Thøger Thøgersen

Thøger Ingvard Marius Thøgersen (born February 24, 1885 in Viborg , † December 9, 1947 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish politician . From 1927 to 1929 he was chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark .

Life

Thøgersen grew up in a social democratic family. In early 1902 he was elected chairman of the social democratic youth organization in Viborg. Thøgersen learned the saddlery trade in Viborg and went to Copenhagen as a young journeyman. After the outbreak of World War I , he was expelled from the Social Democrats in 1914 because of his criticism of the approval of war credits. After working in Germany, Thøgersen was active on his return to Denmark in the movement of conscientious objectors ( Danish Militærnægterbevægelsen ) and the union of the union opposition ( Danish Fagoppositionens Sammenslutning ). For both organizations he appeared as an agitator and speaker. Because of his anti-militarist and union involvement, he was arrested several times and sentenced to prison terms.

In 1918 Thøgersen founded the Socialist Workers' Party ( Danish Socialistisk Arbejderparti ) together with Marie Nielsen , which he chaired with Nielsen. He was also the editor of her newspaper Klassekampen . In November 1919 this party went into the Left Socialist Party of Denmark ( Danish Danmarks Venstresocialistiske Parti ). The latter joined the Comintern in 1920 and changed its name to the Communist Party of Denmark ( Danish Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti , DKP). Thøgersen had been a member of the party leadership of the DKP since 1920 and was involved in the directional struggles within the DKP in the 1920s. During the general strike and unrest in Randers in 1922, he was arrested again, but later acquitted. Between August 1927 and 1929 Thøgersen was chairman of the DKP.

Around 1930 there were again directional battles in the DKP between the group around Thøgersen on the one hand and the group around Aksel Larsen on the other. Thøgersen was accused of "right-wing opportunism". The group around Larsen received support from the Comintern, Thøgersen was expelled from the Central Committee in July 1930 and from the party in August 1931. He went to Moscow to have his exclusion from the Comintern examined. Under the condition that he did not disturb party peace again, he was accepted back into the party by the International Control Commission. After his return from the Soviet Union in 1936, Thøgersen took over functions within the party again and was elected to the Central Committee. He became an employee of the party newspaper Arbejderbladet .

In the spring of 1938 arson attacks were carried out on the two Spanish trawlers "Cierco" and "Abrego" in Frederikshavn . Richard Jensen, a member of the Wollweber Organization (Comintern sabotage group against the navy of the fascist states) is said to have given the order. Since Thøgersen was in close contact with Jensen, he too was arrested and charged after the German troops marched into Denmark . In July 1941 Thøgersen was acquitted, but not released as a communist. The illegal party leadership of the DKP expelled him again from the party in 1941 because of his contact with Jensen. Thøgersen spent the next two years partly in Vestre Prison and partly in Horserød internment camp . From autumn 1943 until the end of the war, Thøgersen was imprisoned in the Stutthof concentration camp .

After his liberation, Thøgersen returned to Denmark and was re-admitted to the DKP. He died in 1947 due to his poor health due to his imprisonment in the concentration camp.

Fonts

• Hvorfor et communistisk Parti? 1928.
• Stat, Kommune og Klassekamp . Arbejderforlaget, Copenhagen 1928.

literature

• Thøger Thøgersen . In: Dansk Biografisk Leksikon (Danish).
• Thøger Thøgersen . In: The Danske store. Gyldendals åbne encyclopædie (Danish).
• Albert Jensen: Thøgersen, Thøger . In: Leksikon for det 21. århundrede (Danish).
• Olav Harsløf: Moon groups. Campaigns about arts and socialisms in Denmark 1928–1932 Museum Tusculanum Forlag, Copenhagen 1997, passim.