Heinrich Schmitt
Heinrich Schmitt | |
---|---|
Born | 6 October 1895 Waldbüttelbrunn, Lower Franconia, Germany |
Died | 13 August 1951 | (aged 55)
Occupation | Trades union activist & politician |
Political party | SPD, USPD, and KPD |
Spouse | Anna Nawroth (1892–1984) |
Children | Harry Schmitt (1919–1999, also known as Ralf Forster) |
Heinrich Schmitt (6 October 1895 – 13 August 1951) was a German politician. In 1928 he was elected to the national
Life
Heinrich Schmitt was born into a working-class family in
The political left splintered further in the
Later in 1930 Schmitt emigrated to the Soviet Union, taking work as a skilled machinist, working initially at the
Early in 1933
In June 1934 he was sent to Prague, from where he went on to the Saarland as a Party Central Committee instructor, while his wife Anna and their son Harry remained in the Soviet Union (until after the Second World War).[1] Schmitt traveled in Germany during this time with a false passport, using the name "Walter Scheublein", and was also operating from his Saarland base[2] as a senior consultant to the trade-union movement in the Rhineland.[1] He was also a member of the Berlin-based national leadership team of the illegal trades union movement.[2] On 7 May 1935 Schmitt was arrested in Cologne. Nearly two years of investigative detention followed. On 8 February 1937 he appeared before the Special Court (Volksgerichtshof), created by the government the previous year to handle a wide range of political cases. The court gave him a fifteen-year custodial sentence.[2]
Schmitt was released from Landsberg Prison by the United States Army on 27 April 1945 and reactivated his Communist party membership.[2] On 1 September 1945 he took a job as an inspector with the health insurance administration (Krankenkasse) in Würzburg, a position he held only until 22 October 1945,[2] by which time he joined the Bavarian regional government. During the first week of October the Bavarian chief minister, Wilhelm Hoegner, appointed him Bavarian Secretary of State for Special Projects ("...für Sonderaufgaben"),[5] a newly created post. The creation of the office appears to have resulted from an initiative by the US occupation forces, and responsibilities included "denazification" ("Entnazifizierung ").[1] Between 8 March 1946 and 24 June 1946, he was the sole representative of the Communist Party of Germany on the committee ("Vorbereitender Verfassungsausschuss") convened to prepare a new constitution. Between 30 June 1946 and 26 October 1946, he was a member of the regional assembly that produced the new Bavarian constitution.[2]
"Muß man denn, um ein guter Genosse zu sein, immer unrasiert, ohne Kragen und mit geflicktem Anzug herumlaufen? Das ist jedenfalls nicht mein Ideal."[5]
"Must one always go around unshaven, without a collar, and wearing a patched jacket, in order to be a good Comrade? Either way, that is not my own philosophy."
- Heinrich Schmitt, quoted in 1947 at the time of his departure from the Communist Party
During this period Schmitt was also a member of the Communist party secretariat in Bavaria, but he came into conflict with the party, which criticised his ministerial conduct. His lifestyle was deemed "insufficiently comradely".[5][6] He resigned his ministerial office in July 1946 and his Communist party membership on 19 October 1947.[2] (Other sources imply that he was excluded from the party, but either way, the decision appeared to have been a mutual one.[5])
Between 1947 and 1949, Schmitt was a member of the Bavarian Senate as a trade union representative.[2] However, this was evidently not a time-consuming responsibility, and during the closing part of the 1940s he also focused on business interests.[1]
Schmitt died in Munich on 13 August 1951.[1]
Harry Schmitt
Heinrich Schmitt's son, Harry Schmitt, known also by his "Nom de Guerre" as Ralf Forster,[7] achieved notability on his own account, although his role was little publicised until after his death in 1999. During the Cold War, Harry Schmitt led the Ralf Forster Group, a secret military organisation sponsored by the East German party leadership which was seen as the military wing of the Communist Party in West Germany.[8]
References
- ^ )
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Heinrich Schmitt". Geschichte des Bayerischen Parlaments seit 1819. Evamaria Brockhoff iA Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst, Augsburg. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ISBN 978-3-83911-524-4.
- )
- ^ a b c d "Unrasiert und ohne Kragen ... Die hohe Ebene der Gemeinsamkeit". Der Spiegel (online). 8 November 1947.
- ^ "Der Lebenswandel des Genossen Schmitt erscheine zu wenig genossenhaft"
- ^ Guido Heinen (19 May 2004). ""Sie werden lernen, den Gegner auch lautlos zu beseitigen": Wie die DDR 200 westdeutsche DKP-Kader für den Terrorkampf in der Bundesrepublik ausbildete – "Militärrat der DKP" tagte in Ost-Berlin". Die Welt (online). Retrieved 16 November 2015.
- ^ "Stasi-Unterlagen rekonstruiert DDR bildete militärischen Arm der DKP aus..." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. 18 May 2004. Retrieved 16 November 2015.