Max Matern
Encyclopedia
Max Matern was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD).
Max Matern was a communist storm trooper who was convicted of murder and executed for his involvement in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
. The murders took place in 1931 at Bülow-Platz
in Berlin
. He was later glorified as a martyr
by the KPD and East Germany's Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(SED).
and grew up in meager circumstances in Quitzdorf am See
in eastern Saxony
. He did an apprenticeship
as a moulder
in Torgelow
and in 1925 moved to Berlin
owing to the lack of jobs closer to home. There he found work as a member of the KPD's Parteiselbstschutz (Party Self Defense Unit). in which he demonstrated hard-line conviction and loyalty to the party.
According to John Koehler,
Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht
, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony
we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."
Enraged by Ulrbicht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to target Captain Paul Anlauf, the forty-two year old commander of the Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD. According to John Koehler,
On the morning of Sunday August 9, 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Matern gave a Luger pistol
to a fellow lookout and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Captain Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Captain Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, who the KPD had nicknamed, "Hussar
."
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." After the assassinations were completed, Mielke and Ziemer were informed that 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 Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament. According to John Koehler,
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer, spotted Captain Anlauf, Sergeant Willig, and Captain Franz Lenck walking in front of the Babylon Cinema, which was located at the corner of Bülowplatz and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße. As they reached the door of the movie house, the policemen heard someone scream, "Schweinebacke!"
As Captain Anlauf turned towards 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 and fired a full clip at the assailants. Captain Franz Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over to Captain Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck. As his life drained away, the Captain gasped, "Wiedersehen... Gruss..." ("So Long... Goodbye...") Meanwhile, Matern, Mielke, Thunert, and Ziemer made their escape.
After it was revealed that Sergeant Willig had survived and could identify the assailants, Mielke and Ziemer were smuggled to the Soviet Union
.
by the executioner's axe on 22 May 1935.
for the Communist cause. Many street
s, school
s, and establishments were named after him. His life became the stylized career of an exemplary Communist, as seen in the propagandistic
version of his biography below.
Decades later, on 26 October 1993, Erich Mielke
(1907–2000), former East German Minister of State Security
, was convicted of murdering Captains Anlauf and Lenck in addition to the attempted murder of Sergeant Max Willig. He was sentenced to six years in prison
. However, owing to health reasons, he did not serve the full sentence.
s out after school.
In 1916, Max Matern began an apprenticeship
as a moulder in the Haller Works in Torgelow
. The owner and the master treated the boys as cheap labour. Max Matern defied the goading and bullying and demanded fixed working times and wages for all apprentices. In talks with older colleagues, he showed an interest in political
topics.
Willi Pahl, one of his friends, remembers that time:
. Heavy fighting developed in Mecklenburg
, for on the landowners' estates, weapons had been deposited and battle units formed. On 16 March, four hundred or so workers armed themselves and delivered themselves to Jatznick
railway station with the members of the National Union. There was heavy fighting.
When in June 1922, several thousand members of monarchist warrior associations came together in Eggesin
in honour of General Field Marshal
August von Mackensen
, Max Matern and his brothers also went there to attack those gathered there with fists and clubs, and to chase them off.
and his joblessness caused Max Matern to make his way to Berlin early in 1925. He had the hope of beginning a somewhat better life there. In the Kailing & Thomas Iron Foundry in Wedding
he found a job. On Burgstraße he moved into a furnished room.
Among the communist workers he quickly won friends and in December 1925, he became their comrade. Max Matern began to devote himself to political work, studied the "Elementary Books of Communism", the Communist Manifesto, and further writings published by the Party. He joined the "Universum-Bücherei" socialist book club
and read among other books the authors Émile Zola
, Henri Barbusse
and Maxim Gorki. He informed himself about his political work through articles in the KPD's military-political magazine "Oktober" and in the "Rote Fahne" ("Red Flag"). He got involved in the Party's operational cell and in the trade union
, even becoming street cell organizational leader in Wedding.
In 1930, Max Matern became a member of the KPD's Protection and Security Service. There he kept watch on Karl Liebknecht House, and went on patrol to observe the National Socialists and duly identify their offences. But the Party also used him as a bodyguard
for Party Chairman Ernst Thälmann
, and for Clara Zetkin
, and further Central Committee members.
went forth against the communist workers in early June. In June, 17 workers died, in July 86. In Berlin
the SA teams' attacks were increasingly being aimed at Karl Liebknecht House. There the KPD Central Committee had an office. The building's defenders could in fact only put up a fight with clubs and a stream of water from a hydrant, but they successfully warded the attacking SA men off, and thereby thwarted any storming of the building. Among the defenders was also Max Matern.
In January 1933, Wilhelm Pieck
and the Secretary General of the Communist Party of France, Maurice Thorez
spoke at the graves of the communist fallen in Friedrichsfelde
. Max Matern helped the foreign guest and his group evade police capture.
On 25 March 1933, Matern was arrested and brought before a court. In the "Bülow-Platz Trial" which was about the murder of two policemen in 1931, he was accused of involvement. On 19 June 1933, Max Matern and two other accused were sentenced to death, and seven co-accused were sentenced to lengthy prison
terms. He lived for two years in a solitary confinement cell. On 22 May 1935, Max Matern was executed with an axe
.
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD).
Max Matern was a communist storm trooper who was convicted of murder and executed for his involvement in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
The Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were a double homicide that took place in Berlin in 1931, when police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were assassinated by members of the Communist Party of Germany.-Planning and execution:...
. The murders took place in 1931 at Bülow-Platz
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
The Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is a square in Berlin-Mitte, Germany.The square is dominated by the Volksbühne and by the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus, the headquarters of the German Left Party...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He was later glorified as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
by the KPD and East Germany's Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED).
Early life
Max Matern was born in Berndshof near UeckermündeUeckermünde
Ueckermünde is a seaport town in northeast Germany, located in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald, Western Pomerania, near Germany's border with Poland . Ueckermünde has a long and varied history, going back to its founding by Slavs, known as the Uchri and mentioned in 934 by Widukind of Corvey...
and grew up in meager circumstances in Quitzdorf am See
Quitzdorf am See
Quitzdorf am See is a municipality in the district Görlitz, Saxony, Germany. It is named after the village Quitzdorf which was abandoned 1969 to make room for a reservoir....
in eastern Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. He did an apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
as a moulder
Plasterer
A plasterer is a tradesman who works with plaster, such as forming a layer of plaster on an interior wall or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls...
in Torgelow
Torgelow
Torgelow is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated on the river Uecker, 12 km south of Ueckermünde, and 41 km northwest of Stettin....
and in 1925 moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
owing to the lack of jobs closer to home. There he found work as a member of the KPD's Parteiselbstschutz (Party Self Defense Unit). in which he demonstrated hard-line conviction and loyalty to the party.
Like their Nazi counterparts, the Selbstschutz men were thugs who served as bouncers at Party meetings and specialized in cracking heads during street battles with political enemies. Besides the Nazis, their arch foes included the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) -- the Social Democratic Party of Germany -- and radical nationalist parties. They 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 goons often were armed with pistols as well.
The Murders
On August 2, 1931, KPD Members of the ReichstagReichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."
Enraged by Ulrbicht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to target Captain Paul Anlauf, the forty-two year old commander of the Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD. 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.
On the morning of Sunday August 9, 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Matern gave a Luger pistol
Luger pistol
The Pistole Parabellum 1908 or Parabellum-Pistole , popularly known as the Luger, is a toggle-locked recoil-operated semi-automatic pistol. The design was patented by Georg J...
to a fellow lookout and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Captain Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Captain Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, who the KPD had nicknamed, "Hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....
."
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." After the assassinations were completed, Mielke and Ziemer were informed that 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 Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament. 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-plebiscite campaign. At one point in this particular campaign, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph GoebbelsJoseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter UlbrichtWalter UlbrichtWalter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
. Both parties wanted the parliament dissolved because they were hoping that new elections would oust the SPD, the sworn enemy of all radicals. That fact explained why the atmosphere was particularly volatile this Sunday.
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer, spotted Captain Anlauf, Sergeant Willig, and Captain Franz Lenck walking in front of the Babylon Cinema, which was located at the corner of Bülowplatz and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße. As they reached the door of the movie house, the policemen heard someone scream, "Schweinebacke!"
As Captain Anlauf turned towards 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 and fired a full clip at the assailants. Captain Franz Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over to Captain Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck. As his life drained away, the Captain gasped, "Wiedersehen... Gruss..." ("So Long... Goodbye...") Meanwhile, Matern, Mielke, Thunert, and Ziemer made their escape.
After it was revealed that Sergeant Willig had survived and could identify the assailants, Mielke and Ziemer were smuggled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Arrest, Trial, and Execution
In March 1933, lookout Max Thunert was arrested by the Berlin police, he confessed to his involvement in the murders and revealed all he knew. Within days, fifteen suspects, including Matern, were rounded up and imprisoned. On 14 September 1933, Berlin's newspapers announced that all had confessed their role in the assassinations. Together with two co-defendants, Michael Klause and Friedrich Broede, Max Matern was convicted of murder on 19 June 1934 and sentenced to receive the death penalty. He was beheadedDecapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
by the executioner's axe on 22 May 1935.
Aftermath
In East German historical literature, Matern was made into a martyrMartyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
for the Communist cause. Many street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
s, school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s, and establishments were named after him. His life became the stylized career of an exemplary Communist, as seen in the propagandistic
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
version of his biography below.
Decades later, on 26 October 1993, Erich Mielke
Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi —of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD during the rule of Joseph Stalin...
(1907–2000), former East German Minister of State Security
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, was convicted of murdering Captains Anlauf and Lenck in addition to the attempted murder of Sergeant Max Willig. He was sentenced to six years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. However, owing to health reasons, he did not serve the full sentence.
Max Matern's biography according to East German history texts
Max Matern's father worked at the brickyard owned by Quitzdorf's great landowner family, and his mother worked in their fields. His parents' scanty livelihood was hardly enough to feed and clothe Max and his three siblings. So, the children had to help muck the estate's stableStable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
s out after school.
In 1916, Max Matern began an apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
as a moulder in the Haller Works in Torgelow
Torgelow
Torgelow is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated on the river Uecker, 12 km south of Ueckermünde, and 41 km northwest of Stettin....
. The owner and the master treated the boys as cheap labour. Max Matern defied the goading and bullying and demanded fixed working times and wages for all apprentices. In talks with older colleagues, he showed an interest in political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
topics.
Willi Pahl, one of his friends, remembers that time:
- "We discussed the events in RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in the circle of boys and wounded soldierSoldierA soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s who had been sent home. Although we did not yet realize the October RevolutionOctober RevolutionThe October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
's historic consequences, we were reaching the opinion that one would have to go a similar way for there to be peacePeacePeace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
in our country."
1920 to 1922
In the morning hours of 13 March 1920 began the Kapp PutschKapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch — or more accurately the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch — was a 1920 coup attempt during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 aimed at overthrowing the Weimar Republic...
. Heavy fighting developed in Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
, for on the landowners' estates, weapons had been deposited and battle units formed. On 16 March, four hundred or so workers armed themselves and delivered themselves to Jatznick
Jatznick
Jatznick is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.-Transport:Jatznick railway station connects the area with Stralsund, Greifswald, Züssow, Angermünde, Eberswalde, Berlin, Ueckermünde and Neubrandenburg....
railway station with the members of the National Union. There was heavy fighting.
When in June 1922, several thousand members of monarchist warrior associations came together in Eggesin
Eggesin
Eggesin is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated on the river Uecker, 7 km southeast of Ueckermünde, and 42 km northwest of Szczecin.-Transport:...
in honour of General Field Marshal
Field Marshal
Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...
August von Mackensen
August von Mackensen
Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen , born August Mackensen, was a German soldier and field marshal. He commanded with success during the First World War and became one of the German Empire's most prominent military leaders. After the Armistice, Mackensen was interned for a year...
, Max Matern and his brothers also went there to attack those gathered there with fists and clubs, and to chase them off.
1925 to 1930
InflationInflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
and his joblessness caused Max Matern to make his way to Berlin early in 1925. He had the hope of beginning a somewhat better life there. In the Kailing & Thomas Iron Foundry in Wedding
Wedding (Berlin)
Wedding is a locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany and was a separate borough in the north-western inner city until it was fused with Tiergarten and Mitte in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform...
he found a job. On Burgstraße he moved into a furnished room.
Among the communist workers he quickly won friends and in December 1925, he became their comrade. Max Matern began to devote himself to political work, studied the "Elementary Books of Communism", the Communist Manifesto, and further writings published by the Party. He joined the "Universum-Bücherei" socialist book club
Book sales club
A book sales club is a subscription-based method of selling and purchasing books. It is more often called simply a book club, a term that is also used to describe a book discussion club, which can cause confusion.-How book sales clubs work:...
and read among other books the authors Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
and Maxim Gorki. He informed himself about his political work through articles in the KPD's military-political magazine "Oktober" and in the "Rote Fahne" ("Red Flag"). He got involved in the Party's operational cell and in the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, even becoming street cell organizational leader in Wedding.
In 1930, Max Matern became a member of the KPD's Protection and Security Service. There he kept watch on Karl Liebknecht House, and went on patrol to observe the National Socialists and duly identify their offences. But the Party also used him as a bodyguard
Bodyguard
A bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...
for Party Chairman Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...
, and for Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....
, and further Central Committee members.
1932 to 1933
In the summer of 1932, the National Socialists with their SturmabteilungSturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
went forth against the communist workers in early June. In June, 17 workers died, in July 86. In Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
the SA teams' attacks were increasingly being aimed at Karl Liebknecht House. There the KPD Central Committee had an office. The building's defenders could in fact only put up a fight with clubs and a stream of water from a hydrant, but they successfully warded the attacking SA men off, and thereby thwarted any storming of the building. Among the defenders was also Max Matern.
In January 1933, Wilhelm Pieck
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...
and the Secretary General of the Communist Party of France, Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez
thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
spoke at the graves of the communist fallen in Friedrichsfelde
Friedrichsfelde
Friedrichsfelde is a German locality within the borough of Lichtenberg, Berlin.-History:The locality was first mentioned in a document of 1265 with the name of Rosenfelde. In 1699 it was renamed Friedrichsfelde after the Prince-Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg...
. Max Matern helped the foreign guest and his group evade police capture.
On 25 March 1933, Matern was arrested and brought before a court. In the "Bülow-Platz Trial" which was about the murder of two policemen in 1931, he was accused of involvement. On 19 June 1933, Max Matern and two other accused were sentenced to death, and seven co-accused were sentenced to lengthy prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
terms. He lived for two years in a solitary confinement cell. On 22 May 1935, Max Matern was executed with an axe
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
.