“For those who knew him and had worked with him, his life was one of service to the cause of the workers and socialism.”

Ebby Edwards, Secretary of the International Miners’ Federation

INTRODUCTION

If you walk through the Ruhr region with your eyes and ears open, sooner or later you’ll come across the name ‘Fritz’ [1] Husemann. As well as Husemannplatz and the adjoining Husemann Karee in Bochum city centre, an office block in Bochum’s Ehrenfeld district is named after him. Today, alongside the SPD’s headquarters, it houses both the Mining, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Union (IGBCE) and the Education and Science Union (GEW).[2]

In Gelsenkirchen and other towns in the Ruhr region, various streets are named after Fritz Husemann, as is an allotment association in the south-west of Dortmund, which was given its name following a proposal by the city.[3]. Yet very few people today are likely to be aware that behind this name lies a resistance fighter, miners’ leader and trade unionist who was murdered by the Nazis. Until his death in the Esterwegen concentration camp, Husemann was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime.

Street signs bearing Husemann’s name in Bochum city centre. ©Tim Truschel

THE STORY

Friedrich Ernst Husemann, known as Fritz Husemann, was born on 19 September 1873 in Leopoldstal (Lippe) as the illegitimate son of master stonemason Henrik Becker and Marie Wilh. Henriette, widow of Husemann.[4] He grew up in poor circumstances with his mother and began an apprenticeship as a stonemason at the age of 14, but switched to an apprenticeship as a bricklayer shortly afterwards. [5]

After passing his journeyman’s examination, Husemann moved to Bielefeld and joined the SPD on 1 May 1891, the ‘Day of Struggle for the Labour Movement’[6]. He had already joined the bricklayers’ trade union prior to this.[7] Although Husemann only lived in Bielefeld for two years, this period had a lasting political influence on him.

In the autumn of 1892, he moved to the Ruhr region and initially worked as a mine bricklayer, then as a miner at the Borussia colliery in Dortmund Oespel.[8] Husemann became a member of the Old Miners’ Association (Association of German Mining Industry Workers) and became increasingly involved in the party and the trade union. The failed miners’ strike of 1893, which dealt a major blow to the labour movement in the Ruhr region, only served to intensify Husemann’s efforts even further. “This marked the beginning of the steady career as an official of this level-headed and down-to-earth man, whose concern was very much focused on the day-to-day needs of his colleagues, who wanted to fight for greater social justice on their behalf, but who always remained an opponent of any form of radicalism.”[9] Another key concern of his was improving health and safety for miners, as mining accidents resulting in numerous fatalities occurred time and again within the German Empire.[10]

Within the trade union, Husemann belonged to the group centred on Heinrich Hansmann, who were known as ‘the Hansmänner’ and were particularly committed.[11] In 1900, he was appointed full-time district representative of the Miners’ Union. He also wrote as a correspondent for the Dortmunder Arbeiterzeitung. Two years later, he was appointed as a union official at the trade union headquarters in Bochum. A year later (1903), he was elected to the executive committee of the Miners’ Union at the general assembly in Zwickau.[12] His election as deputy chairman in 1911 marked a further step in his trade union career, which reached its next high point in early 1920 with his election as first chairman of the Miners’ Union. During the November Revolution, in the final stages of the First World War, Fritz Husemann served as chairman of the Bochum Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council.[13]

Husemann himself served only briefly as a soldier on the Eastern Front during the First World War. After being called up in 1915, he was exempted from military service as early as 1916. The reason for this was wage disputes in the Ruhr region, which he was to help resolve.[14]

Nevertheless, his political stance during the First World War has been viewed critically in retrospect. Franz Osterroth, youth secretary of the miners’ union, described Husemann as follows: “He was a naïve patriot who, in moments of national fervour (…), was prepared to [even] disregard the labour movement and its interests”. [15]

Fritz Husemann (left) is talking to Prof. Dr Max Brahn, a member of the cantonal government (right). Foto: Stadt Bochum.

During the Weimar Republic, he was elected to the Prussian State Parliament, where he served from 1919 to 1924.[16] Within the SPD, Husemann was considered part of the party’s right wing and also acted publicly as its representative. For example, on 10 April 1910 in Kamen, at a suffrage demonstration against the three-class electoral system organised by the SPD, he spoke to an audience of several thousand about the need for electoral reform. Rosa Luxemburg, who represented the left wing of the party, also gave a speech there.[17]

From 1924 onwards, Husemann served as a Member of the German Reichstag for the Westphalia-South constituency..[18] He held this seat until the National Socialists seized power and abolished the parliamentary system, following which the SPD was officially banned in July 1933.[19]

Husemann’s struggle against National Socialism

Even before Hitler came to power, Husemann had warned against the National Socialists and appealed to business leaders in Germany not to support them.[20] Yet his appeals went largely unheeded. Leading industrialists committed themselves to the agenda of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), partly on the promise that they would no longer be subject to trade union influence in future.[21]

The trade unions found themselves increasingly unable to stand up to the NSDAP, partly because more and more members were leaving them. From a peak of 8.5 million shortly after the war, membership figures fell to around 3.3 million by shortly before the National Socialists came to power.[22] There were many reasons for this decline. Among other things, mass unemployment in the late Weimar Republic and the lack of prospects – particularly prevalent amongst young people – led some of them to turn to radical forces such as the NSDAP.[23]

After the National Socialists seized power in Germany in early 1933, the trade unions were crushed and banned. Numerous trade unionists were persecuted and imprisoned. Hitler’s totalitarian state was characterised by an authoritarian economic system in which workers could neither exercise their rights to co-determination nor exert influence through strikes.[24]

On 11 March 1933, armed SA men forcibly stormed the Bochum party headquarters. Around 50 to 60 leading Social Democrats, including Fritz Husemann, were temporarily detained.[25] The trade union building was ransacked and occupied by the Nazis. During the night, SA men affixed a sign to the building bearing the inscription ‘Hermann-Göring-Haus’. Attempts by the trade union to reclaim the building failed.[26] Husemann himself was dismissed from his trade union without notice and was imprisoned on several occasions in the weeks that followed.[27]

In the face of increasing political persecution, the American Miners’ Union offered to help him emigrate, but Husemann declined the offer, stating that he was “German and loved his country too much to live abroad and leave his fellow miners behind”..[28]

SInstead, he continued to make a point of appearing in the streets of Bochum to express his solidarity and determination to his former colleagues and miners. In the months that followed, Husemann played an active role in a trade union network organised across the Reich and helped to build up this resistance organisation.[29] Furthermore, he championed the pension entitlements of trade union officials who had also been dismissed and represented them in their dealings with the NSDAP, but was unsuccessful in this endeavour.[30]

On 18 March 1935, Husemann brought legal proceedings against the German Labour Front (DAF), which, as the NSDAP’s unified organisation, had replaced the independent trade unions..[31] That very same day, he was taken into “protective custody” and transferred to the police prison in Bochum. After just under four weeks in custody, the Nazis deported Husemann on 12 April to the Esterwegen concentration camp, a camp in the Emsland region. The day before, Husemann had written a letter to his wife from prison, stating that he was “going to Esterwegen with his usual composure” [32] and to “fit into the prevailing order there”[33]. In this last letter, he had expressed the hope “that [sic!] nothing inhuman would be demanded of me and that consideration would be given to my age”.[34]

Murdered by the Nazis

Just one day after his arrival at the camp, Fritz Husemann was murdered – officially, he was said to have been “shot whilst trying to escape”, according to the Nazi authorities. The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear. According to eyewitness accounts, he was shot whilst performing forced labour under inhumane conditions.[35] In the ‘patient register’ of the Sögel District Hospital, the time of death was recorded as ‘2 o’clock in the morning’. It was also noted that Husemann had been admitted on 13 April 1935 with a ‘gunshot wound to the abdomen’.[36] According to the Esterwegen Memorial, all other documents relating to his death, with the exception of the hospital report mentioned, were destroyed by the Nazis following the camp’s closure.[37]

It was not until 1964 and 1965 that a preliminary investigation was launched against persons unknown in connection with the murder of Fritz Husemann, a prisoner held in protective custody, at the Esterwegen camp.[38] No one could be identified as the culprit. Kurt Bickelmann, head of the Lingen branch of the Mining Industry Union, remarked in the 1980s that the West German judiciary was taking “a strangely long time“[39] to prosecute Nazi criminals. He also criticised the lenient sentences imposed for Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany.[40]

Fritz Husemann’s remains were cremated on 20 April 1935 and interred a few days later at Bochum’s main cemetery. Around 1,000 people attended the funeral service despite a ban imposed by the Gestapo, which kept the event under close surveillance.[41] The sheer number of people who wanted to pay their last respects to Husemann is a testament to his popularity and to the strong sense of solidarity amongst the miners, who were even prepared to risk possible arrest by the Gestapo.[42]

Front page of Ebby Edwards’ trilingual leaflet containing the obituary for Fritz Husemann. Foto: Stadt Bochum.

Reception following Husemann’s death

There were also international reactions to Husemann’s murder. Ebby Edwards, Secretary of the International Miners’ Federation, published a trilingual obituary on 22 April 1935, which read: “For those who knew him and had worked with him, his life was one of service to the cause of the workers and socialism.”[43] Edwards concluded by saying that Husemann had “…paid the ultimate price. No one can give more than their life. Comrade Husemann, the workers salute your brave soul. The spirit of your work will live on.”[44]

Franz Osterroth, who had fled into exile in Prague, also wrote an obituary shortly after Husemann’s death. According to him, Fritz Husemann was

“…the quintessential German miner, in whom the people underground were most vividly embodied and in whom they recognised themselves. He was the German miner in essence and character, right down to the woodcarving-like quality of his figure and features. When the tall, burly Westphalian with the rough yet good-natured [sic!] face, from which bright eyes sparkled, strode along in a slightly stooped posture, everyone sensed: this strong back, these broad shoulders have borne a heavy load all their life. […] No master of oratory, but from the very first words spoken in that voice—at once rough [sic!] and clear—one sensed the warmth of simple honesty so characteristic of the working class.” [45]

Husemann’s popularity was to continue even after the war. In the early 1970s, posters featuring his ‘Konterfrei’ were put up as part of a campaign against the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).

Fritz Husemann’s ‘Konterfrei’ on posters as part of a campaign against the NPD, Husemannplatz, Bochum, 21 February 1970. Foto: Stadt Bochum.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, streets in Hamm, Gelsenkirchen and other towns in the Ruhr region have been named after Fritz Husemann. In Bochum, in addition to the central square in the city centre named after him, the adjacent Husemann Karree and the trade union and SPD buildings in Ehrenfeld, a Stolperstein in front of his former home at 28 Brunsteinstraße also commemorates him.

In an online article dated 15 April 2020 – the 85th anniversary of his murder – the former chairman of the SPD in Bochum, Dr Karsten Rudolph, pays tribute to Fritz Husemann with the following words: “For us today, honouring the memory of Husemann means: standing up for social justice and solidarity, and strengthening democracy and civil liberties, which must apply equally [sic!] to all citizens!”[46]

On the 90th anniversary of Husemann’s death in April 2025, the SPD politician Serdar Yüksel also published an obituary on Facebook.[47] In it, he paid tribute to Fritz Husemann as a resistance fighter and called for vigilance against right-wing extremism and fascism. Yüksel also mentioned that he and other SPD members had visited the Esterwegen memorial, the presumed site of Husemann’s death.

The enduring legacy of Fritz Husemann shows that he remains a significant figure for trade unions and social democrats to this day, particularly in terms of his commitment to human rights, workers’ rights and the upholding of democratic values.

Commemorative plaque at the Fritz Husemann House in Bochum. ©Tim Truschel

Author: Tim Truschel (translation: Magdalena Köhler)

Contact: info@fritz-bauer-forum.de

Sources:

• Beier, Gerhard: Schulter an Schulter, Schritt für Schritt. Lebensläufe dt. Gewerkschafter; von August Bebel bis Theodor Thomas, Köln 1983, S. 85–91.
• Faulenbach, Bernd: Geschichte der SPD. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 1. Aufl., München 2012.
• Gartenverein Fritz Husemann e.V.: Chronik des Vereins, URL: https://www.gartenverein-fritz-husemann.de/chronik-des-vereins/, last retrieved 21.02.2026.
• Grebing, Helga: Husemann, Fritz, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 10 (1974), URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz36110.html#ndbcontent, last retrieved 19.02.2026.
• Hans-Böckler-Stiftung: Friedrich Ernst Husemann, 1873-1935, in: Geschichte der Gewerkschaften, URL: https://www.gewerkschaftsgeschichte.de/biografien-55540-friedrich-ernst-husemann-1873-1935.htm, last retrieved 21.02.2026.
• Hensel, Horst: Rosa Luxemburgs Auftritte im Ruhrgebiet und ihre Teilnahme an der Wahlrechtsdemonstration der SPD vom 10. April 1910 in Kamen, in: Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen 29 (2003), S. 59–68.
• Husemann, Fritz: Letzter Brief Fritz Husemanns vom 11. April 1935, in: Faulenbach, Bernd; Goch, Stefan; Högl, Günther; Rudolph, Karsten: Sozialdemokratie im Wandel. Der Bezirk Westliches Westfalen 1993–2001, Essen 2001, S. 155.
• Jäger, Wolfgang: Fritz Husemann (1873-1935). Der Bergarbeiterführer, in: Faulenbach, Bernd; Högl, Günther; Rudolph, Karsten (Hrsg.): Vom Außenposten zur Hochburg der Sozialdemokratie. Der SPD-Bezirk Westliches Westfalen 1893-1993, Essen 1993, S. 144–146.
• Kreis-Krankenhaus zu Sögel: Krankenbestandliste 1935, S. 125, Nr. 188, Copy provided by the Esterwegen Memorial.
• Lorenz, Robert: Gewerkschaftsdämmerung. Geschichte und Perspektive deutscher Gewerkschaften, 1. Aufl., Bielefeld 2013.
• Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv – Abteilung Oldenburg (NLA OL): Rep 945 Generalstaatsanwaltschaft, Best. 140-4, Nr. 496. Ermittlungsverfahren gegen Unbekannt wegen Ermordung des Schutzhäftlings Friedrich Husemann im Lager Esterwegen 1935. Laufzeit 1964–1965. Az. 1 AR 385/64-3. Alte Archivsignatur: Akz. 13/72 Nr. 48. URL: https://www.arcinsys.niedersachsen.de/arcinsys/detailAction.action?detailid=v677324&icomefrom=search, last retrieved 04.03.2026.
• o. A: Bickelmann: Merkwürdig viel Zeit bei Verfolgung von NS-Straftätern, in: Meppener Tagespost/Emszeitung/Lingener Tagespost, 15.04.1985, Kopie zur Verfügung gestellt durch die Gedenkstätte Esterwegen.
• Rudolph, Karsten: Auf der Flucht erschossen. Erinnerung an die Ermordung Fritz Husemanns vor 85 Jahren, in: SPD Bochum, 15.04.2020, URL: https://www.spd-bochum.de/2020/04/15/auf-der-flucht-erschossen-erinnerung-an-die-ermordung-fritz-husemanns-vor-85-jahren/, last retrieved 02.03.2026.
• SPD: 15. April 1935. Die Nazis töten „den Bergmann schlechthin“, URL: https://www.spd.de/160-jahre/1935-fritz-husemann, last retrieved 21.02.2026.
• Stich, Walter: „auf der Flucht erschossen“. Fritz Husemann – lippischer Wanderarbeiter und deutscher Bergarbeiterführer, in: Heimatland Lippe 2 (2012), S. 36–38.
• Thamer, Hans-Ulrich: Die NSDAP. Von der Gründung bis zum Ende des Dritten Reiches, 1. Aufl., München 2020.
• Yüksel, Serdar: Facebook-Beitrag vom 16. April 2025, in: Facebook, 16.04.2025, URL: https://www.facebook.com/Serdar.SPD/posts/90-todestag-von-fritz-husemann-gedenken-am-fritz-husemann-hausheute-haben-wir-am/1074586297816269/, last retrieved 02.03.2026.

Footnotes: