Karl Schneider (activist)

Karl Schneider (* June 27, 1869 in Ettenheim, † November 5, 1940 in the Dachau concentration camp) was a German ophthalmologist, pacifist and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

Karl Schneider grew up in Ettenheim in a Catholic- liberal home. After graduation he studied medicine and specialized in ophthalmology. In 1898 he settled with his own practice in Neunkirchen. He was interested in from the turn of the century for the burgeoning social democracy and occupied himself with the works of Marx, Engels, Bebel and Kautsky. After the First World War, he began to step up its involvement in social issues democratically and was during the November Revolution, a member of the Neunkircher Workers 'and Soldiers' Council, which was dissolved by the French troops on December 1, 1918. In the Council, he was responsible for patient care and public welfare. 1919 Schneider was a founding member of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany ( USPD ) in Neunkirchen. In the local elections on 11 July 1920 he was chosen as the top candidate of the USPD in both the Ottweilerer circle and in the Neunkircher council. After the unification of parts of the USPD with the Communist Party of Germany ( KPD) he broke up with his old party.

In the next few years Karl Schneider was not politically active, but became involved in the pacifist German League for Human Rights and the German Peace Society. In 1934 he founded together with Gustav Friedrich regulator and a Brokmeier " initiative committee for the struggle for peace." However, in the referendum campaign on the Saar Schneider's efforts remained an outsider in the left -right camp.

After the annexation of the Saar to the German Reich 1935 Schneider was repeatedly threatened and boycotted his practice, partly because of his derogatory remarks about Hitler. So he had in 1934 responded to the closing formula Heil Hitler in a correspondence with the Ärztekasse Leipzig: "I am not a neurologist and may therefore your Hitler not heal '. I am an eye doctor and pierce the star. " Schneider nevertheless remained in the Saarland. On April 15, 1940 he was arrested by the Gestapo after he had asked in writing whether it was true that the Gestapo torturing prisoners. His "protective custody" he sat in jail, first from St. Wendel, was then transported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then transferred on September 3, 1940 in the Dachau concentration camp. On November 5, 1940, he died there under mysterious circumstances.

1948 a street was named after him in Neunkirchen.