Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Fritz Matschke
Fritz Matschke
Born: 16.12.1899
Died: 03.05.1945
Sponsor: VVN-BdA Chemnitz
Installation location:
Reichsstraße 69Stumbling stone laying on:
5 October 2020
Life path
Former city councillor Fritz Johannes Matschke was born into a large family in Chemnitz. Even as a child, he experienced hardship and misery at home. After attending the Andréschule, he learnt the trade of an iron turner at the H. F. Schnicke tool factory. While still an apprentice, he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). He joined the KPD as early as 1919. During this time, he also supported the work of Rote Hilfe Deutschlands (RHD), a KPD-affiliated aid organisation, as treasurer. He became a DMV shop steward and member of the works council at the Schnicke company.
From the mid-1920s, Fritz Matschke lived with his wife Rosa in a block of flats on the Vorderer Kaßberg. In the midst of the global economic crisis, he joined the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO), which the KPD had founded to provide a new platform for trade unionists who had been expelled from the DMV. As head treasurer, he was involved in the unemployed RGO of IG Metall until June 1933. In the elections on 13 November 1932, he was elected to the city council for the KPD. Due to his political activities, Matschke was taken into "protective custody" in June 1933 and transferred to Sachsenburg concentration camp.
After his return at the end of May 1934, he worked as a lathe operator at the Gustav Krautheim foundry in Borna. Under his leadership, a resistance group was formed in the company, which distributed leaflets, helped Russian prisoners of war and participated in the sabotage of armaments production, among other things. The Gestapo had already ordered Matschke for interrogation in January 1945, but he was released again. He was arrested again on 2 March 1945. After endless interrogations, he was sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp. From there, he was sent on the infamous death march to Dachau on 16 April 1945. Suffering from typhus, Fritz Matschke died in the infirmary there a few days before the end of the war.
A memorial plaque on the left archway of the former house at Reichsstraße 69 commemorated Fritz Matschke until the 1990s. Since 27 January 2020, a brass plaque in the town hall has commemorated the ten former city councillors who were murdered by the National Socialists. Matschke's name is also on the plaque.
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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