Gustav Sobottka, Jr.

Gustav Sobottka, Jr. (10 April 1915 – 22 September 1940) was a German communist and the son of Communist Party functionary and trade unionist Gustav Sobottka. He spent several months in Nazi concentration camps, then left Germany, eventually living in exile in the Soviet Union. He was arrested by the Soviet secret police at the age of 23 and accused of being part of the so-called Hitler Youth Conspiracy. Sobottka died in a Soviet prison.

Gustav Sobottka, Jr. was the younger son of Henriette "Jettchen" (née Schantowski) and Gustav Sobottka, a trade unionist and prominent Communist Party functionary. He had a sister and an older brother and was baptized in the Lutheran church in Röhlinghausen, today a district in Herne. His older brother was named Bernhard Sobottka (6 June 1911 – 20 July 1945).

Sobottka attended gymnasium in Germany and joined the Communist Youth in 1929. After the Nazis seized power, the Communist Party (German: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD) was outlawed, but Sobottka continued working for the party. He was arrested by the Gestapo on 11 August 1933 and was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Oranienburg and Sonnenburg. He was released at the end of the year and fled to the Saarland, then under foreign occupation. He continued on to Paris, where his father had fled. His father was called to Moscow in 1935 and he and his mother made their way there at the end of 1935. His brother remained in Germany, working underground for the KPD. He was later arrested and sent to a concentration camp. In 1937, he, his brother and his parents were all expatriated by the Nazis.

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