Eugen Scheyer
Eugen Scheyer (born September 30, 1899 in Königsberg , † February 19, 1957 in Bonn ) was a German socialist politician.
Life
Scheyer attended high school in his hometown Königsberg, which he left prematurely in 1914. He became Germany's youngest war volunteer . During the war he met the Danish editor Kresten Refslund Thomsen from Aabenraa , who influenced him politically as an opponent of the war . In 1916 Eugen Scheyer was shot in the chest. Thomsen saved him at the risk of his own life.
At Easter 1917, Scheyer came to Berlin to continue studying at a high school graduate course for those involved in the war. Here he made contact with several groups of war opponents, in particular he attended the meetings of the "International Socialists of Germany" under the leadership of Julian Borchardt . He joined the "International Student Association" headed by Dr. Gumpel and belonged to the circle of radical artists and intellectuals around Franz Pfemfert .
Together with Martin Hoffmann, he organized anti-war campaigns in Königsberg. The political police observed these activities and arrested Scheyer and his joy. In February 1918 he was tried before a court martial for preparation for high treason . The process gained him many sympathizers in Königsberg. Defender was Theodor Liebknecht , with whom he worked in the USPD after 1922. Scheyer was convicted and was imprisoned in a fortress in Groß-Strehlitz . With him and Martin Hoffmann, Wilhelm Dittmann , a functionary of the party executive of the USPD , was in custody at the same time.
On 9 November 1918. ( November Revolution ) organized Scheyer and his friends a demonstration and called on the masses, with the Königsberg Castle to draw and to overthrow the commander. Among them was the officer Erich Wollenberg . On November 10, 1918, at two o'clock and five minutes, Eugen Scheyer proclaimed the Socialist Republic from the window of the government building in Königsberg. Eugen Scheyer wrote about the revolution in his 1947 memoirs, but also Wilhelm Matull. In the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council , he became Justice Commissioner for East Prussia. In December 1918, the organizational secretary of the Spartakusbund , Leo Jogiches , appointed Eugen Scheyer as chairman of the Spartakusbund in Königsberg.
After the occupation of Königsberg by government troops and the disempowerment of the workers 'and soldiers' councils in May 1919, Scheyer fled together with Werner Rakow from Königsberg to Berlin. The party chairman of the Spartakusbund, Paul Levi , appointed him party secretary for the Hanover and surrounding area. He was given a new identity as Kurt Raabe. In the same year, Scheyer alias Raabe was arrested in Hanover for allegedly participating in the railway strike, but was released again.
The headquarters of the Spartakusbund then sent him to Vienna , where he supported the Communist Party of German-Austria ( KPDÖ ) with Karl Tomann as chairman from August 1919 to March 1920. He was arrested in Vienna for "threatening murder" and then imprisoned.
In the prison he met the co-incarcerated chairman of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, Max Levien , and the chairman of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Béla Kun .
With another new identity as Josef Klein, he left Austria and was employed as a Spartacus agitator in Silesia . In 1921 he was elected District Secretary of the United Communist Party of Germany there. In February 1921 he was arrested for alleged breach of the peace. In September 1921, the hearing before the Breslau jury took place and he was acquitted.
In 1922 Eugen Scheyer was expelled from the VKPD. He was then a member of the USPD until 1925.
In May 1933 Scheyer and later his wife Margarete (Grete), née Dreschoff from Drengfurt / East Prussia via Latvia , Denmark and Russia to Norway , where he arrived in Oslo in 1935. In 1936 he was expatriated from Germany.
In 1936 Scheyer supported the Popular Front government in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and was head of infantry training for the youth brigades of the Catalan trade unions. Here he fought with Guido Kopp.
In 1939 he received a work permit as a construction worker in Oslo and also published a trade union information sheet.
After the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, he fled to Sweden in April 1940, where he was first interned in a camp in Loka Brunn. From there he fled to Stockholm, where he was allowed to work as a construction worker again from June 1942 due to his membership in the Oslo Stone, Earth and Cement Workers' Association.
After the end of the war he returned to Oslo in August 1945, where he received Norwegian citizenship in September 1946.
In Oslo he could no longer gain a foothold as a construction worker and in the following years tried to earn his living with articles as a freelance journalist, which he published in Scandinavia and West Germany.
In February 1952 he moved from Oslo to Bonn, where he died in 1957.
His attempts to regain a political personality in post-war Germany, like in East Prussia and Breslau around 1920, failed because he had become a passionate enemy of Moscow Communism and did not want to be reconciled with the SPD, which, along with Noske and Ebert, honored people who were his Spartacus comrades of their youth had fought.
literature
- Patrik von zur Mühlen: Spain was your hope. Dietz, 1991, ISBN 3-8012-3012-0 .
- Ingeborg Refslund Thomsen : Hemme i Nordslesvig. Gyldendal, Copenhagen 1962.
- Eugen Scheyer: Childhood and November Revolution in Königsberg 1899-1919. Amazon e-book
- Eugen Scheyer: As a revolutionary agitator in Hanover, Vienna and Breslau 1919 to 1922. Amazon e-book
- Eugen Scheyer: A refugee experiences Norway; Oslo 1935–1947. Amazon e-book
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The youngest Jewish soldier. Document excerpt from the Leo Leo Baek Institute. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
- ↑ Martin Hoffmann in: https://www.bundesstiftung-aufteilung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363;-1424.html?ID=4483
- ^ Wilhelm Matull: "East Prussia workers movement, history and performance at a glance" . Ed .: Hölzner Verlag, Würzburg 1970.
- ↑ Werner Rakow in: https://www.bundesstiftung-aufteilung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363%3B-1424.html?ID=4931
- ↑ Die Rote Fahne No. 154, Vienna, Saturday November 15, 1919, p. 7. http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=drf&daten=19191115&zoom=33
- ↑ Eugen Scheyer passed away. In: Ostpreußenblatt. March 16, 1957. (archiv.preussische-allgemeine.de)
- ↑ Deutscher Reichs-Anzeiger and Königlich Prussischer Staats-Anzeiger Deutscher Reichsanzeiger and Prussischer Staatsanzeiger 1936,171. Retrieved January 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Guido Kopp entry in the city archive of the city of Rosenheim. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Scheyer, Eugene |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German communist politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 30, 1899 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Koenigsberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | 19th February 1957 |
| Place of death | Bonn |