Hermann Weber (KPD functionary)

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Hermann Weber (born February 13, 1888 in Horn ; † December 16, 1937 ) was a German KPD functionary and politician. He was arrested and shot by the Soviet secret service GPU .

Political beginnings

Hermann Weber was a trained bricklayer and was severely handicapped since an accident at work. Before the First World War he moved to Barmen . There he became a member of the SPD in 1906 . In 1912 he moved to Solingen and joined the USPD in 1917 . Weber was a delegate of the “ split party conference ” in Halle and then joined the KPD with the left wing of the USPD. From 1921 Weber was a full-time secretary of the KPD, initially in the Barmen sub-district. The 8th Leipzig Party Congress in 1923 elected him to the trade union commission. In 1923 he became KPD secretary for trade union issues in the Rhineland-South / Lower Rhine district and took on the same task in 1925 in the Wasserkante district management in Hamburg and in May 1927 in the Baden district management in Mannheim . At the beginning of 1929 he went back to the Rhineland and became subdistrict secretary of the KPD in Solingen and chairman of his faction in the Solingen city ​​council .

Weber was known for his determined, uncompromising and sometimes choleric manner, which earned him the respect of supporters and opponents. He had a very loud voice - advantageous for a time without a loudspeaker - and was an excellent speaker, who sometimes spoke freely for three hours. He caused a scandal when he slapped a member of the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) at his first city council in Solingen in 1928 , who had insulted him personally.

Election to the Lord Mayor of Solingen

On January 22nd, 1930, Hermann Weber was elected Lord Mayor of Solingen by the left-wing majority of the city council , the first communist mayor of a major city in the Weimar Republic , which caused considerable national and international sensation. However, Weber's election did not receive the legally required confirmation from the SPD-led Prussian State Ministry , as he refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the state order. A few days later, the election result was therefore canceled and the Social Democrat Josef Brisch was appointed as acting head of administration; the SPD faction in the city council had speculated on this, as it did not have enough seats to get its own candidate through. Two months later, the State Department tried to get Brisch officially elected, but Weber won the majority again. This second election was also canceled and Brisch installed as Lord Mayor. At Brisch's inauguration, the communists threw rotten eggs in protest.

Moved to the USSR and died

Weber was appointed to the central committee of the KPD in Berlin in 1931, but was relieved of all his functions in the KPD in 1932 because of his support for the “ Neumann Group ”. In August 1932 he moved to the Soviet Union , to Odessa , his family followed him in mid-January 1933, and he took on Soviet citizenship . In October 1935 his friends in Solingen received a message from him that he lived in Odessa and was head of the international club there . In mid-1937 he was arrested by the Soviet secret service, charged with "fascist agitation" and shot on December 16, 1937. His wife Else Weber (* 1898) was also imprisoned in 1937, but then deported to Germany with their son Werner, who was born in Odessa.

The fate of the last democratically elected mayor of Solingen before the Nazi era was a closely guarded party secret in the West German communist movement until the end of the 1980s, which was only revealed when the archives were opened during the Gorbachev era .

Weber's sister, Hanna Rautenbach , a member of the Reichstag , and her husband Otto were deported to concentration camps as members of the KPD during the Nazi era . After the Second World War , the couple were politically active again, and Hanna Rautenbach was elected to the state parliament in 1947 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Volker Wünderich: Workers' Movement and Self- Administration . KPD and local politics in the Weimar Republic. With the example of Solingen . Wuppertal 1980
  2. ^ Ralf Rogge / Armin Schulte / Kerstin Warncke: Solingen. Big city years 1929-2004 . Edited by the Solingen City Archives and the Solinger Tageblatt . Wartberg-Verlag 2004. ISBN 3-8313-1459-4 , p. 6
  3. ↑ Hermann Weber on home.wtal.de
  4. ↑ 1931: J. Brisch appointed mayor on solinger-tageblatt.de v. June 5, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD functionary and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH horn
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1937