Hans Westermann

Hans Westermann ( born July 17, 1890 in Hamburg, † March 16, 1935 same place in the concentration camp Fuhlsbiittel ) was a communist politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

The skilled tailors Westermann joined the SPD in 1910, where he belonged to the left wing of the party and held various honorary positions. 1914, the opponents of the war was drafted into the Navy, during which time he sympathized with the Spartacus League and the USPD. In November 1918 he was elected as a delegate of the Minenräumbootflotille in Kiel Marinerat and joined the KPD in 1919 where he worked in Hamburg full-time party secretary in 1921 and was primarily responsible for the Works there.

1925 Westermann was expelled from the party in the short term, because he had spoken out for tactical reasons ( preventing the selection of the right candidates Hindenburg ) in the presidential election in 1925 in the second round for the waiver of the candidacy of Ernst Thalmann in favor of the Social Democrat Otto Braun. After the deposition of the ultra-left leadership to Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow, he was reinstated in the Party and in 1927 elected to the district leadership of the KPD and a little later in the Hamburg Parliament. The Westermann regarded as trade union expert in the KPD counted within the party to the flow of conciliators and took to the intensification of the renewed ultra-left and verbally radical course of the party leadership to Ernst Thalmann, especially in terms of trade union policy and the related promotion of RGO policy position. Also Westermann counted party internally to those who defended for closer cooperation and solidarity with the SPD. For these reasons, he was expelled along with his party colleagues Heinrich Stahmer and Albert Sanneck 1930 from the KPD. Westermann now resigned his parliamentary seat, unlike Stahmer, however, he did not join the SPD and later the SAP, but founded together with his partner Kate Latzke an independent and unnamed, partially Westermann group called " Versöhnlerorganisation " in Hamburg.

After the transfer of power to the Nazi Party in 1933, the group led by Westermann turned completely around to work in the underground. One focus in the operating work, here the group about industry groups longshoremen, shipyard workers and employees possessed. Westermann, who was in custody between June 1933 and August 1934, held after his release, contact with other " Versöhnlergruppen " inside and outside the KPD, for Committee for Proletarian unit by Eduard Forest. At the same time his relations with the Communist Party, in which he and his group was resumed early in 1935 improved. After he started with the reorganization of the part of the Gestapo weakened by repression beats Hamburger Party organization, it was after a short time, along with several members of the group on the night of 5 March 6, arrested and murdered in a concentration camp Fuhlsbiittel few days later.

In Hamburg stumbling blocks were moved to the murdered members of the Hamburg Parliament on 8 June 2012 in front of the town hall, including for Hans Westermann.