Lutetia circle

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The Lutetia-Kreis (also Lutetia-Comité , actually a committee for the preparation of a German popular front ) was a committee of various political currents that was active in Paris from 1935 to 1937 and shared an anti-fascist attitude. After the conference location in the Hotel Lutetia on Boulevard Raspail ( 6th arrondissement ), this core of a German popular front became known as the Lutetia Circle.

prehistory

During the Weimar Republic , the cooperation of the big left parties and trade unions in the sense of a united front against the emerging fascism was blocked. The social fascism thesis and the RGO policy of the KPD as well as anti-communism on the part of the SPD were essential factors.

On the VII. World Congress of the Communist International (speech by Georgi Dimitrov Mikhailov ) and on the Brussels Conference of the Communist Party in 1935 own failings in the fight against Hitler were uncovered and a theoretical strategy of the struggle for an anti-fascist Popular Front developed.

Meeting of the Lutetia Circle

In September 1935, Willi Munzenberg succeeded for the first time in bringing together 51 communist, social-democratic and bourgeois opponents of Hitler in the Hotel Lutetia on Parisian Boulevard Raspail. The Lutetia district later formulated a declaration of protest against the execution of the KPD and Red Aid functionary Rudolf Claus in December 1935. This was signed jointly by communists and social democrats.

On February 1, 1936, representatives of the workers' parties KPD, SPD, SAPD and the SPD opposition group Revolutionary Socialists of Germany met for a preliminary discussion of a larger meeting the next day. Munzenberg wanted a popular front based on complete freedom of belief and conscience. He described the earlier communist policy as wrong, in future a German alliance policy must be pursued. Herbert Wehner , then candidate of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, condemned Miinzenberg's remarks contrast, as "opportunistic unprincipled".

On February 2nd, at the invitation of the writer Heinrich Mann and the Saarland SPD functionary Max Braun, the first major Popular Front conference with 118 participants took place in the Hotel Lutetia. At the negotiating table, the KPD formed the largest group with 23 participants. In addition to Munzenberg, these included members of the political bureau Franz Dahlem and Philipp Dengel as well as Wilhelm Koenen , Peter Maslowski , Hermann Matern and the editor-in-chief of the Red Flag , Alexander Abusch . There was no official SPD party delegation. Nevertheless, among the 20 Social Democrats were well-known functionaries such as Rudolf Breitscheid , Albert Grzesinski , Erich Kuttner and Kurt Löwenstein , who, however, could not officially speak on behalf of their party. In addition to the representatives of the two large workers' parties, there were several smaller socialist groups such as the SAP (exile leader Jacob Walcher and, among others, Willy Brandt , head of the Central Office for Foreign Affairs (ZA) of the SJVD established in Oslo ), the Revolutionary Socialists of Germany and the International Socialist Combat League (including Willi Eichler ) involved. Together they made eight participants in the conference. Civil groups provided 37 and Catholics four. In addition, numerous writers and intellectuals, including Heinrich and Klaus Mann , Lion Feuchtwanger , Ernst Toller , Ludwig Marcuse , Emil Ludwig and Leopold Schwarzschild , took part in the meeting.

activities

Page 1 of German Information No. 250 of October 12, 1937 with the name of the publisher and address. It reports on the demand made in the National Socialist press for the colonies of France and England to be surrendered.

An appeal to all people of good will was passed to stand up for the liberation of Hitler’s opponents from the fascist dungeons. The formation of a joint refugee committee chaired by the former social democratic Prussian interior minister Albert Grzesinski and by auxiliary committees in Strasbourg and Amsterdam was decided. From March 1936, Heinrich Mann, Rudolf Breitscheid, Max Braun and Bruno Frei published news under the title German information about the fascist terror and the preparations for war of the Hitler regime.

While bourgeois representatives pressed for a government program to be drawn up for the time after Hitler's fall, Franz Dahlem emphasized that the next task was urgently needed. A committee chaired by Heinrich Manns, with Münzenberg, Breitscheid and the journalist Georg Bernhard as permanent staff, was formed to develop a platform for gathering all opposition groups. In a rally to the German people, the Paris Conference called on the individual parties and groups to unite, respecting their respective special goals, for the restoration of the most elementary human rights.

The program debate, which lasted until December 1936, suffered from a lack of willingness to compromise on all sides. Ultimately, a compromise paper - the appeal to the German people - came about. It was signed on December 19, 1936 and adopted on December 21, 1936. Concrete stipulations were avoided and the goals of the Popular Front were only briefly outlined. Nevertheless, the appeal was signed by more than 70 people, including Lion Feuchtwanger, Klaus Mann, Ernst Toller , Ernst Bloch , Rudolf Breitscheid and Willy Brandt.

The Popular Front also published various statements of protest, protest pamphlets and pamphlets, and actively promoted voluntary service in Spain. The writings were distributed by over 100 foreign editorial offices, among other things via the German information and via the German freedom broadcaster 29.8 operated by the KPD in Spain .

resolution

This committee, later referred to as the Committee for the Preparation of a German Popular Front, grappled in vain with programmatic and organizational questions throughout the year due to fundamental differences. Disputes within the left camp filled files. The Moscow trials also irreversibly poisoned the Paris negotiating climate. After the meeting of April 10th and 11th, 1937, the Lutetia Circle ended. The common ground was exhausted.

Some members of the Lutetia circle continued to work in new political alliance organizations after the occupation of France and their escape. The Council for a Democratic Germany was founded in exile in New York in 1944 .

There was no mass base for German emigration. Mainly based on intellectuals, the German Popular Front movement had not succeeded in representing the entire people even remotely. "Social democrats and communists, both from the bourgeois side, disagreed about their influence on the poorest - assuming they had previously been of one mind," wrote Heinrich Mann looking back in his autobiography.

literature

  • Ursula Langkau-Alex: German Popular Front 1932–1939. Between Berlin, Paris, Prague and Moscow, Berlin. Academy publishing house. 3 volumes
Volume 1: Prehistory and founding of the committee for the preparation of a German popular front. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-05-004031-9
Volume 2: History of the Committee for the Preparation of a German Popular Front . 2004, ISBN 3-05-004032-7
Volume 3: Documents, Chronicles and Directories. 2005, ISBN 3-05-004033-5
  • Wolfgang Benz / Walter H. Pehle (ed.): Lexicon of the German resistance. Frankfurt am Main 1994. ISBN 3-596-15083-3
  • Babette Groß, Willi Munzenberg. A political biography , Stuttgart 1967, p. 293 f.
  • SAP Archive Oslo Film copy: Federal Archives SAPMO RY 13
  • Resistance, persecution and emigration of liberals 1933-1945 , Friedrich Naumann Foundation , 1983 p. 77
  • Ernst Stock / Karl Walcher: Jacob Walcher (1887-1970): trade unionist and revolutionary between Berlin, Paris and New York . Berlin 1998. ISBN 3-89626-144-4
  • Franz Osterroth , Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German social democracy. People, actions, reactions, controversies, resolutions. Special edition (5 volumes, reporting period from mid-19th century to October 1990; here applicable volume 2.) Karl Dietz, Berlin 2009, ISBN 9783801204006 .

Web links

notes

  1. ↑ Werner Röder u. Herbert A. Strauss (under the direction of): Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933 , KG Saur, Munich 1999, p. 246.
  2. ↑ German information in the journals database, German National Library, with records of all German archives and libraries that keep copies, mostly as microfilm.