Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Alfons Teschke * 1898

Winsener Straße 30 (Harburg, Wilstorf)

HIER WOHNTE
ALFONS TESCHKE
JG. 1898
SPANIENKÄMPFER
TOT 1937

Alfons Teschke, born 9 Dec. 1898 in Krone, perished 9 May 1938 in combat during the Spanish Civil War

Wilstorf District, Winsener Straße 30

The worker Alfons Teschke was born in Bromberg District in what was at the time the Prussian province of Posen. After 1918, his home town Krone was renamed Koronowo in Polish. He married Marie Terminski, born on 18 Aug. 1898 in Harburg. Their last address, where they lived from Dec. 1931, was at Winsener Straße 30. Their previous addresses were Karlstraße 11a (today Kroosweg) and Talstraße 9 (today Steinikestraße). Before Alfons Teschke came to Harburg, he lived near Dortmund. It was there in the village Habinghorst that his son Alfons was born on 12 Aug. 1922.

Prior to 1933, Alfons Teschke senior worked sporadically as a warehouse worker at the Brinkman Lumber Yard on Blohmstraße. He also worked at Karstadt, the department store. There he represented his colleagues in the works council. He belonged to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). His friend Willi Nilges, also a communist, born on 18 Mar. 1907 in Harburg, lived in the same house at Winsener Straße 30. It was from that house that contact was maintained between the banned KPD in Winsen and Lüneburg. Following a wave of arrests in 1934, he fled to Czechoslovakia and was officially noted as "address unknown”. He was said to have died there on 20 Jan. 1936.

Like many communists, Alfons Teschke was taken into "protective custody” following the burning of the Reichstag on 27 Feb. 1933, which he spent in Harburg Court Prison on Buxtehuder Straße from 2 Mar. to 11 May 1933. In order to avoid renewed arrest, he went to Westphalia in early 1934, then to the Saar region which at that time did not belong to the German Reich and was governed by the League of Nations. He presumably immigrated to France before the Saar region was annexed by Germany following a referendum in 1935.

In Spain when the generals under Franco organized a coup of the democratically elected popular front government, civil war broke out (see Max Neubacher). Germany and fascist Italy supported Franco’s rebels with troops, weapons and airplanes. Numerous German emigrants rushed off to Spain to fight for the Republic against the fascists and nationalists, including Alfons Teschke. He reached Catalonia in 1936 and joined an international group of the 22nd Catalonian Division to fight Franco’s troops. His wife Marie received her last message from him in 1936. On 9 May 1938 he perished in Spain, presumably in combat – how and where is not known.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2019
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: Mosel, Wegweiser, S. 169, 171; Hochmuth/Meyer, Streiflichter, S. 202; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A46; StaH, 430-64 Amtsgericht Harburg II B 25; StaH, Adressbücher Harburg-Wilhelmsburg und Hamburg; VVN, Komitee-Akten; Berichte Grete Dreibrodt; Heyl/Maronde-Heyl, Abschlussbericht; Totenliste VAN