Felix Fechenbach

Felix Fechenbach (28 January 1894 – 7 August 1933) was a German journalist, poet and political activist. He served as State-Secretary in the government of Kurt Eisner that overthrew the Bavarian Wittelsbach Monarchy. After its overthrow, he worked as a newspaper editor during the Weimar period. After the Nazi seizure of power, he was arrested and later executed.

He was born in Mergentheim, the son of a lower-middle-class Jewish family. Felix Fechenbach was the son of Noe Fechenbach and Rosalie Fenchenbach. He grew up in poverty. He had four brothers called Max, Siegbert, Mortiz, Abraham, and Jackob Fechenbach. His first job was delivering bread with his older brother Abraham in the town of Würzburg. His first best friend was called Stoffele, the girl next door. Unfortunately, she died at age 7; every time her name was mentioned, he would burst into tears. He started his very first apprenticeship at age 13 at a shoe store.

He took vocational education in Würzburg until 1910. Later, he worked in a shoe store. In 1911 he secured work in Frankfurt but was later fired for union-activity and because of a strike he led. From 1912 until 1914, he was a party secretary of the SPD in Munich, he served in World War I was wounded, became a pacifist, later becoming state secretary (1918–1919). During World War I he was a pacifist and served as Private Secretary for Kurt Eisner, the prime minister of Bavaria, shortly after the war.

Felix Fechenbach later married Martha Fechenbach on 27 April 1894, and to Irma Epstein on 16 October 1895, and he had a total of three children. After he was killed by an approaching SA commando, on his way to the Dachau concentration camp, his late wife Irma Epstein was able to escape with their children.

He was jailed in 1922 for publishing secret diplomatic telegrams while Staats Secretary under Eisner, before the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The decision was a scandal because the court at that time had no standing under the Weimar Constitution. He was pardoned in 1924. He thereafter travelled to Berlin and worked for Kinderfreunde (Friends of Children) and criticised the SPD in his children's stories while still a member of the party.

In 1929, he became the editor in chief of the SPD newspaper Volksblatt in Detmold. On 11 March 1933 he was jailed by the new Nazi government for his anti-fascist activities, and was shot on 7 August by members of the SS and SA in a forest between Detmold and Warburg while being transported to the Dachau concentration camp.

There are two schools named after Fechenbach: the Felix-Fechenbach Gesamtschule in Leopoldshoehe and the Felix-Fechenbach Berufskolleg in Detmold. A street in Detmold and in Oerlinghausen was also named after him.

Works by Felix Fechenbach
Im Haus der Freudlosen, J. H. W. Nachfolger, Berlin 1925.

Im Haus der Freudlosen: Als Justizopfer im Zuchthaus Erbach, revised edition edited by Roland Flade Koenigshausen & Neumann, Wuerzburg 1993.

Mein Herz schlaegt weiter: Briefe aus der Schutzhaft, Kulturverlag, St.Gallen 1936.

Mein Herz schlaegt weiter: Briefe aus der Schutzhaft, revised edition with a foreword by Heinrich Mann, a contribution by Robert M.W. Kempner and a postscript by Peter Steinbach, Andreas-Haller-Verlag, Passau 1987.

Der Puppenspieler, Verlag E. & K. Scheuch, Zuerich 1937.

Der Puppenspieler: Ein Roman aus dem alten Wuerzburg, revised edition edited by Roland Flade and Barbara Rott, Koenigshausen & Neuman, Wuerzburg 1988.