Max Matern
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Max Matern (born 19 January 1902 in Berndshof near Ueckermünde; died 22 May 1935) was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).
Max Matern was a Communist street fighter who was convicted of murder by a German court 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 (nowadays Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz) in Berlin. He was later glorified as a martyr by the KPD and East Germany's Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).
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[edit] Early Life
Max Matern 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.
[edit] The Murders
In August of 1931, Walter Ulbricht urged the Berlin chapters of the KPD to do something about police interference with the Party's unauthorized demonstrations. Captain Paul Anlauf, who was dubbed "Schweinbacke" ("Pig Face") by Berlin's Communists, was singled out by Reichstag Deputies Hans Kippenberger and Heinz Neumann. Erich Ziemer (later killed in action during the Spanish Civil War) and future East German Stasi head Erich Mielke were assigned as triggermen. Matern was assigned a lookout role at the scene. During a final planning session, Matern was described by witnesses as handing a Luger pistol to fellow lookout Max Thunert and saying,
"Now it's getting serious... We are going to give Schweinbacke something to remember us by."[1]
That evening at eight o'clock, Captain Anlauf was lured to the Bülow-Platz by an especially rowdy Communist demonstration. The Nazi SA, temporarily allied with the KPD, were noticeably absent. As Captains Anlauf and Lenck arrived at the scene accompanied by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, Matern, they were espied by Matern, Thunert, Mielke, and Ziemer, who had been waiting for them inside a local beer hall. As the policemen walked past the Babylon Movie Theatre at the corner of Bülow-Platz and Kaiser Wilhelm Straße, they heard a voice scream, "Pig Face!"
At this moment Mielke and Ziemer opened fire into the three officers. Captain Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead before the theatre entrance. Sergeant Willig, wounded in the stomach and left arm, fired a full clip from his Luger and sank to his knees. Captain Anlauf, shot twice in the neck, bled to death at the scene with his head cradled in the arms of Sergeant Willig. Meanwhile, the Communist shooters escaped.
After it was revealed that Sergeant Willig had survived and could identify the assailants, Mielke and Ziemer were smuggled to the Soviet Union.
[edit] Arrest, Trial, and Execution
In March of 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 September 14, 1933, Berlins 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 beheaded by the executioner's axe on 22 May 1935.
[edit] Aftermath
In East German historical literature, Matern was made into a martyr for the Communist cause. Many streets, schools, 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.
[edit] 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 stables 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:
- "We discussed the events in Russia in the circle of boys and wounded soldiers who had been sent home. Although we did not yet realize the October Revolution's historic consequences, we were reaching the opinion that one would have to go a similar way for there to be peace in our country."
[edit] 1920 to 1922
In the morning hours of 13 March 1920 began the Kapp Putsch. 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 take action against those gathered there with fists and clubs, and to chase them off.
[edit] 1925 to 1930
Inflation 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.
[edit] 1932 to 1933
In the summer of 1932, the National Socialists with their Sturmabteilung went forth against the organized 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 revolution victims in Friedrichsfelde. Max Matern safely brought the foreign guest with his group beyond police access.
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.
[edit] References
- ^ John Koehler, "The Stasi," pages 38-39.
