Johann Biefang

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Johann ("Hans") Biefang (also Julius Biefang ; born August 2, 1893 in Moers ; † 1937 ) was a German politician ( KPD ) and trade unionist . He was a member of the Central Committee of the KPD and editor of various communist newspapers .

Life

The miner Biefang joined the USPD after the First World War . In 1920 he joined the KPD and initially worked for them on a voluntary basis. He was also chairman of the works council of a mine. In March 1927 he was on the XI. Party congress of the KPD in Essen as a representative of the Ruhr area as a member of the Central Committee of the KPD (but not re-elected at the XII party congress in June 1929 in Berlin)

In May 1929 he was dismissed by the mine management for organizing a 48-hour protest strike following the so-called Blutmai . Biefang then worked first as a local editor for the Niederrheinische Arbeiterzeitung in Duisburg , then for the Arbeiterzeitung in Dortmund , and most recently as an editor for the Ruhr-Echo in Essen. In 1930 he moved with his wife Helene and his son to the Soviet Union , where he was recognized as a political emigrant. He was an employee of the German section of the Comintern or miner in the Donets Basin (shaft 18 "Stalin", formerly "Amerikanka") and there was group organizer of the German party cell. His brochure Ruhrkumpel in Sovietschächten appeared in Moscow in 1932, and in 1933 he also contributed to the collective brochure Achtung! Here German pals talk about the Soviet Union . From 1935 he worked as an editor and translator in the publishing cooperative of foreign workers in the USSR. Books in which he was involved appeared until 1937.

The further fate of Biefang is unclear. While Hermann Weber thinks it is likely that “he was the victim of the Stalinist purges”, Wilhelm Mensing / Peter Erler write, according to the information provided by his wife Helene Biefang (1895–1988), that “he later after years in the SU [= Soviet Union] perished as a Spanish fighter ”. Biefang also records the memorial plaque for those who fell in the “Spanish Fight for Freedom” in the Friedrichsfelde central cemetery .

Fonts

  • Ruhr buddy in Soviet shafts . Publishing cooperative for foreign workers in the USSR, Moscow 1932.
  • (together with a collective of authors): Warning! Here German pals talk about the Soviet Union . Publishing cooperative for foreign workers in the USSR, Moscow 1933.

literature

  • Hermann Weber : “White spots” in history. The KPD victims of the Stalinist purges and their rehabilitation . ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 21 and 87.
  • Wilhelm Mensing, Peter Erler: From the Ruhr to the GULag. Victims of Stalin's mass terror from the Ruhr area . Klartext, Essen 2001, passim.
  • Biefang, Johann (Julius) . In: Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Bogdal: "What is important?": Life, struggle and fate of the communist Paul Langer . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1997, p. 55.
  2. ↑ see: Weber 2008.
  3. ↑ Wilhelm Mensing, Peter Erler: From the Ruhr to the GULag. Victims of Stalin's mass terror from the Ruhr area . Klartext, Essen 2001, p. 33
personal data
SURNAME Biefang, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Biefang, Julius; Biefang, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD) and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Moers
DATE OF DEATH 1937