KPD Hessen

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The KPD Hessen was the state organization of the KPD in Hessen .

history

prehistory

In the Weimar Republic there was no uniform Hessian organization of the KPD. The KPD was divided into 24 districts across the Reich. The districts of Hessen-Frankfurt and Hessen-Waldeck existed in the area of ​​today's Hesse (but not congruent). While the Hessen-Frankfurt district with the heavily industrialized Rhine-Main area had a high number of members, the Hessen-Waldeck district was the weakest KPD district in the Reich. In 1932 the district of Hessen-Waldeck had 3,000 members, half of whom lived in the city and the district of Kassel . In the remaining rural areas of the former Kurhessen , both the number of local associations and the number of employees were low. In the Reichstag election in November 1932 , the KPD only achieved a result above the Reich average in the Kassel-Land constituency with 20.2%.

The situation in Hessen-Frankfurt was completely different. The best Reichstag election results were 31.8% in Hanau-Stadt and 32.3% in Hanau-Land. In some communities in southern Hesse, the KPD even became the strongest force. In Groß -zimmer, 46.3% of the voters cast their vote for the KPD. These election results reflected the strength of the organization. In 1932 the district had 530 district or company groups. The district had 16,762 members.

In the elections to the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse , the KPD achieved the following results:

choice Voting share in% Seats Change (seats)
1921 3.9% 2 seats + 2 seats
1924 5.4% 4 seats + 2 seats
1927 8.6% 6 seats + 2 seats
1931 14.3% 10 seats + 4 seats
1932 11.0% 7 seats - 3 seats

In the state elections in November 1931, the democratic parties with 32 seats no longer had a majority in parliament, as the NSDAP with 27 and KPD with 10 seats had a majority. With this election, Hesse anticipated developments at the Reich level in the July 1932 Reichstag election .

Prohibition and Resistance

With the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the KPD was banned across the empire and thus also in Hesse. A large number of KPD members were arrested. In the period from 1933 to 1945, 2,800 convictions of KPD members in both districts are documented. Between 1933 and 1937 several attempts were made to operate an illegal district organization of the KPD Hessen-Frankfurt. However, these were ineffective.

Re-establishment after the Second World War

After the Second World War, local groups of the KPD formed. In June / July 1945 Leo Bauer , Ernst Eichelsdörfer and Walter Fisch returned to Frankfurt from exile in Switzerland and took over the reconstruction of the Hessian KPD on behalf of the KPD headquarters. On June 11, 1945, the Central Committee of the party decided on an action program (June call). On September 12, 1945, the KPD Frankfurt am Main was approved as a district association by the US occupation authorities. Even if a regional association had not yet been approved, Walter Fisch was elected regional chairman on November 4th in Eckenheim. On December 13, 1945, the state association of the KPD was approved as the first state-wide party in Hesse.

As in other countries, the KPD Hessen also tried to merge with the SPD. After this was rejected by a majority by the SPD, the action committee in Frankfurt stopped work in October. In Wiesbaden, efforts continued until early 1946. At the latest after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD in the Soviet Zone became apparent, the SPD's willingness to merge in the western zones ended abruptly.

The US military government appointed a number of KPD members as officials in state offices. The KPD provided the mayors in Lengfeld and Neustadt (Odenwald). With Wilhelm Hammann , the district administrator in the district of Groß-Gerau and with Oskar Müller the minister for labor and reconstruction in Hesse were appointed by the Americans. In addition, the KPD provided two appointed state secretaries, Karl Rost and Valentin Heckert .

Election results

Like the other three parties, the KPD each received a quarter of the mandates in the appointed Land Advisory Committee . The local elections in Hesse in 1946 ended disappointingly for the KPD. The elections in the districts and urban districts in April and May 1946 resulted in a share of the vote of 9.3%. The election for the constitutional state assembly on June 30th confirmed this picture. The KPD received 9.7% there.

With this, the KPD tipped the scales in the discussion about the constitution of the state of Hesse . The SPD Hessen , together with the KPD, had a majority in the assembly and was determined to use this majority to implement socialist positions such as socialization or the prohibition of lockouts . In the end, however, there was consensus with the bourgeois parties on most conflict issues on the constitutional question.

In the state elections in Hesse on December 1, 1946, the KPD received 10.7% of the vote. As had already become apparent in the constitutional discussion, a grand coalition between the SPD and the CDU, which is very far to the left in Hesse , came about, also under the impression of increasing conformity in the Soviet Zone .

In the state elections in Hesse in 1950 , the KPD achieved 4.7% and was just as unable to enter the state parliament as in the state elections in Hesse in 1954 with 3.4%.

Regional focus

The Hessian regional association had a special role within the KPD, since Frankfurt am Main was the seat of the West German party headquarters of the KPD from 1948 onwards. Regional focal points of the KPD were the Rhine-Main area and, to a lesser extent, the Kassel area . The KPD initially played an important role in the works councils at Opel and Henschel .

Purges, loss of meaning and bans

The KPD Hessen was weakened in the late 1940s and early 1950s by a series of internal party " purges " against the "Western emigrants": Leo Bauer , Walter Fisch and Josef Schleifstein were the most prominent victims. Alfred Drögemüller was imprisoned in East Berlin for several months , the Frankfurt city councilor Eva Steinschneider had to practice self-criticism for " Titoism ".

In 1951, Oskar Müller was deposed as Hessian state chairman by the KPD federal executive board and replaced by the previous chairman of the KPD Schleswig-Holstein , Klaus Weigle . Müller was accused of not having adequately represented the line of Soviet policy on Germany in the election campaign, and in addition, because of his alleged misconduct, “opportunism spread like an epidemic” in the Hessian state association.

The KPD Hessen developed into an isolated party in the political spectrum with heavy membership losses. While 72,239 members were counted in the US zone in September 1946, there were only a few thousand in the mid-1950s. The party, marked by decay and paralysis, was banned on August 17, 1956 .

Successor organizations

Members of the KPD Hessen tried to circumvent the ban. In the local elections on October 28, 1956 , they ran in some KPD strongholds as "independent voter groups" and won a few mandates in Neustadt (Odenwald), Ueberau and Langenselbold .

In 1960 the successor organizations were banned by the Hessian Ministry of the Interior . In the local elections in Hesse in 1964 , former KPD mandate holders were again given seats in some municipalities (including in Ueberau and Langenselbold), where they ran for the German Peace Union (DFU).

The DKP , founded in 1968, was not officially a successor organization due to the KPD ban, but was perceived as such.

The Hessian state association of the small party KPD , founded in 1990, has no organizational connection with the historical state association.

Party press

In February 1946 the "Hessische Landbote" was licensed as a party newspaper . At the same time, the papers of the other parties were also approved. Emil Carlebach was licensed by the occupation authorities.

people

Political Secretaries

Chairperson

MPs after 1945

Surname State Committee Constituent Assembly 1st electoral term
Adam Barthels member
Leo Bauer Group leader dito ditto until June 30, 1949
Emil Carlebach member
Karl Diez member member member
Wilhelm Feutner member
Walter Fish member member until September 27, 1949
Franz Gondolf from October 5, 1949
Heinrich Haase member
Werner Krauss member
Ludwig Wedge Member, parliamentary group chairman from July 1, 1949
Paul Kruger member member member
Maria Moritz member
Heinrich Rademacher member member
Konrad von der Schmitt member
Hans Schmüser member
Elfriede Steckel called Jo Mihaly member
Oskar Muller until September 30, 1949
Heinrich Rademacher member
Jakob Renneisen from October 20, 1950
Konrad von der Schmitt from October 15, 1949
Karl Willmann member member until September 26, 1950
Ludwig Wittmann member
Eleonore Wolf member
Johann Friedrich Zängerle member
Jakob Zeiss member

Member of the Weimar Republic

Member of the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse

Surname 2nd electoral term 3rd electoral term 4th legislative term 5th electoral term 6th legislative term
Heinrich Angermeier member member
Wilhelm Beuttel member
Adam Heinrich Ebner member
Heinrich Galm member member
Dr. Daniel Greiner member member
Hermann Wilhelm Hammann member member member
Ludwig Wedge member member
Wilhelm Friedrich Lenz member
Josef Loth member
Wilhelm Wall member member
Heinrich Otto member
Karl Rost member
Katharina Roth member member
Jakob Schaefer member
Marie Schmidt member
Konrad von der Schmitt member
Cäcilie Barbara Schaeffer member
Karl Seuling member
Hermann Swamp member
Jakob Zeiss member
George I. twin member

literature

  • Georg Fülberth : The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the German Communist Party (DKP) in Hesse 1945-1992. In: Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Alexander Fack, Thomas Noetzel (eds.): Parties and elections in Hesse 1946–1994. Schüren, Marburg 1994, ISBN 3-89472-087-5 , pp. 188-195.
  • Christa Hempel-Küter: The KPD press in the western zones from 1945 to 1956. Historical introduction, bibliography and location directory (= Hamburg contributions to German studies. Vol. 17). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-631-46311-1 , pp. 92-106.
  • Rolf Engelke, Wolfgang Form: Communist resistance and Nazi persecution in Hesse. In: Renate Knigge-Tesche, Axel Ulrich (ed.): Persecution and resistance in Hesse 1933–1945. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-8218-1735-6 , pp. 213-255.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Free People , February 21, 1951.
  2. ↑ Georg Fülberth: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the German Communist Party (DKP) in Hesse 1945-1992. 1994, pp. 191-192.