James Broh

James Broh (born November 9, 1867 in Perleberg , † 1942 in Paris ) was a German lawyer, publicist and left-wing politician.

Broh came from a Jewish family and studied law in Berlin . After the state examination he received his doctorate as Dr. jur. and began with the usual training in the Prussian judicial service. Already at that time he was a supporter of social democracy . He took the step into the judicial service on the advice of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht , who hoped that Broh would later defend Social Democrats as a lawyer. Broh settled down as a lawyer in Berlin and joined the SPD. He wrote for various socialist magazines and was a co-founder of the youth organization “Die Arbeitende Jugend”. During this time he belongs to the revisionist wing of the party.

During the First World War , Broh initially withdrew from politics. He wrote poems against the war and the play "Bettina". As a war opponent, he joined the USPD .

In the November Revolution he became General Secretary of the Executive Council of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils until the first Reichsräte Congress . After the USPD left the Council of People's Representatives on December 27, 1918, Broh appeared as a speaker for the party.

In 1919 he was elected city councilor of Charlottenburg . A short time later he resigned to take care of political education in the USPD.

Professionally he was u. a. to Karl Liebknecht's lawyer. From 1919 Broh belonged to the opposition group in the KPD. After the party split over the issue of council democracy or the national assembly, Broh joined the KAPD in 1920 . In the new party, he and Franz Pfemfert represented the minority at the party congress in Gotha that refused to join the Moscow Comintern . Together with Otto Rühle , Franz Pfemfert and Oskar Kanehl , he became one of the founders of the General Workers' Union - Unified Organization (AAU-E) in 1921 . He was active as a journalist in Franz Pfemfert's magazine “ Die Aktion ”. As a judicial councilor, he was involved in several important trials as a defender of revolutionaries, e. B. 1921 by Max Hölz , in May 1924 by Oskar Kanehl or at the “Weißenseer Communist Trial” for Arthur Michaelis (1888–1942), Fritz Falk, Ernst General, Karl Ziegler and Paul Dolling. From Broh's defense speech for Max Hölz ​​comes the phrase "The hour of death of the party revolution is the hour of birth of the mass revolution."

In 1930 he joined the KPD . After the Reichstag fire , Broh left Germany, but returned to defend a client. He was arrested and first tortured in a "private camp", then officially taken into " protective custody " and imprisoned in the Spandau fortress. Thanks to his wife's commitment, Broh was released four weeks later and emigrated to Czechoslovakia . He later lived as a freelance writer in Paris. On October 27, 1937, his German citizenship was revoked.

In Paris he wrote under the pseudonym Junius for the magazine Neue-Tage-Buch (successor to Das Tage-Buch ) and the organ of the International Socialist Combat League, Sozialistische Warte, among others .

literature

• Ursula Blömer, Detlef Garz: Jewish childhood in Germany at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century . ( PDF )
• Ursula Blömer, Detlef Garz: Short Biographies Bl
• Gerhard Engel u. a. (Ed.): Great Berlin workers and soldiers councils in the revolution 1918/19 . Berlin, 1997. Digitized
• Broh, James . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Wolfgang Haug (Ed.): Oskar Kanehl - Nobody has the right to ensure peace and order, Lich 2016

Web links

• Literature by and about James Broh in the catalog of the German National Library
• Draft of a USP program written on behalf of Pol. Comm. Of the Charlottenburg Action Council and criticism of the Action Program (1920)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Source: Reich Commissioner for the Monitoring of Public Order. Files pertaining to the KPD. From May 14, 1920 to October 31, 1922. Chap. XII (1507/247; No. 2335/20
2. ↑ Printed in: Welt-Kampf (AAUE-Westsachsen) 3 (1921), no. 40. Editor of the organ "Business Organization"