Georg Stetter (politician)

Georg Stetter (born November 10, 1892 in Wain ( Upper Swabia ), † October 2, 1962 in Stuttgart ) was a communist politician and trade unionist.

Life

Georg Stetter was born as the son of a shoemaker in the then strictly Protestant enclave of Wain (Upper Swabia), where he attended elementary school. The family had five children, all of whom had to go to Stuttgart to look for work. G. Stetter was able to learn the trade of the lithographer in the up-and-coming industrial city .

He quickly got in touch with the Social Democrats. In August 1907 he took part in the Congress of the Socialist International. As an active anti-militarist , he belonged to the left Westmeyer wing in Stuttgart . He had to serve as a soldier on the Western Front during the First World War . There he experienced the heavy battles in which he was wounded. During the war, he produced anti-war leaflets for the Spartacus League to which he belonged in an illegal printing company in the Vosges .
In 1919 he became a member of the KPD and went to the Ruhr area for them, where he worked in the Krupp printing house in Essen. In 1923 he became district secretary of the KJVD for the Ruhr area in Essen. In the Mainz communist trial in 1924 he was indicted and acquitted. Georg Stetter opposed the new ultra-left policy of the KPD, as it was initiated by the leadership around Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow . On February 18, 1925, he was expelled from the KPD for opposition to this course. In 1925 he came to Stuttgart and returned to his profession, became a works council, did educational work for the youth trade union, the KJVD and the Naturfreunde youth . With the beginning of the Stalinization of the KPD, G. Stetter began to oppose this new orientation of the party, so he strictly rejected the RGO policy and social fascism thesis. He stood for a united front of communists and social democrats against the fascist danger. In December 1928 he was expelled from the KPD for the second time. He joined the Communist Party opposition , in which he had actively worked until 1933, especially in trade union and educational work. From 1933, during the fascist dictatorship, he maintained illegal links with the KPD (O). After 1945 he joined IG Druck und Papier , took on duties as a works council again and was involved in socialist educational work. He belonged to the core of the workers policy group .

His brothers David Stetter and Johannes Stetter were trade unionists and politicians.

literature

• Theodor Bergmann : Against the current. The history of the KPD (opposition). Hamburg 2004 (therein: Short biography Georg Stetter, p. 538).