Bern Conference of the KPD

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The Bern conference of the KPD took place from January 30th to February 1st, 1939 in Draveil near Paris . For conspiratorial reasons, Bern was specified as the venue . The conference is counted as the 14th party congress of the KPD .

background

At the second conference of the Communist Party after the takeover of the Nazis 22 Communist officials took in Germany exclusively from exile in part (including Adolf Deter , Arthur Emmerlich , Gerhart Eisler , Erich Jungmann , Wilhelm ankle , Otto Niebergall , Willi Seng and Kurt Steffelbauer ). The main speech was given by Wilhelm Pieck .

Against the background of the fact that the organized communist resistance in Germany had collapsed, the purpose of the conference was to assess the implementation of the decisions of the Brussels Conference of the KPD and to analyze the immediate danger of war emanating from fascist Germany. In addition, the party's strategy and tactics should be further developed in accordance with the changed situation, taking into account the experience gained through the Popular Front in Spain and France.

decisions

The Bern conference called on all German anti-fascists to unite in order to overthrow Hitler and prevent an impending war. The conference further developed the strategy and tactics adopted at the Brussels conference and called a program for the creation of a democratic republic after the fall of fascism. A new democratic republic was to be created through the combined efforts of all opponents of Hitler in a popular front. The material basis of fascism was supposed to be eliminated through the expropriation of monopoly capital. This included such central demands as the expropriation of monopoly capital and the implementation of land reform . The Bern conference unanimously decided to add personnel to the central committee of the party and the resolution The Road to the Overthrow of Hitler and the Struggle for the New Democratic Republic . The leaders of the German social democracy were criticized because, in the opinion of the KPD, they seriously hindered the creation of the united front of the working class and its anti-fascist popular front. The resolution passed at the conference to win the majority of the people for the socialist goal contained the program for the first stage on the way to the conquest of political power by the working class in Germany.

The communists in Germany had almost no knowledge of these resolutions, as the corresponding documents only reached Germany in small numbers and were not widely distributed there. Since there was hardly any exchange of views among the KPD members living in illegality, the resolutions often met with incomprehension and rejection.

literature

  • Klaus Mammach (Ed.): The Bern Conference of the KPD . Dietz Berlin 1974.
  • Meyer's Universal Lexicon. Volume 1, VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1978, pp. 262/263.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Wilke (Ed.): Anatomy of the party headquarters. The KPD / SED on the way to power. Akademie Verlag Berlin 1998. ISBN 978-3-05-003220-7 .