User:FFMKid/Friedrich Puchta

Friedrich Puchta (born on 24 November 1883 in Hof (Saale); died on 17 May 1945 in Munich) was a German politician of the SPD and the USPD. He is considered the most important Social Democrat in the Weimar Republic in Bayreuth and one of the few active resistance fighters against National Socialism in this city.

Life in the Kaiserreich (1883 to 1919)
Puchta was born in 1883. His father was a textile worker. He attended primary school in Hof in Bavaria and then learnt the textile trade, where he worked for the next ten years. In 1903, Puchta joined the SPD and the trade union. In 1905 he married his wife Ottilie,[1] from this marriage they had two sons, Friedrich and Erich[1 ] and two daughters, Margarete and Maria - the mother of the SPD politician Fred Gebhardt.

From 1907 to 1908, Puchta attended the SPD party school in Berlin, where he was taught by August Bebel and Rosa Luxemburg, among others.[1] He then worked as an editor in the Social Democratic press. In autumn 1908, Puchta took over the editorial management of the social democratic newspaper Fränkische Volkstribüne in Bayreuth. From 1911 to 1914, he served as a municipal representative in Bayreuth. He also worked as a teacher of economics and economic history at various adult education centres in the Kingdom of Saxony.

From 1914 onwards, Puchta served as a soldier in World War One. During the war, Puchta, who opposed the war, joined the Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (USPD), a new party recruited from representatives of the left wing of the SPD, which was dissatisfied with the war policy of the SPD leadership.

Weimar Republic (1919 to 1933)
After returning from the war, Puchta became a city councillor in Plauen in 1919. In the same year, he became managing editor of the Volkszeitung newspaper there. He then worked as an editor in Berlin and returned to Bayreuth in 1924.

In the Reichstag elections in June 1920, Puchta was elected to the Reichstag as a USPD candidate for constituency 33 (Chemnitz-Zwickau), where he initially served until May 1924. During this first legislative period of the Weimar Republic, Puchta returned to the SPD, of which he was a member of the Reichstag parliamentary group from 1922. In the Reichstag elections in May 1928, Puchta was re-elected to the Reichstag as the SPD candidate for constituency 29 (Franconia), where he served without interruption until June 1933. In addition to his parliamentary activities, Puchta worked on the Franconian People's Tribune.

In Bayreuth, the Social Democrats desperately braced themselves against the brown tide, but had a skilful opponent in the National Socialist Hans Schemm, the later Gauleiter and Bavarian Minister of Culture. However, as Puchta feared that this would valorise the Nazis, he shied away from direct confrontation with him. However, he sharply attacked the machinations of Schemm and his supporters in the press and at meetings and repeatedly warned against the National Socialists and their endeavours. For this reason, he was hated by his right-wing opponents like no other.

Life under the Nazis
After the National Socialist seizure of power in Berlin, the Social Democrats in Bayreuth were not yet defeated and organised meetings and marches of the "Iron Front". On 10 February 1933, Puchta spoke at a meeting in the overcrowded Sonnensaal in Richard-Wagner-Straße. Among other things, he said: "We will continue on our path undeterred and carry our proud flags. May the enemies spray poison and hurl vulgarities and may they bark and hiss over there - we will continue to move forward and look ahead! There will come a day when this society lies shattered and battered on the ground. We know: The fight is rising to the top. We know that this decision requires more than just attending meetings and demonstrating. We may have to lay down our lives in defence of our freedom. We are determined to go to the last and to the extreme."

Although his mandate had been confirmed in the Reichstag election in March 1933, Puchta was no longer able to take part in the vote on the Enabling Act as he was arrested four days after the election on 10 March.

In the spring of 1933, Puchta was one of the first SPD Reichstag deputies to be taken into "protective custody" by the National Socialists. In the night of 9 to 10 March, a total of 37 Bayreuth SPD and KPD leaders were arrested by the Nazis; ten more were added the following day. Together with SPD politicians such as Adam Seeser, Oswald Merz and Kurt de Jonge, Puchta was initially imprisoned in Sankt Georgen prison. He was then one of the first to be sent to Dachau concentration camp. His fellow prisoner Karl Seeser reported in his notes that Puchta was sent to the dreaded Barrack VII, which was considered a punishment camp, for no apparent reason. The next day, he and several Jewish prisoners were harnessed to a heavy road roller as draught animals. Seeser suspected that Puchta was subjected to this particularly cruel treatment at the instigation of his intimate enemy Schemm. On 1 May, Puchta was initially transferred to the Munich-Stadelheim police prison.

After his release from the Sankt Georgen prison in Bayreuth in July 1933, he was unemployed for a long time and then earned his living as a grocer and newsagent. During these difficult times, he continued to work illegally for his banned party. Initially, he made contact with an underground group in north-east Upper Franconia, whose centre was in Schönwald. The former SPD mayor there, Hermann Werner, received social democratic newspapers and brochures from Czechoslovakia from emigrated comrades of the exiled SPD, in particular from the former Nuremberg party secretary Dill. This material was distributed to Hof, Rehau and Bayreuth via a distribution network. Friedrich Puchta was seen as a liaison in the Wagner city. The underground organisation was discovered in the summer of 1935 and the former member of the Reichstag was arrested in July along with 15 fellow campaigners for his resistance activities.

In December 1935, the Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced Puchta to two and a half years in prison for "preparation for high treason", which he served in Nuremberg prison until February 1938. On 23 August 1944, he was once again taken into "protective custody" as part of "Aktion Gitter" and held in the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner no. 93.395). According to the concentration camp 's prisoner file, Puchta was in Dachau until the liberation; according to other sources[2], he took part in one of the death marches with which the SS attempted to evacuate the concentration camp shortly before the end of the war. Puchta died a short time later on 17 May 1945 in a hospital in Munich-Schwabing as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp.

Puchta was buried in the Bayreuth city cemetery. His gravestone was made from the granite of the former swastika memorial on the local Luitpoldplatz[1]. Friedrich-Puchta-Straße in Bayreuth commemorates Puchta's life and work. In Berlin, there is a memorial plaque dedicated to Puchta as part of the memorial to 96 members of the Reichstag murdered by the Nazi regime in Scheidemannstraße.

Works

 * Unabhängige Sozialdemokratie oder Kommunistische Partei?, 1919.

Literature

 * Friedrich. In: Franz Osterroth: Biographisches Lexikon des Sozialismus. Verstorbene Persönlichkeiten. Bd. 1. J. H. W. Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, S. 242–243.
 * Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): M.d.R. Die Reichstagsabgeordneten der Weimarer Republik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Politische Verfolgung, Emigration und Ausbürgerung, 1933–1945. Eine biographische Dokumentation. 3., erheblich erweiterte und überarbeitete Auflage. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1.