Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Max Schuster
Max Schuster
Born: 29 July 1878
Died: 03.01.1945
Sponsorship: ver.di District Saxony West-East-South
Installation location:
Altendorfer Straße 7Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
The communist Max Anton Schuster belonged to a resistance group in Chemnitz. He was born on 29 July 1878 in Cunnersdorf. He lived with his wife Ida Rosa, whom he had married in 1902, in the suburb of Altendorf. As a trained lathe operator, he was organised in the German Metalworkers' Association until 1933. In 1939, he found work at the Rößlerstraße plant of Auto Union A-G., which, with its plants in Saxony and Berlin, including its many suppliers, was developing into a major armaments company at the time.
In order to meet the growing demand for labour, Polish and Soviet forced labourers were deployed at the plant at the beginning of the war and housed in a disused factory building on Straßburger Straße and in barracks on the factory premises. Already in the first years of the war, a resistance group was formed at the Altchemnitz plant, which also had links to the forced labourers. The centres were the armature winding shop, toolmaking and the repair department, and they also had links to other resistance groups in Chemnitz and Siegmar-Schönau.
Max Schuster and other members of the group were betrayed and arrested in autumn 1944. They were interrogated by the Gestapo and in prison on the Kaßberg. Four people were released after two weeks, the others were transferred to various concentration camps. Max Schuster was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp on 1 December 1944 with five other people (including Walter Malecki) on a rail transport from the Chemnitz state police station. He was given the prison number 37966 and a few days later the prisoners were taken to Litomerice. The Flossenbürg concentration camp had established its largest satellite camp there on 25 March 1944.
The ELSABE plant of Auto Union A-G. was located in the Bohemian town, where tank engines were produced underground from the end of 1944. The previous tunnelling was carried out by the SS, who deployed thousands of concentration camp prisoners to their deadly work. Physically weakened prisoners were maltreated to death by the SS guards with inadequate nutrition and hardly any health care. In addition to Walter Malecki, for whom a Stumbling Stone was laid in the town on 7 October 2008, Max Schuster was also one of them.
Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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