Paul Levi

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Paul Levi (1920 to 1925)

Paul Levi (born March 11, 1883 in Hechingen , † February 9, 1930 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and left-wing socialist politician . In addition to Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Liebknecht a . a. he was one of the co-founders of the KPD and its chairman from March 1919 to 1921, before he was expelled from the party due to internal party differences, then joined the USPD and shortly afterwards returned to the SPD .

Life

Paul Levi came from a bourgeois-liberal Jewish family from Hechingen in Hohenzollern. He completed his law studies in 1905 ( Berlin , Heidelberg , Grenoble ) with a doctorate on the subject of the relationship between administrative complaints and administrative actions and in 1909 settled in Frankfurt am Main as a lawyer . In the same year Levi, who saw himself as a socialist since high school, joined the SPD. He counted himself on the left wing of the party.

In 1913 Levi defended Rosa Luxemburg against charges of "inciting soldiers to disobey" in court. In 1914 he was briefly in a relationship with Rosa Luxemburg. During the First World War he joined the inner-party revolutionary " Spartakusgruppe ", which from 1917 fought the truce policy of the reformist parent party under Friedrich Ebert as part of the USPD .

KPD

Levi, along with Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, was one of the founders of the KPD, which was made up of the Spartakusbund and other left-wing revolutionary groups at the turn of the year 1918/19. As the successor to Leo Jogiches , who was murdered on March 10, 1919 , he took over their chairmanship. At the Heidelberg party congress in October 1919, he pushed through the participation of the KPD in elections. His rigid course against the majority of party members led to the split of the KAPD and the establishment of council communism . On the other hand, in 1920 it enabled the union with large parts of the USPD to form the VKPD . Levi rejected the so-called "offensive strategy", which found a majority supported by Comintern representatives in the leadership of the VKPD in February 1921 . He resigned from the chairmanship of the VKPD at the end of February.

In the brochure Our Way. Against the putschism , Levi publicly criticized the putschist tactics of the KPD in the March uprising in 1921. After he upheld this criticism of the German and international leadership of the Communists, he was expelled from the KPD at the instigation of the majority of the Comintern leadership around Zinoviev . Lenin , chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, the government of the Soviet Union, regretted that Levi ended up as a “deviator”: “Levi lost his head. He was, however, the only one in Germany who had someone to lose. ”Levi and others who had been excluded from the VKPD and who left the VKPD, such as Ernst Däumig , formed the Communist Working Group (KAG).

In this context, Levi also published Rosa Luxemburg's previously unknown book The Revolution in Russia , which she wrote in prison in September and October 1918. It contained her sharp criticism of the Bolsheviks: “ Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently. “In response to this criticism of Lenin's cadre concept, Rosa Luxemburg was later accused by Stalin of“ spontaneously ”.

Back to the SPD

Via the remainder of the USPD, which the KAG joined in spring 1922, Levi returned to the SPD in 1922 after it was partially merged with the MSPD . There he was one of the most important figures of the left and Marxist wing.

From 1923 he published his own correspondence: Socialist Politics and Economy . This went on in 1928 in the magazine Der Klassenkampf , of which Levi was an editor until his death.

In 1924, together with other Marxists, he founded the Social Science Association (SWV), a non-party association whose aim was to discuss and convey Marxist approaches. This also gave rise to the Red Fighters organization .

Many of Levi's political friends joined the SAPD in 1931 . Levi remained a member of the Reichstag, but devoted himself particularly to investigating the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, despite the associated mortal danger. But as cultivated and ambitious as Levi was, he didn't know fear. As a brilliant speaker, he was feared by his opponents in court and in parliament.

In 1930 Levi was preparing for a review of an insult by Paul Jorns , the investigating public prosecutor in the Luxembourg murder case and Liebknecht in 1919, against Josef Bornstein , the chief editor of the magazine Das Tage-Buch . In one issue the journalist Berthold Jacob anonymously published an article against the machinations of Jorns under the title “colleague Jorns ”, in which the public prosecutor was accused of “delaying the investigation and covering up the murders”. In the first instance, Levi obtained an acquittal of the accused journalist and gained new information about the cover-up of the murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht through inspection of the files.

End of life

Paul Levi's grave in the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof

At the beginning of February 1930 he fell ill with febrile pneumonia . On February 9, 1930, under unexplained circumstances, he fell out of the window of his attic apartment at 37 Lützowufer in Berlin and succumbed to his injuries.

Karl Retzlaw , who visited him the day before his death, wrote in his biography: “Levi had the apartment expanded, including a narrow, high window that went down to the floor in the Parisian style and that could only be opened to the outside . In front of it was only a knee-high grille. I am convinced that the accident happened when Levi tried to open the window, he probably got dizzy and fell into the depths. "

In the Reichstag he was thought of with a minute's silence, to which the MPs rose. The members of the KPD and NSDAP parliamentary groups demonstratively left the room.

Paul Levi was buried in the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf . His grave is dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honorary grave .

Works

  • The relationship between administrative complaint and administrative action, Karl Rössler's printing works, Heidelberg 1905. (digitized version)
  • Our way. Against Putschism , Seehof, Berlin 1921.
  • What is the crime? The March campaign or the criticism of it? Speech at the meeting of the Central Committee of the VKPD on May 4, 1921 , Seehof, Berlin 1921. (marxismus-online.eu)
  • Expert reports and what then? For domestic and foreign policy orientation , Zentralvertrieb Zeitgeschichtlicher Bücher GmbH, Berlin 1924 (digitized version)
  • The Jorns Trial. Speech by defense attorney Paul Levi with introduction , Internationale Verlags-Anstalt, Berlin 1929.
  • Charlotte Beradt (Ed.): Between Spartacus and Social Democracy. Writings, essays, speeches and letters , Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1969.
  • David Fernbach (Ed.): In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg . Selected Writings of Paul Levi . Brill , Leiden and Boston 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-19607-0 .
  • Collected writings, speeches and letters. Volume II / 1 and II / 2: Without a drop of lackey's blood. Journal Social Democracy, Socialist Politics and Economics. Reprint of the SPW magazine, Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2016.
  • Collected writings, speeches and letters. Volumes I / 1 and I / 2: Without a drop of lackey's blood. Spartacus. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2018.

literature

  • Charlotte Beradt: Paul Levi. A democratic socialist in the Weimar Republic . Frankfurt / M. 1969.
  • Charlotte Beradt (Ed.): Paul Levi: Between Spartacus and Social Democracy, writings, essays, speeches and letters . Frankfurt / M. 1969.
  • Charles Bloch : Paul Levi - A symbol of the tragedy of left socialism in the Weimar Republic. In: Walter Grab , Julius H. Schoeps (ed.): Jews in the Weimar Republic . 2nd edition, Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 978-3-89678-074-4 , pp. 244-262.
  • Frédéric Cyr: Paul Levis Kampf um die KPD , in: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue I / 2010, p. 115 ff.
  • Volker Gransow , Michael R. Krätke : From the "coalition popo", from anti-socialist practices and impractical socialists. Paul Levi or Dilemmas of Left Socialists in Social Democracy. In: Solidarity community and class struggle . Edited by Richard Saage. Frankfurt am Main 1986, pp. 134-148.
  • Michael R. Krätke: Paul Levi (1883–1930). The last knight. In: Socialist Politics and Economy (SPW). No. 100, 1998, pp. 31-38
  • Sibylle Quack: Spiritually free and no one's servant - Paul Levi / Rosa Luxemburg. Cologne 1983.
  • Thilo Scholle: Paul Levi. Left Socialist - Lawyer - Reichstag Member , Hentrich & Hentrich 2017, ISBN 978-3-95565-200-5 .
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
  • Hermann Weber:  Levi, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 397 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Levi, Paul . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Web links

Wikisource: Paul Levi  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Paul Levi  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Levi: Our way. Against Putschism - online at marxists internet archive; Links to the individual chapters
  2. ↑ Charles Bloch: Paul Levi - a symbol of the tragedy of left socialism in the Weimar Republic . In: Walter Grab, Julius H. Schoeps (ed.): Jews in the Weimar Republic . Burg-Verlag, Sachsenheim 1986, ISBN 3-922801-94-3 , pp. 244–262, quotation p. 249.
  3. ^ Karl Retzlaw: Spartacus . New Critique Verlag, Frankfurt 1971, p. 134, ISBN 3-8015-0096-9
  4. ↑ This part of the street is called Katharina-Heinroth-Ufer today . The house no longer exists; it was only a few hundred meters away from the place where Rosa Luxemburg's body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal on January 15, 1919.
  5. ^ Karl Retzlaw: Spartacus . New Critique Verlag, Frankfurt 1971, pp. 334–335, ISBN 3-8015-0096-9
personal data
SURNAME Levi, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (KPD, USPD, SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Hechingen
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1930
Place of death Berlin