Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz

Siegfried Lässig

Born: 27 February 1915

Died: 21.12.1974

Construction engineer Siegfried Lässig was one of the anti-fascists in Chemnitz who were deprived of their freedom by the National Socialists in "places of terror" almost without interruption from 1933 to 1945. He was only able to enjoy this for a few months at his parents' home at Brauhausstraße 19.
At this point, the persecuted victim of the Nazi regime himself should have his say: "I, Siegfried Lässig, was born in Chemnitz as the son of the insurance agent Gustav Lässig," as he introduced his curriculum vitae dated 25 November 1945. "After attending primary school for four years, I transferred to secondary school and passed my school-leaving examination in 1931. I then attended the trade academy with the aim of becoming an architect or civil engineer. I was arrested for the first time in the summer of 1933 (August). The reason for this was brochures and also the 'Kämpfer' [the Chemnitz mouthpiece of the KPD], which was illegally reprinted and which I distributed at work. Apart from the denunciation of the works supervisor, there were no witnesses. I denied everything and was supposed to be put on trial, but it was dropped. I was sentenced to Sachsenburg concentration camp. I was released from Sachsenburg in November 1933.
After signing the declaration of loyalty, I had to report to police station no. 1 once a day. I was arrested again in mid-December 1933. I was brought before the Freiberg Special Court for making false allegations and possessing leaflets (including Truth about the Reichstag Fire, Police Paradise Germany) and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. I was released again in 1935, only to be arrested again in mid-August 1937.

The reason: they had spied around the house on various occasions and learnt that I was an avid radio listener, especially of Moscow. When I returned from a trip to Czechoslovakia to visit comrades in Moravia-Ostrava, I was arrested by the Gestapo eight weeks later. Although I had no political mission and nobody knew where I had been, the Gestapo wanted to know exactly (it was possible that a Gestapo or SD man had observed me crossing the border, even though I had no passport and had crossed the 'green' border). The Gestapo officer's last word to me here in the Chemnitz police prison was: 'Well, stay here until you tell the truth! Then I got the arrest warrant, issued by the public prosecutor's office for treason, I was already marked for the People's Court.
I received the protective custody order in Dresden on Schießgasse. It said: 'On urgent suspicion of anti-state activity abroad' as the reason for my protective custody, which lasted until March 1945."
Elsewhere, Lässig described his time in prison: "In November 1941, I was transported from Buchenwald concentration camp to a satellite camp, which was then administratively subordinate to Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk. I was there permanently until I was freed on 9 March [1945], thanks to the Red Army. We showed our gratitude by working for the Red Army (identifying and searching for SS and Nazi criminals). With the restoration of the destroyed railway connection to the West completed, I began my journey home from Lauenburg in Pomerania in mid-July and arrived in Chemnitz at the end of July. Here I realised that my parents' flat had been completely destroyed."
Siegfried Lässig was married to Inge Junghanns from the end of 1946. Their marriage produced two daughters.

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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