Fritz Bieligk

Fritz Bieligk (born October 26, 1893 in Freiberg ; † 1967 ) was a German journalist and politician ( SPD ).

Life

Bieligk completed an apprenticeship as a graphic designer and later began working as a journalist. In 1908 he became a member of the workers' youth movement and in 1911 he joined the SPD . His military service in 1913 was followed by participation in the First World War .

In 1919 Bieligk became editor of the People's Newspaper for South West Saxony of the USPD Plauen , where he was chairman of the workers 'and soldiers' council during the Kapp Putsch . After his return to the SPD, he was editor-in-chief of the Volkszeitung for Vogtland and a member of the Saxon party leadership. In 1928 he worked as a political editor for the Leipziger Volkszeitung . Between 1927 and 1931 he belonged to the social democratic left around the class struggle group and, like Paul Levi, worked for the left-wing socialist organ "The Class Struggle". After the German Socialist Workers' Party split off in 1931, he and Karl Böchel were among the leftists who remained in the SPD and published the magazine “Marxist Tribune” from November 1931. He was an employee until the magazine was discontinued in June 1932. In 1931 he was also a contributor to the writing of the book "Organization in the Class Struggle: The Problems of the Political Organization of the Working Class", which appeared in the series "Red Books of the Marxist Book Community".

From 1933 to 1934 Bieligk was in the Sachsenburg concentration camp . He then emigrated to Czechoslovakia . In Prague he joined the Revolutionary Socialists of Germany and was co-author of their program publication “The way to socialist Germany; a platform for the united front. Put up for discussion by a working group of revolutionary socialists. ”In 1937 or 1938 he fled to Sweden, from there in 1940 via Norway to London. He was one of the founders of the publishing company " Fight for Freedom Editorial and Publishing Services, Ltd." in London . This was created with the support of leading Labor politicians and national and international trade unionists in January 1942 as the journalistic mouthpiece of the Vansittartists in exile in Germany. On March 2, 1942, he and Curt Geyer , Carl Herz , Walter Loeb , Kurt Lorenz and Bernhard Menne signed a manifesto that the social democratic labor movement was complicit in the rise of National Socialism and that there was no significant opposition in Germany. As a result, he was expelled from the national group of German trade unionists in June 1942.

At the end of the 1950s, Bieligk, who had withdrawn from politics, returned to Germany.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Emigration after 1933-1945 Volume 1: Politics, Economy, Public Life. Saur, Munich 1980, p. 63.
2. ^ "Sozialistische Mitteilungen", No. 39 of July 1, 1942