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Georg Einhaus * 1898

Maretstraße 63 (Harburg, Harburg)

HIER WOHNTE
GEORG EINHAUS
JG. 1898
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 1933
GEFÄNGNIS HARBURG
1935 GEFÄNGNIS BERLIN -TEGEL
TOT AN HAFTFOLGEN

Georg Einhaus, born on 24 Apr. 1898 in Danzig (today Gdansk in Poland), imprisoned, died on 1 Apr. 1949 of the effects of imprisonment

Harburg-Altstadt quarter, Maretstrasse 63

The worker Georg Einhaus got married to Martha Schult, born on 2 July 1902 in Harburg. They had a son by the name of Karl, born on 4 Aug. 1920. The family lived at Maretstrasse 63 (in 1933).

Georg Einhaus was a Communist. From 1924 onward, he worked at Thörl’s Vereinigte Oelfabriken, an oil processing plant. In 1930, he was elected to the employees’ representative committee there, and on 27 June 1931, he received his dismissal, supposedly due to lack of work. Subsequently, he was unemployed until his arrest.

The 1920s witnessed the formation of a "Revolutionary Union Opposition” ("Revolutionäre Gewerkschaftsopposition” – RGO). It was comprised mostly of Communists who had been excluded from the free trade unions. Initially, the RGO fought to have its members re-admitted to the unions of the General German Trade Union Federation (Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – ADGB). Subsequently, the RGO effectively became a Communist partisan union. (Later, at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International in 1935, the establishment of competing Communist partisan unions was assessed as a serious political mistake). Georg Einhaus belonged to the RGO since Apr. 1931 and became senior treasurer of the Harburg branch.

After the Reichstag fire on 27 Feb. 1933, the RGO was broken up by mass arrests of Communists. Many trade unionists that remained in freedom went underground. They now printed and distributed the RGO organ entitled Klassengewerkschafter ("Class unionist”). In Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, there was also an illegal periodical called Betriebszeitung der KPD ("KPD [German Communist Party] company paper”) with a circulation of 100 copies per issue. Later, it was called "Red broadcaster, fighting organ of the RGO and the united federation of construction trade in Harburg” (Roter Sender, Kampforgan der RGO und Einheitsverband für das Baugewerbe Harburg). Just how large the illegal RGO was became publicly known in 1934 when in Hamburg and environs about 800 members of the RGO were arrested. Georg Einhaus also participated in the resistance of the RGO.

On 28 June 1933, the police searched his apartment and found more than 100 copies of the Rote Sender. Georg Einhaus was arrested. Because of "preparation to high treason,” the Court of Appeal in Berlin (Kammergericht Berlin) sentenced him to one and a half years in prison, which he served at the Berlin-Tegel penal institution. In Nov. 1933, it was bitterly cold, with snowstorm conditions prevailing. In his prison cell, Georg Einhaus had only thin clothes and a single blanket.

Furthermore, he was forced to sleep on the bare floor, which caused him to contract a chronic kidney disorder. In June 1934, he was admitted to the prison hospital. Also suffering from a bladder complaint and intestinal bleeding, he received only inadequate medical care. After his release, he was unfit for work and forced to undergo constant medical treatment for intestinal bleeding, pyelitis, and a renal fistula.

Eventually, he found a job with the Hugo Stinnes Company in Harburg (among other things, briquette plant and coal wholesale) at the 2nd Hafenstrasse from Aug. 1935 to Jan. 1939. After that, he was dismissed due to illness, finding work, however, at the Phoenix plant from Mar. to June 1939.

From Jan. 1946 until his death, he worked as a salaried employee at the Harburg District Office. He was rated at 50 percent reduced earning capacity, later at 80 percent. On 1 Apr. 1949, he died of renal and intestinal tuberculosis as well as additional diseases. The hospital confirmed that the kidney complaint he had contracted while in prison ultimately resulted in his death.

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

© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: VVN-BdA Harburg (Hrsg.), Die anderen, s. Personenverzeichnis; StaH, 351-11; AfW, Martha Einhaus; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen; StaH, Adressbücher Harburg-Wilhelmsburg und Hamburg; Totenliste VAN.