Antifascism – “They called him Winnetou”

I was born in Chemnitz on June 17, 1925. I am the second daughter of Ernst Enge and Gertrud, born Arnold. My parents’ house was full of harmony and warmth, even if there were contradictory opinions, love and respect were offered. My father was politicized by the First World War, he was called to infantry, in France. In a letter to his sister Minna, he wrote in October 1915: »We are all so tired that you don’t understand why it goes on like this. Most French people will probably do it, because they are very often over. If the gentlemen put the warmakers in the ditch for a day, they might soon make peace. «

After the war, in November 1918, he went to the Soldier Council of Frankenberg, a small town in Saxony, near Chemnitz. His friend, a lawyer, brought him to it. During this time he found contacts with the Communist Party and joined her because he saw his views more represented than in the SPD, which he had previously belonged. He was also in the RGO, the revolutionary union opposition of the Communists. There he was the main cashier. He was very active and very popular. The young people called him admiringly Winnetou.

We were not always about politics in the family. There was music afternoons, father played the Zitter and mother slave piano. Friends were added who also played music. And we children sang. Culture always played a big role with us. I was also in the church choir.

When the Nazis were in power, my mother was offered the “mother cross” because she had born four children. For my parents the question was: do we accept that or not? They accepted it, but then it came in the ash box because it was associated with a policy that rejected them.

The first arrest

My father was arrested as an active trade unionist and Communist before the Nazis. The Nazis then arrested him for the first time in June 1933 and also took a house search for us and took the entire correspondence with his Jewish friend, a merchant who emigrated to England with his family. My mother always had a nervous breakdown when father was arrested. That’s why uncle Walter went with her brother when we wanted to visit father in prison on the Kaßberg in Chemnitz. The whole farm was full of people who wanted to visit their arrested relatives. We were chased away.

Father was then brought to Dresden, where the process was taken. He was sentenced to two years and five months of prison and was instructed for five years of honoring the honor and the Waldheim prison. That was very sad. We could then visit him every eight weeks. He was very brave, but also very sad because he couldn’t help his family.

When my father was released in 1935, he had rejected his anti -fascist circle again and was arrested again four years later at the beginning of the war. My sister was just born there, mother was in the puerperium. And then I went to the Gestapo alone and even received a visit permit, could bring some money and some things to him. He was released after six weeks.

Then he was obliged to work. From 1940 there were many forced laborers. He contacted you with his comrades. He got a radio from his friend at that time, before that we had no radio. Father heard Moscow and London. In his company, in the administration, two young people worked, the siblings Hilde and Lotte Otto. With them he has spread the information from the radio on leaflets. And with them he even created an illegal weapon camp in the Zeisigwald. For the day when you might fall Hitler with your gun in hand. In any case, he managed to win fellow campaigners in numerous companies in Chemnitz and build an illegal network, which included 28 local groups. There were also foreign and forced laborers. His organization had connections to the surrounding area, the Ore Mountains and to Leipzig and even Berlin.

In September 1944 I noticed two strange men in front of our property, which seemed strange to me. I said to my mother: “You mom, that seems strange to me, there are two strange gentlemen there.” Father was back in the Zeisigwald. Mother said: “Go down there and just look at what’s going on!” And then I am down and heard, as one said: “It is about tens, he always comes back.” So we have already been back observed for weeks. So father was observed. I said that to my mother. Now my father came. And I also told him: “Papa, there are two gentlemen there …” Then he became chalk and said: “Muttel, I have to go, I have to go into illegality.” But how from the house?

My sister Ruth was already married at the time and had his own apartment. And then we said to ourselves that we all go to her. We hoped for the public that they cannot arrest the whole family with five children. That succeeded. And my father then fled from there. With me he agreed: “Marga, we meet every two days on Hausen-Straße, at eight in the evening, and you report what the situation is.” I did that. I tried to maintain contacts with his comrades and forced laborers as much as possible for him. My father was so brave. I had to be brave too.

Then came a card for father with the convening of the Wehrmacht. I went to the military district command and said that we didn’t know where the father is.

Cross -interpretation at the Gestapo

We had no money. I had to apply for the office for us social welfare. I also told the officials that father is missing and we don’t know where he is. Then two men came from the Gestapo and arrested me. They brought me to the Gestapozentrale on the Kaßberg and interrogated me. They threatened me if I did not say where my father is, I am instructed. I didn’t say anything. And then I was blocked in a cell. After three hours they got me to the cross -question. I said nothing again and came to prison on Hartmann-Straße. There were not only “political”, everything was arrested, Zapzarap, also women from the sex millieu.

I was engaged at the time and my husband wanted to come on marriage vacation. He came and I was arrested. And there he is a Gestapo every day with his mother to get me free. Nothing happened for days until one day he assured the official, he would take me to Liegnitz, where his unit was stationed; He was with the Air Force. Then movement got into the matter and I was released.

We got married in Chemnitz. Church wedding. I lived in Liegnitz furnished. And on one day in October one came in civilian, certainly also Gestapo, and brought me the news of my father’s death. I later learned that father wanted to defend himself with the weapon. He didn’t succeed. At that time a large part of the Chemnitz resistance was arrested, about 40 people. My uncle was also arrested, he was seriously heart -sick and then one day they found him dead in his cell, supposedly a natural death. And my father is said to have hanged himself. At the window cross of his cell. We didn’t believe that. He was probably strangled by the Gestapo.

In any case, I drove back from Liegnitz to Chemnitz, the war came to an end. And after the liberation from fascism, there was a lot to do, not only to remove the rubble in the cities, but also in the mind. My mother fell seriously and soon died. She did not cope with the loss of the father. It was a bad time.

Ernst Enge came to death on October 17, 1944 under unexplained circumstances. His resistance group had contact to Berlin, for example with the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein organization. A stumbling block in Chemnitz and a memorial stone in a primary school reminded him that had its name until 1990. His daughter Marga worked in the GDR healthcare system. She is a member of the unification of the persecuted of the Nazi regime and likes to share her knowledge of the Nazi crimes as a reminder to the young generation.
Enrico Hilbert has published a tape with the veteran: »The Winnetou von Gablenz. Life, struggle and death of Ernst Enge «(124 pages, to receive a donation of € 20 at VVN Chemnitz, vvnbdac@gmail.com).