Ernst Meyer (politician)

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Portrait of Ernst Meyer as a student, ca.1905

Ernst Meyer (born July 10, 1887 in Prostken , East Prussia , † February 2, 1930 in Potsdam ) was a German , communist politician and temporarily chairman of the KPD .

Life

Meyer, who came from a religiously oriented working-class family and studied philosophy, psychology and economics in Königsberg and Berlin (doctorate in 1910), joined the SPD in 1908 , was promoted by Hugo Haase and from 1913 was a member of the editorial team of the party organ Vorwärts . During this time he was sentenced to several months' imprisonment for lese majesty due to an article . Counting to the left wing of the SPD and the burgfriedenspolitik dismissive of the party Meyer in 1915 from the forward-editorial away and was among the participants of the conferences in Zimmerwald and Kiental and was co-founder of the Spartacus League and the Communist Party. The name " Spartacus " was suggested by him. After the Spartacus uprising , he was temporarily detained.

From 1919 to 1923 Meyer was part of the party leadership, in 1921 he acted as editor-in-chief of the Rote Fahne and as successor to Paul Levi at times as party chairman until autumn 1922 and was jointly responsible for the united front policy of the following years after the Central German uprising . From 1921 to 1924 and from 1928 to 1930 he also represented the KPD in the Prussian state parliament . After he was no longer elected to the party leadership in 1923 as a result of the ultra-left turn of the KPD under the leadership of Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow , his influence increased again in the years 1926 to 1927, so was Meyer, who was within the party together with Arthur Ewert and Gerhart Eisler was one of the leaders of the group of Compromisers , responsible for a pragmatic policy aimed at cooperation with the SPD, for example in the context of the campaign for the expropriation of princes . Re-elected to the leadership in 1927, the influence of Meyer, who suffered from tuberculosis in the same year, diminished rapidly after a renewed “ultra-left”, ie Moscow-loyal, Stalinist turn of the party under the leadership of Ernst Thalmann from 1928 on.

Karl Retzlaw , who knew him well, wrote in his biography: “He was a highly intelligent, educated man, his presentations testified to his unusual knowledge, but they were devoid of any warmth, and he did not participate in popular assemblies or in larger meetings of his own party radiated the power of persuasion without which a leader of a revolutionary party would be inconceivable. "

From 1927 Meyer had to stay several times in lung sanatoriums in the Soviet Union and Switzerland, in his last major public appearance on the occasion of the KPD party congress in June 1929, he once again took a stand against the social fascism thesis and the associated policies of Thälmann and Heinz Neumann . A short time later Meyer had to be hospitalized in the lung sanatorium of the Hoffbauer Foundation in Potsdam- Hermannswerder , where he died six months later.

Since 1922 Meyer was married to the communist politician and author Rosa Meyer-Leviné , the widow of Eugen Leviné .

Works

  • Political oppression . Berlin 1926
  • Spartacus in the war. The illegal leaflets of the Spartakusbund in the war. Berlin 1927

literature

  • Rosa Meyer-Leviné: In the inner circle. Memories of a communist in Germany from 1920–1933 . Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-462-01322-X (contains a lot of incorporated material from Ernst Meyer's estate)
  • Hermann Weber:  Meyer, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 322 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Florian Wilde: "Freedom of discussion is absolutely necessary within our party" - The relationship of KPD chairman Ernst Meyer to inner-party democracy in 1921/22. In: Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism 2006, pp. 168–184.
  • Florian Wilde: Ernst Meyer (1887–1930) - forgotten leader of German communism. A political biography. , Dissertation, Hamburg 2012 ( full text )
  • Meyer, Ernst . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
  • Florian Wilde: Revolution as Realpolitik . Ernst Meyer (1887–1930) - biography of a KPD chairman, Konstanz and Munich May 2018, ISBN 978-3-86764-773-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Retzlaw: Spartakus - Aufstieg und Niedergang, remembrance of a party worker, New Criticism publishing house, Frankfurt 1971, p. 41, ISBN 3-8015-0096-9
  2. ^ Karl Retzlaw: Spartakus - Aufstieg und Niedergang, remembrance of a party worker, New Criticism publishing house, Frankfurt 1971, p. 223, ISBN 3-8015-0096-9
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION communist politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheers
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 1930
Place of death Potsdam