Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Adolf Rembte
© Bundesarchiv Y 10-252-68 B

Adolf Rembte * 1902

Oberschleems 29 (Hamburg-Mitte, Billstedt)

HIER WOHNTE
ADOLF REMBTE
JG. 1902
VERHAFTET 1935 BERLIN
"HOCHVERRAT"
HINGERICHTET 4.11.1937
BERLIN-PLÖTZENSEE

Adolf Rembte, born on 21 July 1902 in Kirchsteinbek, executed on 4 Nov. 1937 in Berlin-Plötzensee

Oberschleems 29

Born in Kirchsteinbek, Stormarn administrative district, on 21 July 1902, Adolf Rembte learned the baker’s trade. In 1919, he joined the SAJ, the "Socialist Young Workers” (Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend), and became active early on as an editor for the Hamburger Volkszeitung. In 1922, he decided to become a member of the German Communist Party (KPD). The party recognized the young man’s talents and sent him for training to the Lenin School in Moscow in 1927. In 1930, Adolf Rembte returned to Germany, occupying a number of offices in his party in the ensuing period, including positions in Halle-Merseburg and Berlin. Until his arrest in Mar. 1935, he belonged to the party executive in Berlin, which operated underground following the banning of the KPD in 1933.

Adolf Rembte was held in great esteem by his fellow party members but also by people outside the party and by trade union circles abroad.

In Mar. 1935, he was arrested along with the resistance fighters Robert Stamm, Max Maddalena, Walter Griesbach, and Käthe Lübeck in Berlin and indicted for "preparation to high treason” ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat”). After two years of pretrial detention, the trial against the group began before the "People’s Court” (Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin on 4 June 1937 (file number 17 J 171 / 35).

Robert Stamm and Adolf Rembte were sentenced to death, Max Maddalena to life imprisonment, Walter Griesbach and Käthe Lübeck to 12 years in prison each. These verdicts caused protests in Germany and abroad. A letter of solidarity arrived from Switzerland and the illegally operating German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin joined the "Red Aid Berlin” ("Rote Hilfe Berlin”) in an appeal to save the comrades. All solidarity was for naught. Robert Stamm and Adolf Rembte were executed in the Berlin-Plötzensee prison on 4 Nov. 1937.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.


Stand: October 2018
© Jan Jacobs

Quellen: BA 1939; Zentralregister der Hamburger Standesämter; Weber/Herbst, Kommunisten; Altmann, Widerstand, S. 63; Bremer Dokumentation zu Rembte; Mammach, Widerstand.