Bernhard Lamp

Bernhard Lamp (born April 12, 1881 in Kiel , † December 26, 1920 in Eickelborn ) was a German lawyer and anarchist . When the general strike was called as a result of the Kapp Putsch on March 13, 1920 , he and his supporters occupied the courthouse and the Bergisch-Märkische Zeitung in Elberfeld . He brought out two newspapers, but was not recognized by the Elberfeld Action Committee. In August 1920 he was attacked by an explosives on the mailbox of the Bendahl prisonaccused and imprisoned. Lamp died on a hunger strike .

Life

Bernhard Lamp was a son of the Kiel astronomer Ernst August Lamp (1850-1901). After attending school in Potsdam , Lamp studied law in Lausanne and Berlin . He became a lawyer, settled in Elberfeld and initially joined the communists after the November Revolution of 1918 . The historian Erhard Lucas characterizes Lamp "as a distinct loner with high-flying goals, at the same time quite exalted and emotional", which it did not last long there.

Lamp became a member of the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) and took part in the general strike in the Rhenish industrial area after the Kapp Putsch of March 13, 1920. The Elberfeld Action Committee, to which members of the SPD , KPD and USPD belonged equally , had supported radical demands for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialization of industry in its call for a general strike . After armed workers had succeeded on March 17, the troops of the commander of Section II of the neutral zone, General Bruno von Gillhaussen (1862-1928), including members of the Freikorps Lützow and Hacketau and two hundred security police , to retreat from the To force the city, the action committee called on the following day to resume work. While the King James workers did not follow this call and until March 22, the work stayed away, Lamp made two sensational actions: Outraged, the court officials is that not participating in the general strike, he occupied on March 18 with his followers the Office - and District court . He declared the officers on leave and sent them home. On March 19, Lamp posted a manifesto on the new administration of justice at the courthouse. He also took part in a meeting of the printers of the Bergisch-Märkische Zeitung. Lamp proposed the publication of a party newspaper and, together with the workers, occupied the newspaper whose editors had supported Kapp . On the same day, at a mass meeting on the parade ground, he was appointed People's Representative for the Socialization of Justice and the Press.

The appearance of the first issue of the new newspaper, which Lamp called the direct action in the west , was initially prevented by the Elberfeld Action Committee. Lamp succeeded in getting this issue to appear on March 23, along with another newspaper he had written, entitled The Surf . Like the Elberfeld Action Committee, Lamp called for the dictatorship of the proletariat on the basis of the council system and immediate socialization. At the same time he criticized the decision of the action committee to break off the general strike. In the press department, he wanted to publish a daily newspaper that the printing workers had a say in terms of content and that anyone could work on free of charge. The action committee distanced itself from Lamp.

Lamp also worked, albeit not in charge, on the “cultural-political daily newspaper for the socialist new territory”, The Creation , published on March 28 , from which FAUD also distanced itself.

Because of his actions during the Ruhr uprising, Lamp was excluded from the Elberfeld Lawyers' Association . He gained public attention as a defender in the so-called Weißensee communist trial . In August 1920 he was arrested after strangers blew up the mailbox at the regional court prison in Elberfeld and imprisoned in Werl prison.

Lamp was charged with violating the Explosives Act and with high treason . Five witnesses to the allegations appeared in his trial, but their statements turned out to be contradictory. The prosecution called a prostitute as another witness who testified that Lamp had told her that he had blown up the mailbox. When Lamps had no contact with his lawyer, his cell was searched and books and letters were confiscated in his absence, he went on a hunger strike. Despite a solidarity campaign, he remained imprisoned and was finally transferred to the Eickelborn psychiatric institution . Here he died on December 26, 1920 of bilateral pneumonia .

Lamp's case caused a sensation in the Rhineland and Westphalia and was brought up by the USPD MP Paul Sauerbrey on January 26, 1921 in the Reichstag .

literature

• Ulrich Klan and Dieter Nelles: »There's still a flame alive«. Rhenish anarcho-syndicalists in the Weimar Republic and under fascism. Nevertheless-Verl., Grafenau-Döffingen 1986, ISBN 3-922209-72-6 , pp. 78-88.
• Gerhard Werner: Bernhard Lamp, the forerunner of Holger Meins . In: Generalanzeiger Wuppertal , December 13, 1974.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erhard Lucas: March Revolution 1920. The armed workers' uprising in the Ruhr area in its internal structure and in its relationship to the class struggles in the various regions of the empire. Verlag Roter Stern, Frankfurt / Main 1973, ISBN 3-87877-064-2 , p. 40.
2. ↑ Ulrich Klan and Dieter Nelles: "There is still a flame alive". Rhenish anarcho-syndicalists in the Weimar Republic and under fascism. Nevertheless-Verl., Grafenau-Döffingen 1986, ISBN 3-922209-72-6 , p. 83 f.
3. ↑ Paul Sauerbrey. In: Reichstag protocols, 1920/24, 4, 57th session, January 26, 1921, here p. 2146, ( online ).