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Gustav Brandt * 1894

Rathausmarkt 1 (links vor dem Rathaus) (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

GUSTAV BRANDT
MDHB 1931 – 1933 KPD
JG. 1894
VERHAFTET 1933
ZUCHTHAUS MÜNSTER
1945 TRANSPORT CELLE
ERSCHOSSEN VON SS
APRIL 1945

further stumbling stones in Rathausmarkt 1 (links vor dem Rathaus):
Kurt Adams, Etkar Josef André, Bernhard Bästlein, Adolf Biedermann, Valentin Ernst Burchard, Max Eichholz, Hugo Eickhoff, Theodor Haubach, Wilhelm Heidsiek, Ernst Henning, Hermann Hoefer, Franz Jacob, Friedrich Lux, Fritz Simon Reich, August Schmidt, Otto Schumann, Theodor Skorzisko, Ernst Thälmann, Hans Westermann

Gustav Brandt MdHB

Gustav Brandt, born on 4 Apr.1894 in Wolfsdorf, shot by the SS in Apr. 1945

Gustav Brandt was born on 4 Apr. 1894 in Wolsdorf, Kreis Elbin in Eastprussia. Between the age of 8 and 14 he attended primary school from 1902 to 1908. Afterwards he went to sea until the war broke out in 1914. Gustav Brandt’s political activity began in 1910 when he joined the SPD at the age of 16.

When the war started he was drafted for the Imperial German Navy where he acquired commission as "shipman on small voyage” ("Schiffer auf kleiner Fahrt”). Later Brandt - who became member of the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) in 1918 – joined the "Volksmarinedivision”. Its core mutinied on Christmas 1918 in Berlin and put the town major Social Democrat Otto Wels as well as some members of the Council of People’s Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) under arrest for a short time. In 1919, when the call "all power for the Councils!” had already faded away, Brandt joined the KPD.

The connection between his job and his political opinion made him join the "Red Navy” ("Rote Marine”) which was part of the KPD organisation "Alliance of Red Front-Fighters” ("Rotfrontkämpferbund”, RFB) founded in 1924. Until the RFB was prohibited all over the Reich in 1929 Gustav Brandt worked at the regional "Wasserkante” directorate of the "Red Navy” to which the areas of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and the northern parts of the former province of Hanover were subordinate. In the early years of the Weimar Republic he went to sea again for a short time, but then he was mainly active in different professions ashore.

Residing at Niendorfer Straße in Eppendorf – today Geschwister-Scholl-Straße – Brandt was a worker at the Hamburg shipyards Stülcken, Vulkan and Reiherstieg from 1927 until he was arrested in 1933. At the shipyard Vulkan he was a member of the works council in the end of the 1920s.

In 1931 Gustav Brandt was elected deputy of the KPD in the Hamburg Parliament (Hamburger Bürgerschaft). He was a deputy until the party was prohibited and all its mandates annulled by the end of Mar. 1933.He did not make a name for himself as a party’s speaker.

Already in 1933 he was sentenced to eleven years in prison by the Nazi judiciary because of his alleged participation in at the "Altona Bloody Sunday" ("Altonaer Blutsonntag"), a fierce street battle between Communists and National Socialists on 17 July 1932 when seventeen people were killed and several hundreds were injured.

Brandt served his sentence in the prison of Münster until 1944. But also after the end of his sentence he remained there under arrest. He received medical examination and waited for his induction to the Army while in prison. In spring 1945 he was supposed to be transferred to Werl together with other prisoners. Due to overcrowding they could, however, not be received there and thus the transport was redirected to Celle. Gust Brandt never arrived there. According to a report of a survivor of this transport of prisoners he was shot on the way by the SS security force.

"On the way the transport was divided. The first half of the prisoners was guarded by the Volkssturm, the second half was to be watched by the SS. Later the Volkssturm and its prisoners surrendered to the British. The SS aced their prisoners and then disappeared into the bushes. Guschi Brandt lies on this route together with many other nameless (victims )”.

Text used with permission of the Parliament of the City of Hamburg from: Jörn Lindner/Frank Müller: "Mitglieder der Bürgerschaft – Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung", 3., überarbeitete und ergänzte Auflage, Hamburg 2012.

Translator: Paula Antonella Oppermann
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Text mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (Hrsg.) entnommen aus: Jörn Lindner/Frank Müller: "Mitglieder der Bürgerschaft – Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung", 3., überarbeitete und ergänzte Auflage, Hamburg 2012

Quellen:
Willy Freund an Magda Langhans, 16.6.1966, Privatarchiv Ursel Hochmuth, Sammlung MdB: G. Brandt.