Arthur Hammer

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Arthur Hammer (also Artur Hammer ; born May 30, 1884 in Essen ; † April 6, 1942 in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp ) was a German KPD functionary and trade unionist .

Life

The employee Hammer became a member of the Spartakusbund in Essen. After the November Revolution he was a member of the city's workers and soldiers' council . Hammer was a delegate from Essen at the founding party convention of the KPD (December 30, 1918 - January 1, 1919) in Berlin and was elected one of the secretaries there. He was a co-founder and chairman of the Essen communists. On the initiative of the USPD beginning of February one of the three workers' parties equal composite "Thirty men College" to its chairman next formed in Essen 1919 Josef Orlopp (1st Chairman, USPD), August Siemsen (2nd Chairman, MSPD ) Arthur Hammer ( Editor, KPD) belonged. The alliance quickly broke up, however, because the ideas of the three workers' parties were too different.

On the III. At the KPD party convention in Karlsruhe (February 25-26, 1920), Hammer was elected as a candidate for the KPD headquarters. He was a delegate at the unification party congress of the KPD with the USPD (Left) in December 1920 in Berlin.

Hammer was a leader in the Free Workers' Union (Gelsenkirchen direction) from 1919 , which then merged into the Union of Hand and Mind Workers (UdHuK) in 1921 and joined the Red Trade Union International (RGI) at the international level . Hammer was at times also responsible editor of the UdHuK central organ Union . In March 1922 Hammer and Hermann Vogenbeck, also UdHuK member, took part on behalf of the RGI at the congress of the Dutch federation, Nationaal Arbeids-Secretariaat (NAS), in order to promote the membership of the NAS in the RGI. In March 1924 he opposed the union policy of the “ultra-left” KPD leadership around Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow . When the UdHuK was to be transferred to the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV) in 1925 - after a change of course in the KPD, which now provided for the participation of the communists in the free trade unions (the KPD hoped for a communist majority in the DMV in the Rhineland district -Westfalen) - resisted Hammer and left the KPD because of these differences.

After that he continued to work in union functions and worked as a bookseller and agent. In 1931 Hammer joined the social democratic " Iron Front ".

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Hammer took part in the resistance in Essen and in the Ruhr area. In March 1936 Hammer was arrested after a denunciation and sentenced on August 7, 1936 by a special court in Essen to one year and six months in prison for “violating the treachery law ”. He was arrested again in September 1939. Hammer was initially imprisoned in Essen prison, then was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and finally to Groß-Rosen concentration camp in March 1942 . There he was murdered on April 6, 1942.

Hammer's estate is in the Ernst Schmidt archive, which is currently located in the Ruhrland Museum in Essen.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Weber (ed.): The founding party congress of the KPD. Protocol and materials . European Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 49
  2. ^ Herbert Kühr: Parties and elections in the city and district of Essen during the Weimar Republic (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties , vol. 49). Droste, Düsseldorf 1973, p. 197.
  3. ↑ Gerrit Voerman: De meridiaan van Moskou. De CPN en de Communist International (1919–1930) . LJ Veen, Amsterdam / Antwerp 2001, p. 170
  4. ^ Hermann Weber: The change of German communism . Volume 1. European Publishing House, Stuttgart 1969, p. 68.
  5. ↑ Larry Peterson: German Communism, Workers' Protest, and Labor Unions. The Politics of the United Front in Rhineland-Westphalia 1920-1924 . Kluwer, Dordrecht 1993, p. 175.
  6. ↑ Ernst Schmidt even identifies him as a member of the SPD; see. Lights in the dark. Resistance u. Persecution in Essen 1933–1945: experiences, reports, research, conversations . Volume 2. Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, p. 102.
  7. ↑ see The Archivist . 59th volume, July 2006, issue 3 (PDF file; 674 kB), p. 249.
personal data
SURNAME Hammer, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammer, Artur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD functionary and trade unionist (UdHuk)
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1942
Place of death Groß-Rosen concentration camp