Josef Wiora

Josef Wiora (born October 2, 1892 in Beuthen , † August 2, 1971 in East Berlin ) was a German politician (KPD) and trade union official.

Live and act

Josef Wiora attended elementary school in Bytom. He then worked as a railroad worker in Hindenburg, Upper Silesia. In 1916 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). After the November Revolution , Wiora became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). At the end of 1920 he joined the left wing of the USPD to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

From 1912 Wiora was unionized. From 1919 he took over functions in the German Railway Workers' Association (DEV), the later unified association of railway workers in Germany (EdED). In 1927/28 he was a member of the advisory board of the association. At the same time he was a delegate of the general assembly of the EdED in 1928. From 1929 Wiora became increasingly involved in the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). Due to his work for the RGO, he was excluded from the EdED in the same year. Thereupon Wiora took over the leadership of the RGO district committee in Upper Silesia .

In July 1932 Wiora was elected for his party as a candidate for constituency 9 (Opole) in the Reichstag , to which he belonged until November 1932. In addition, he was a member of the Upper Silesian Provincial Assembly from 1930 to early 1933.

After the National Socialists came to power, Wioara took an active part in the resistance. He took over functions in the illegal KPD in Upper Silesia. In 1937 he emigrated to the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR). From here, too, he worked for illegal communist party structures. He was active in the "Waldenburger Industriegebiet" and Jägrendorf border sections, where illegal printing material was smuggled into the German Reich via the "Green Border" . At the same time he was a liaison to the illegal KPD section leadership, which was then based in Prague. In connection with the occupation of the ČSR, Wiora fled to France . But he couldn't stay there long. He was expelled from France and emigrated to Great Britain. There he was deported to Australia and interned as an " enemy alien " in connection with the beginning of the Second World War, HMT Dunera .

Wiora, who had lived in Berlin since 1947, took an active part in rebuilding the trade unions in Greater Berlin and the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). For a time he was Roman Chwalek's secretary . From 1947 to 1958, Wiora was an employee of the Greater Berlin district board of the Free German Trade Union Federation and of the central board of IG Eisenbahn, whose development he largely coordinated.

Today Wiora's estate is stored in the Foundation Archive of the Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives (SAPMO), in the Berlin branch of the Federal Archives. The estate includes materials from the years 1952 to 1968 and has a volume of 0.02 linear meters of shelf. In terms of content, it contains biographical material about Wiora, congratulations and material on the history of the railway unions.

literature

• Wiora, Josef . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945. 2., revised. and strong exp. Edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration (1933–1945) (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 7). Metropol, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1 , pp. 310, 711 (short biography).

Web links

• Josef Wiora in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ^ The "Dunera" affair