Heinrich Brandler

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Heinrich Brandler (born July 3, 1881 in Warnsdorf , † September 26, 1967 in Hamburg ) was a communist politician . He was a founding member of the KPD in 1918 and one of two party leaders from 1921 and 1923 .

Life

Brandler was born in Warnsdorf, Bohemia, in 1881. Coming from a social-democratic working-class family, the trained building tradesman joined the trade union in 1900 and the SPD in 1901 . After a stay in Zurich from 1909 to 1914 , where he worked in summer as a bricklayer and in winter as a traveling teacher in workers' education, he accepted a position as a full-time trade union official in Chemnitz in 1914.

First World War and KPD

During the First World War , the opponent of the social democratic civil peace policy joined the Spartacus group around Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and was expelled from the SPD in 1915. He took part in the founding conference of the International Group (later Spartakusbund) on January 1, 1916 in Karl Liebknecht's law firm. After he was temporarily expelled as an Austrian citizen in October 1918 for illegal political activities, he was one of the founding members of the KPD at the end of 1918.

Since 1919, at the headquarters of the Communist Party, he was in 1921 in connection with the March Action arrested and five years imprisonment sentenced, after which he fled to the amnesty the following year in the Soviet Union, where he functions in the line of the Comintern and the Red International of Labor Unions perceived. In 1921 and 1923 he formed the party leadership together with August Thalheimer . From October 10th to 29th, 1923 he was head of the Saxon State Chancellery under Prime Minister Erich Zeigner as part of the coalition government of the SPD and KPD . In autumn 1923 Brandler was accused by Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow of being guilty of the failure of the “ German October ” planned and failed by the CPSU . The experienced communist Clara Zetkin , on the other hand, praised Brandler's courage and sense of responsibility because he had canceled the planned Hamburg uprising and thus averted a foreseeable defeat. At the beginning of 1924 he was replaced under pressure from the Comintern and had to emigrate to Moscow in a kind of “honorary exile” , where he only held representative posts, such as in the management of the Red Peasant International .

KPD opposition

After Ernst Thälmann had taken over the leadership of the KPD, Brandler returned to Germany at the end of 1928 against the resistance of the KPdSU leadership, which wanted to keep him away from the KPD because of his influence and popularity. Brandler was expelled from the party and founded a. a. with August Thalheimer, Paul Frölich and Jacob Walcher the KPD-O , of which he was a member. At the same time he took over the management of the office of the International Association of Communist Opposition (IVKO).

exile

In 1933 Brandler had to emigrate and went first to Strasbourg, then to Paris, from where he and Thalheimer directed the exile work of the KPD-O. Temporarily interned in 1939 after the outbreak of war, he fled to Cuba in 1941. In 1949 Brandler managed to return to West Germany, where he played a leading role in the workers' policy group , which is in the tradition of the KPD-O. Brandler died in Hamburg in 1967. His grave is in the Ohlsdorf cemetery . In 2005 - after some resistance - a memorial stone was erected for him on the field of honor of the Geschwister-Scholl-Stiftung at the Ohlsdorf cemetery.

Works (selection)

  • Through the councils on working class unity and communism . The fighter , Chemnitz 1919 (Communist contemporary issues No 1)
  • Communist Party (Spartakusbund): Justice and legal system. Two reports from Russia . Introduction by Heinrich Brandler. The fighter , Chemnitz 1919 (On socialist construction 2)
  • The action against the Kapp Putsch in West Saxony . Published by the Communist Party of Germany (Spartakusbund). Berlin 1920
  • Who should pay the war bill? On the economic policy of capitalist bankruptcy . Franke, Leipzig 1920
  • Revolutionization or decline of the German construction workers' association . With a foreword by Heinrich Brandler. German Construction Workers Association, Chemnitz 1920
  • Speech given at the 1st congress of the works councils of the trade unions in Germany . Franke, Leipzig 1920
  • The treason trial against Heinrich Brandler before the extraordinary court on June 6, 1921 in Berlin . Franke, Leipzig; Berlin 1921
  • Trade unions and works councils. Presentation by Comrade Brandler at the unification congress in December 1920 in Berlin . Franke, Berlin 1921
  • A. Lozovskij : The struggle of the communists in the trade unions. Reports by Comrades A. Losowsky and Others Heinrich Brandler on the trade union question at the Conference of the Extended Executive of the Communist International from February 24 to March 4, 1922 . Phöbus, Berlin 1922 (Library of the Red Trade Union International, Vol. 10)
  • Against the current. Organ of the KPD (opposition) . Wroclaw; Paris November 17, 1928 to 1935

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Brandler, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Warnsdorf
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1967
Place of death Hamburg