Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Karl Dornburg
Karl Dornburg
Born: 28 August 1878
Died: 15.04.1947
Installation location:
Geibelstraße 40Stumbling stone laying on:
18 May 2022
Life path
The social democrat Karl Dornburg was the partner of the labour consultant and women's rights activist Gertrud Stern, in whose memory a stumbling block was laid at the same location two and a half years ago. In the 1920s, he was a member of the city council in Chemnitz.
Karl Dornburg was born in Roßlau on the Elbe. He became a supporter of the free religious movement at an early age. His participation in the First World War shaped his world view. From the beginning of the war, he was at the front and was captured by the French on 25 September 1915. When he returned home in June 1919, he was scarred by the war: He had lost an eye.
Despite this, Karl Dornburg continued his commitment to the aims of social democracy. From 1921, he was district party secretary of the SPD in Chemnitz. He lived separately from his wife and son Alfred.
Before he found a suitable flat at Rosenstraße 2, he had lived in a rented house on Rößlerstraße. During this time, he met the Social Democrat Gertrud Stern. He later lived with the city councillor for a short time in a flat in the Gablenzsiedlung garden city. They wanted to enjoy their happiness together at Geibelstraße 40 when the National Socialists increasingly dominated public life in the country. Dornburg left Chemnitz in March 1933 to escape the threat of "protective custody". He initially lived in Berlin for three months before "illegally crossing the Czech border" in June 1933, as his partner recalled after the end of the war. From then on, he lived in Prague, where he supported the work of a resistance group. He later ran a political refugee centre.
After the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia by the German Wehrmacht, Dornburg fled to Denmark on board the passenger ship "Piłsudski" in November 1939, where he continued to work illegally in Aarhus until November 1944. Gertrud Stern visited him several times in Prague and Copenhagen until Whitsun 1939, although her passport had been taken from her in 1933. Dornburg was briefly detained by the police in Aarhus. He then moved to Copenhagen, where he subsequently became a teacher with the Danish Refugee Committee.
Karl Dornburg returned to Chemnitz on 5 October 1946. After two weeks in quarantine, he was finally reunited with Gertrud Stern. He became head of the SED district party school in Hartmannsdorf. "Unfortunately, his successful political work came to a premature end due to a deficiency disease," said Gertrud Stern shortly afterwards, describing her loss.
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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