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Joseph Kronpass * 1903

Billhorner Röhrendamm 147 (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)

HIER WOHNTE
JOSEPH KRONPASS
JG. 1903
INTERNATIONALE BRIGADEN
FLUCHT FRANKREICH
INTERNIERT
ERSCHOSSEN 1940

Joseph Kronpass, born 21 July 1903 in Giglmörn in Lower Bavaria, shot 1940 in France

Billhorner Röhrendamm 147 (Billhorner Röhrendamm 167)

Very little is known about Joseph "Sepp” Kronpass. According to his marriage license, issued when he married Lina Engelschalk (*1903) on 23 January 1926, he was a manual laborer, and lived at Stresowstraße 47. Witnesses at the marriage were Max Brauer, a seaman who lived in the Seaman’s Home, and the publican Berthold Korn, who lived at Schwabenstraße 58. Neither of the men were close relatives. The couple moved to Billhorner Röhrendamm 167. They divorced seven years later in February 1933.

Joseph Kronpass took part in the Spanish Civil War as an International Brigadier. He fought in the 3rd battalion of the XIth Brigade. It was formed three months after the Civil War broke out in October 1936, and included volunteers from Germany, Scandinavia, and Austria. The 1st battalion was named after Ernst Thälmann, who was in prison at the time; the 2nd after Etkar André, who was executed in Hamburg on 4 November 1936; and the 3rd after Hans Beimler, a member of the Reichstag for the German Communist Party, who was killed in the Battle of Madrid in December 1936.

Like many other International Brigadiers, Joseph Kronpass was imprisoned in France after the Civil War and executed by firing squad when the Wehrmacht occupied the country in 1940.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: VAN-Totenliste 1968, dort "Sepp Kronpast"; AB div.; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 3543+24/1926; Hochmuth, Ursel/Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter.