Karl Schröder (writer)

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Karl Schröder (born November 13, 1884 in Polzin , † April 6, 1950 in Berlin ) was a communist politician and writer .

Life

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Fuldastraße 37, in Berlin-Neukölln

Karl Schröder - son of a teacher - studied philosophy , literature , history and art history in Berlin . He received his doctorate with a dissertation on an art history topic. Then he worked as a private tutor . In 1913 he became a member of the SPD and in 1914 a research assistant in the SPD central education committee for workers' education . During this time he became friends with Franz Mehring and joined the labor movement .

After participating in the First World War , Karl Schröder joined the Spartakusbund in 1918 and shortly afterwards became editor of the KPD central organ, the Red Flag . In 1919 he was expelled from the KPD because of his leftist positions. In 1920 Schröder was a founding member of the KAPD . Alongside Alexander Schwab , he rose to become a leading member and editor of the organs of the Communist Workers' Newspaper and Proletarians . In Moscow Schröder met Lenin , Trotsky and Bukharin . Initially supporting the KAPD's accession to the Comintern , Schröder played a leading role in the exclusion of the federal minority around Franz Pfemfert . After the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern (June 22 to July 12, 1921) he distanced himself from the Comintern and in 1922, as the head of the Essen direction from the KAPD, was excluded from the Berlin majority .

After the failed attempt to set up a KAPD in Essen , Schröder returned to the SPD in the same year at the instigation of Paul Levi . In the following years Karl Schröder worked as a novelist , editor of social democratic publishers and in workers ' education - for example with the socialist youth workers . These activities could, as Schröder maintained its radical leftist approaches and SAJ-, trying to win for the SPD members, as entrism be considered.

Karl Schröder took over the management of the Berlin book club Der Bücherkreis from Friedrich Wendel in 1928 , which he held until 1932. (Both knew each other from the KAPD group in Berlin.) Also from 1928 onwards, Schröder and Alexander Schwab began to gather a group of like-minded people, from which the council communist Red Fighters emerged in 1931/32 . After taking power , Schröder worked as a bookseller in Berlin. In 1936 the Gestapo smashed the Red Fighters resistance group and arrested Schröder. The following year he was sentenced to four years in prison and then imprisoned in several Emsland camps. In the Börgermoor concentration camp he met his long-time comrade Alexander Schwab and got to know Leonhard Oesterle . Schröder reports on his time as a prisoner in The Last Station .

Near death in 1945, Schröder recovered, then worked on the reconstruction of the Berlin school system and adult education . At the same time he tried to gather a group of former Red Fighters in West Berlin . In 1948 he joined the SED , which, according to comrades, was tactically motivated to get a position as a lecturer at the Volk und Wissen publishing house .

Publications

The leap over the shadows (1928)
  • About the creation of the new society. Berlin 1920
  • Nature and goals of the revolutionary company organization. (Together with Friedrich Wendel ). 1920
  • The jump over the shadow. Novel. The book circle , Berlin 1928.
  • Aktien-Gesellschaft Hammerlugk. 1928
  • The story of Jan Beek. (Novel). The book circle, Berlin 1929.
  • The Markert family . A study of society (2 volumes). The book circle, Berlin 1931.
  • Class in battle. (Novel). Gutenberg Book Guild , Berlin 1932.
  • The last stop. Narrative. Weiss, Berlin 1947. New edition by Fietje Ausländer in the series of the Documentation and Information Center Emslandlager , Vol. 7. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995 ISBN 3861082594 . With contributions from Habbo Knoch, Ursula Lamm u. Heinrich Scheel .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ossip K. Flechtheim : The KPD in the Weimar Republic . Junius, Hamburg 1986, p. 115f.
personal data
SURNAME Schröder, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communist politician and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Polzin
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1950
Place of death Berlin