Otto Schmirgal

Who was Otto Schmirgal?

Otto Schmirgal was a German workman, politician, and a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime.

Schmirgal was born in Bentschen in the Province of Posen. In the mid-1920s, he was employed at the Berliner Verkehrsgesellschaft. A member of the Communist Party of Germany from 1925, he was elected as its candidate to the Prussian Landtag in 1932. He was among the strike leaders when the BVG's workforce struck that same year. He was repeatedly arrested by Nazi authorities and detained in Nazi concentration camps. During the Second World War, he worked in the antifascist group about Robert Uhrig. In February 1942, he was once more arrested, in September 1944 sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof, and executed. His grave is to be found at the Seestraße city urn cemetery in Berlin-Wedding.