Karl Emonts

Karl Emonts (born October 14, 1889 in Eupen , † July 23, 1959 in Ensen ) was a German politician (USPD, KPD, SPD, KPD).

Life

Emonts took up the job of a bank clerk. Before the First World War he was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

At the end of the war (?) Emonts became chairman of the General Association of German Bank Employees. At that time he belonged to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).

On June 30, 1919, Emonts was arrested on charges from the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division on charges of having participated in communist overthrowing activities. He escaped from custody when he learned that prosecutors planned to transfer him to British-occupied territory in the west of the country, where he was threatened with court-martial for political offenses. As a result, he remained in hiding until the public prosecutor's office closed the arrest warrant issued against him and the related investigation in June 1920.

In 1919 or 1920 Emonts joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In the same year he was elected to the Berlin magistrate.

In 1924 Emonts was excluded from the party because of his rejection of the KPD leadership's policy of forming cells within the trade unions. He has now returned to the SPD for a few years.

Shortly after the National Socialists came to power in spring 1933, Emonts was arrested in February 1933. Before that, he had signed an appeal by the International Socialist League for the Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 . After he was released in mid-May of the same year, he went to Belgium, where he was recognized as a political refugee. He settled in the town of his birth, Eupen - the Eupen-Malmedy region had been German until 1919, but was added to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 . He found a job in a cousin's bookstore there.

Until 1933 he was secretary of the union federation of employees in Berlin.

In 1934 Emonts was accepted back into the KPD. From 1937 he was involved in the German Popular Front and the German Freedom Party . In Germany he was expatriated and the Reich Security Main Office - which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain - classified him as an enemy of the state and placed him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who would be killed by the occupation troops in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British island by the German armed forces subsequent SS special commands should be identified and arrested with priority.

In his house in Eupen - this was located on the Belgian-German border area - Emonts set up a courier station in agreement with Willy Münzenberg , from which anti-Nazi writings and books - especially the Freedom Party's freedom letters - were smuggled into the Reich.

In October 1937 Emonts was excluded from the party by the exiled KPD around Walter Ulbricht due to his rapprochement with bourgeois opposition circles and the Freedom Party. One of Heinrich Mann and Georg Bernhard occupied Arbitration recognized the Freedom Party in contrast, as part of the anti-Hitler opposition and dismissed the allegations made by Ulbricht against Emonts.

In 1939 Emonts went to Brazil, from where he returned to Belgium in 1947.

marriage

Emonts was married to Charlotte Bauer. She initially stayed in Berlin in 1933. In 1935 she was arrested on suspicion of participating in the continuation of illegal union work. The case was dropped for lack of evidence. But she was jailed for 1 year for foreign exchange offenses.

literature

• Christian Hoss: Put in front of the door. Berlin city councilors and members of the magistrate persecuted during National Socialism 1933-1945 , p. 180.
• Röder / Strauss: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Emigration , p. 156.
• "Ulbricht and the alleged Trotskyist in Eupen. From the Belgian experiences of the East German politician", in Grenz-Echo, Eupen, June 12, 1969.