped into a tube seven inches long, which when extended became a deadly, fourteen-inch weapon. Not to be outdone by the Nazis, these street-fighters were often armed with pistols as well."[11]
Representative
In May 1928 he stood for membership of the Reichstag in the general election. He was successful, despite being arrested during the election campaign. As an elected member of the Reichstag he enjoyed certain immunities, and once the election result became known he had to be released.[2] He sat as a communist party member for electoral district 29 (Leipzig).[12]
At the twelfth
The Bülowplatz Murders
Planning
During the last days of the
On 2 August 1931, KPD Members of the
Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate
According to John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters, which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party."[17]
On the morning of Sunday 9 August 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Parteiselbstschutz members Erich Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Max Matern gave a Luger pistol to fellow lookout Max Thunert and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."[18]
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?"
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them."[20] Mielke and Ziemer were informed that, after the assassinations were completed, a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.
That evening, Captain Anlauf was lured to
According to John Koehler, "As was often the case when it came to battling the dominant SPD, the KPD and the Nazis had combined forces during the pre-
Murder at the Babylon Cinema
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer waited in a doorway as Captain Anlauf, Sergeant Willig, and Captain
As Captain Anlauf turned toward the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range. Sergeant Willig was wounded in the left arm and the stomach. However, he managed to draw his Luger pistol and fired a full magazine at the assailants. Captain Franz Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over and cradled the head of Captain Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck. As his life drained away, the Captain gasped, "Wiedersehen... Gruss..." ("So Long... Goodbye...").[22]
Meanwhile, Mielke and Ziemer made their escape by running into the theater and out an emergency exit. They tossed their pistols over a fence, where they were later found by Homicide Detectives from the elite Mordkommission. Mielke and Ziemer then returned to their homes.[23]
According to Koehler, "Back at Bülowplatz, the killings had triggered a major police action. At least a thousand officers poured into the square, and a bloody street battle ensued. Rocks and bricks were hurled from the rooftops. Communist gunmen fired indiscriminately from the roofs of surrounding apartment houses. As darkness fell, police searchlights illuminated the buildings. Using megaphones, officers shouted, 'Clear the streets! Move away from the windows! We are returning fire!' By now the rabble had fled the square, but shooting continued as riot squads combed the tenements, arresting hundreds of residents suspected of having fired weapons. The battle lasted until one o'clock the next morning. In addition to the two police officers, the casualties included one Communist who died of a gunshot wound and seventeen others who were seriously wounded."[24]
Captain Anlauf's wife had died three weeks earlier of kidney failure.[25] The KPD's murder of Captain Anlauf thus left their three daughters as orphans. The Captain's oldest daughter was forced to drastically rush her planned wedding to keep her sisters from being put in an orphanage.[26] Captain Franz Lenck was survived by his wife.[25] Senior Sergeant Max Willig was hospitalized for fourteen weeks, but made a full recovery and returned to active duty. In recognition for Willig's courage, the Berlin Police promoted him to Lieutenant.[27]
After the murders, the act was celebrated at the Lichtenberger Hof, a favorite
Aftermath
According to John Koehler, "Kippenberger was alarmed when word reached him that Sergeant Willig had survived the shooting. Not knowing whether the sergeant could talk and identify the attackers, Kippenberger was taking no chances. He directed a runner to summon Mielke and Ziemer to his apartment at 74 Bellermannstrasse, only a few minutes walk from where the two lived. When the assassins arrived, Kippenberger told them the news and ordered them to leave Berlin at once. The parliamentarian's wife Thea, an unemployed schoolteacher and as staunch a Communist Party member as her husband, shepherded the young murderers to the Belgian border. Agents of the Communist International (
Nazi Germany
The political backdrop was transformed with the
The Reichstag fire at the end of February 1933 was immediately blamed on the KPD, and before the end of the year participants in the Ziegenhals meeting and most of the other active communist party politicians had either fled abroad or else been arrested. The Communist Party structure was shattered. Kippenberger took on and preserved much of its paramilitary apparatus under conditions of enhanced secrecy and certain important tasks were accomplished, but the Gestapo nevertheless succeeded in infiltrating his information and communications structures.[2]
Kippenberger, operating for some purposes under the code name "Leo", was feverishly sought by the Gestapo during 1933 and 1934. Meanwhile, despite having to operate underground or, increasingly, out of Paris, the Communist Party of Germany had lost none of its appetite for internal feuding. The arrest of Ernst Thälmann on 3 March 1933 had left a vacuum at the top of the party. To the extent that the quasi-military apparatus under Kippenberger remained effective, it supported the opponents of Walter Ulbricht and Wilhelm Pieck in the increasingly polarised leadership struggle that ensued.
The Bülowplatz Trial
In mid-March 1933, the
In response to claims that the confessions were obtained under torture by the Nazi Gestapo, John Koehler wrote, "However, all suspects were in the custody of the regular Berlin city criminal investigation bureau, most of whose detectives were SPD members. Some of the suspects had been nabbed by Nazi SA men and probably beaten before they were turned over to police. In the 1993 trial of Mielke, the court gave the defense the benefit of the doubt and threw out a number of suspect confessions."[32]
On 19 June 1934, the 15 conspirators were convicted of murder. The three deemed most culpable, Michael Klause,
The Great Purge
In the context of increasingly shrill attacks on him from Ulbricht, Pieck and their supporters, on 12 February 1935 the party politburo set up a commission of enquiry into Hans Kippenberger. In October 1935 a party congress was held, under somewhat bizarre conditions, at Brussels: Ulbricht and his allies took over the party leadership. The resignation of two of Thälmann's old lieutenants, Hermann Schubert and Fritz Schulte left Kippenberger unambiguously on the losing side. In Walter Ulbricht he had acquired a powerful and uncompromising enemy at the top of the party. Ulbricht enjoyed the backing of Moscow. Kippenberger lost his position on the party Central Committee and the quasi-military underground operation he had directed was dissolved. He was ordered to be relocated from Paris to Moscow where he was provided with factory work.[2] Sources are silent over whether, on moving to Moscow, he ever met up with his former wife, Thea, and their two daughters, Margot and Jeanette, who had emigrated there in July 1933, since when Thea had been working as a teacher in the Soviet capital.[2]
Death
On 5 November 1935, as the scope of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge accelerated, Hans Kippenberger and his girlfriend Christina Kerff (born Chrisina Lenderoth) were brutally beaten and arrested at Moscow's Soyuznaya Hotel (across the road from the Hotel Lux).
In a secret trial by the NKVD, Kippenberger was declared guilty of "espionage and participation in a counter-revolutionary terrorist organisation". Hans Kippenberger was shot, once, in the back of the head, on 3 October 1937.[2]
Personal life
Hans Kippenberger married Thea Niemand, from Hamburg, in 1923. Their daughters were born in 1924 and 1928. The marriage ended in divorce in 1930.[2] After a raid on their Berlin apartment, Thea hastily took the children to a safe location in the countryside, from where they escaped via Czechoslovakia.[33] Thea arrived in Moscow with their daughters in July 1933, six months after the
Rehabilitation
Two decades later, following a
The orphans
One afternoon in November 1937 two secret policemen turned up at their school in Moscow and removed Margot and Jeanette Kippenberger from their lessons.[34] Early the next year, aged 14, Margot wrote a desperate letter to one of her mother's friends asking what had happened to her mother. There was no reply.[34] It would be another 22 years before she would learn of her parents' fates.[34] The children were taken to Chistopol in Tatarstan and placed in an orphanage for "homeless street children" which at this time was receiving more and more of the children of "enemies of the people".
The older daughter, Margot Kippenberger, was transferred to a labour camp in
After her parents' rehabilitation Margot Kippenberger was able to leave the
There is less information in the public domain concerning the younger daughter. After they had been taken away from their parents at the end of 1937 Jeanette had learned Russian much more quickly than Margot,[33] which may have indicated a particular talent for languages. Jeanette Kippenberger worked for the government news service in East Berlin between 1956 and 1973 as a typist. specialising in Russian language work. She was given a new job, in September 1973, as a translator with the Intertext, the ruling party's translation bureau. She was able to relocate to West Germany on 14 July 1978.[2]
Margot and Jeannette Kippenberger died respectively in 2005 and 2016. Both their bodies are buried in the Sankt-Matthäus-Kirchhof ("Old St. Matthew's Churchyard") in Berlin's Schöneberg quarter. It was noted in at the end of 2017 that their graves were not yet marked by any grave stone.[36]
References
- ^ Neue deutsche Biographie. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. p. 633. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Hermann Weber; Andreas Herbst. "Kippenberger, Hans * 15.1.1898, † 3.10.1937". Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin.
{{cite web}}
: Missing or empty|url=
(help) - ^ "Kommunistische Partei (Reichstag portraits)". Reichstags-Handbuch. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 1933. p. 5. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ a b "Hans Kippenberger (1898–1937)". Freundeskreis „Ernst-Thälmann-Gedenkstätte" e.V., Königs-Wusterhausen. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ John Koehler (1999), The Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police, page 36.
- ^ "Kippenberger, Hans". Reichstags-Handbuch. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 1928. p. 365. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ Thomas Eipeldauer (19 October 2013). "Auf den Barrikaden". Vor 90 Jahren: Der bewaffnete Aufstand in Hamburg. Linke Presse Verlags- Förderungs- und Beteiligungsgenossenschaft junge Welt e.G., Berlin. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ <Koehler (1999), pages 36-37.
- )
- ^ a b Koehler (1999), page 38.
- ^ The Stasi, p. 38.
- ^ "Kippenberger, Hans, Bankangestellter in Berlin, Wahlkr. 29 (Leipzig)". Reichstags-Handbuch. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 1933. p. 316. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
- ^ Volker Müller (10 February 2009). "Ein Geschichtskrimi über Betriebsspionage: Das "BB-Ressort" der KPD – erste umfassende Dokumentation eines ungewöhnlichen Geheimapparats Doppelt verratene Hochverräter". Berliner Zeitung. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
- ISBN 978-3-320-02113-9.
- ^ Koehler (1999), page 33.
- ^ John Koehler, The Stasi, p. 36.
- ^ The Stasi, p. 36.
- ^ The Stasi, pp. 38–39.
- ^ John Koehler, The Stasi, p. 39.
- ^ The Stasi, p. 39.
- ^ The Stasi, pp. 39–40.
- ^ a b The Stasi, p. 41.
- ^ Koehler (1999), pages 41–42.
- ^ Koehler (1999), page 42.
- ^ a b Koehler (1999), page 41.
- ^ Koehler (1999), page 415. Note 7.
- ^ Koehler (1999), page 415. Note 6.
- ^ "Erich Mielke – Freund und Genosse (in German)". Dynamosport.de – Private website on the BFC Dynamo. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
- ^ The Stasi, pages 42–43.
- ^ "Teilnehmer an der Tagung des ZK der KPD am 07. Februar 1933". Freundeskreis „Ernst-Thälmann-Gedenkstätte" e.V., Königs-Wusterhausen. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
- ^ Koehler (1999), page 45.
- ^ Koehler, The Stasi, page 416.
- ^ a b c "Margot Kippenberger ... Autobiography". Бессмертный барак. 5 November 1958. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g Gregor Eisenhauer (20 January 2006). "Margot Kippenberger". Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
- ^ )
- ^ "Kinder des Gulag". Nachbarschaftsheim Schöneberg e.V., Berlin. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2018.