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Fritz Wilhelm Maxin (17 July 1885 – 5 March 1960) was a German politician and lay preacher.

Biography

Maxin was born into a peasant family in the Masurian village of Wichrowitz (today Wichrowiec, Poland), where he visited school and worked on his family's farm. He married in 1913 and became engaged as a lay preacher of the gromadki-movement in the East Prussian Lutheran Prayer Community (Ostpreußischer Lutherischer Gebetsverein).

After World War I he joined the German National People's Party (DNVP) and was elected as deputy of the Constituency 1 (East Prussia) to the Weimar German Reichstag. Maxin was a member of the Reichstag in 1921 till 1924 and became the Chairman of the Wichrowitz commune and member of the district parliament of Neidenburg.

After the Nazis took over power in Germany in 1933, his citizens involvement was prohibited and Maxin joined the oppositional old-Prussian Confessing Church in 1934. He became a member of the Brethren Council of Confessing Church and organized Lutheran youth camps and Church services on his farm, which caused permanent supervision by the Gestapo.

In 1945 Maxin fled to Western Germany, where he died in Stade in 1960.

References

1. ^ Andreas Kossert: Masuren. Ostpreussens vergessener Süden, 2001, p. 336.
2. ^ Martin Jend, Helmut Kowalewski, Marc Patrik Plessa (Hg.): Festschrift für Bernhard Maxin zum 80. Geburtstag. Schriften der Genealogischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neidenburg und Ortelsburg Nr. 18, Seeheim-Malchen, 2008
3. Hugo Linck: Der Kirchenkampf in Ostpreussen, 1933 bis 1945: Geschichte und Dokumentation. 1968, S. 139

• 1885 births
• 1960 deaths
• People from Nidzica County
• Politicians from East Prussia
• German Protestants
• German National People's Party politicians
• Members of the Reichstag 1920–1924