Franz Feuchtwanger

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Franz Feuchtwanger (born June 6, 1908 in Munich , † February 1, 1991 in Mexico City ) was a German art historian and political functionary of the KPD .

Life and activity

Youth and Early Political Activity

Feuchtwanger was a son of the lawyer Max Feuchtwanger. The writer Lion Feuchtwanger was one of his relatives .

Even though he came from a middle-class, monarchist family, Feuchtwanger made contact with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during his school days at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , where he graduated from high school in 1927. In July 1925 Feuchtwanger joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD).

In 1927 Feuchtwanger began studying law and economics in Munich. In 1928 he came into contact with Hans Kippenberger , who brought him to work in the anti-militarist apparatus (AM apparatus), the KPD's intelligence service. One of his first tasks was the reorganization of the party's defense apparatus in Munich. Also in 1928 Feuchtwanger was admitted to the district leadership of South Bavaria of the KPD, in which he held the position of polling officer from June to October 1928.

At the end of 1928 Feuchtwanger moved to Berlin, where he worked for the head office of the AM apparatus in the attic of the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus . During a trip to Munich in 1929 he was arrested while attending an illegal meeting of officials of the Red Front Fighters League and was expelled from Munich University. He then went to Berlin for good, where he continued to work in the AM apparatus.

At the end of April 1930 Feuchtwanger was sentenced by the Reichsgericht to fifteen months' imprisonment for preparation for high treason, which he spent at the Landsberg Fortress . In the late summer of 1931 he returned to Berlin, where he passed his economics exams at the end of 1932. In 1932 Feuchtwanger became a full-time functionary of the AM apparatus and head of the SPD department.

Life in Emigration (1933 to 1940)

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Feuchtwanger fled abroad: in the late autumn of 1933 he was sent to Moscow, where he took part in an M course. In 1934 he was sent to Germany via Vienna and Zurich to work illegally.

On the occasion of the party-internal disputes over the direction of the party at the end of 1934, Feuchtwanger was disciplined as a supporter of the Schubert - Schulte faction at the instigation of Walter Ulbricht on the charge of having been involved in activities against the party line. Another trip to Moscow was made impossible for him. In 1935 the AM apparatus was disbanded. In August 1936 he was informed of his expulsion from the party.

During a trip to Amsterdam he was arrested in April 1935 and expelled to Belgium. In the further course of the 1930s he lived in Prague, where he made contact with the left-wing socialist group Neubeginnen . In 1938 Feuchtwanger moved to Paris. In September 1939 he was interned on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II.

In the meantime, the National Socialist police officers classified Feuchtwanger as an enemy of the state after his emigration: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who would be removed from the British Isles in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Occupation troops following special SS commandos should be located and arrested with special priority.

Moved to Mexico

In June / July 1940, in view of the German occupation of France, Feuchtwanger fled to the unoccupied zone of the country, from where he reached Portugal via Spain . From there he was able to get a ship passage to Cuba , from where he moved to Mexico in September 1941. There he was involved in the Liga ProCultru Alemana (until he finally turned away from politics in 1943) and studied precortesian archeology well into old age.

In 1981 Feuchtwanger published his memories of the KPD's military-political apparatus in the period from 1928 to 1935 in the journal Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der German Arbeitsverbewegung.

Fonts

  • The KPD's military-political apparatus in the years 1928-1935. Memories. In: International Scientific Correspondence on the History of the German Labor Movement (IWK), Volume 17, Issue 4, Dec. 1981, pp. 485-533
  • Art in ancient Mexico , 1960 (with Irmgard Groth Kiball)
  • Cerámica olmeca , 1989.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report on the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich 1926/27.
personal data
SURNAME Feuchtwanger, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and political functionary of the KPD
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1991
Place of death Mexico city