Pavel Reiman

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Paul Reimann , later Czech Pavel Reiman (born October 12, 1902 in Brno ; † November 1, 1976 in Prague ), was a Czech Germanist , editor , literary historian and writer who, together with Eduard Goldstücker, participated in the organization of the Kafka Conference in Liblice was involved in 1963.

Life

Paul Reimann was born on October 12, 1902 in Brno, today's Brno. His mother was Ernestine Reimann, née Rischawá. His father Josef Reimann was a co-owner of a cement factory in Brno; he died in Vienna in 1910 after an operation . In 1920 Reimann graduated from the first state high school in Brno. He then studied 1921 to 1923 at the University of Leipzig in the subjects German and philosophy . Reimann had been a member of the KPD and the Communist Student Group ( Kostufra ) since 1921 . From 1921 to 1923 he was a member of the Reich leadership as a representative for Leipzig . In 1923 he went back to his mother in Prague after having been told that she was dying. After Ernestine's death, his childless aunt Julia Krause took him in and looked after him. Reimann had planned to continue his studies at the University in Prague; However, as he remained politically active, his studies stalled.

In Prague he joined the Komunistická strana Československá , KSČ for short. From 1924 to 1926 he worked as an editor for Československá komunistická korespondence , or ČKK for short. Subsequently, he worked as editor-in-chief of the party newspaper “Vorwärts” for the Reichenberg region and as a member of the local district leadership. After Reimann in 1928 as the leading German representative, the left faction of the KPČ on the VI. Representing the Comintern World Congress , he was elected a candidate for the Politburo in 1929. As a result, he was delegated to Moscow as a representative of the KPČ in the Comintern . He was also a candidate for the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EKKI) and the Political Secretariat of the EKKI from 1929 to 1931 . At the same time he was accepted into the editorial team of the “Communist International”. He joined the radical, Moscow and Comintern-oriented group around Klement Gottwald, which later went down in history under the nickname " Buben von Karlín " ("karlínští kluci"). At the 5th party congress of the CPC in February 1929, these young functionaries took over power in the CPC.

Reimann was dismissed from the EKKI in 1931 on account of the accusation of “right-wing opportunistic behavior” towards the policies of the KPD. As a result, he became editor-in-chief of the theoretical body of the KPČ "Communist Review" and head of the agitprop department of the Central Committee , or Agitprop ZK for short . In 1932/33 he was accused of “right deviation in the united front policy” (“Guttmann-Reimann deviation”), and he was then ordered to Moscow. The reason for this accusation were his critical statements on the policy of the KPD, according to which the KPD underestimated the “fascist threat” and showed a lack of efforts to enter into an anti-fascist alliance with the SPD. In Moscow he worked in the EKKI, where he was again criticized for "right deviations".

In 1936 he returned to Czechoslovakia from Moscow. There he took an active part in the political and cultural life of the German emigration. He was an employee of the "Rundschau", the "Counter-Attack" and other emigration papers. Furthermore, from 1938/39 he belonged to the news apparatus of the now illegal KPČ. After the Germans established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, Reimann emigrated to Great Britain via Poland in April 1939 . In Great Britain he took part in the political life of the Czechoslovak emigrants and became editor of the press organ "Unity" of the group around the German CPČ functionary Gustav Beuer .

After the end of the Second World War, Reimann returned to Prague in December 1945 and was head of the foreign department of the Central Committee of the KPČ there until 1948. He then worked for the Central Committee's agitprop and was made jointly responsible for the cultural policy of the KPČ. He was declared the extended hand of Slansky. In 1952 he was forced to testify as a witness in the Slansky trial . He was relieved of his post and joined the KPČ's Institute of History as an employee. During this difficult time for him, he wrote his book "Hauptströmungen der deutschen Literatur 1750-1848", which was first published in 1956 in the GDR and only in 1958 in Czechoslovakia. From 1962 to 1968 he was director of the institute.

In 1963, together with Eduard Goldstücker, he was instrumental in organizing the Kafka Conference in Liblice. In 1965, as chairman of the committee of Germanists, he played a key role in the Prague conference on German literature. Both conferences resulted in a reassessment of Prague-German literature.

Reimann was active in the Czechoslovak renewal movement in 1968 and was one of the critics of the Soviet intervention in August of the same year. In May 1969 he was appointed professor of German literature at Charles University in Prague , but was excluded from the KPČ in 1970 and banned from his profession. He was also banned from publishing and his books were removed from the library. In protest against the GDR, which had supported the Soviet Union's invasion of the ČSSR on August 21, 1968, Reimann returned his honorary doctorate to the Karl Marx University in Leipzig .

Paul Reimann died on November 1, 1976 in Prague. The historian Michal Reiman , born in 1930, is his son.

Publications

  • Schiller Seff and the history of the North Bohemian labor movement , Reichenberg 1928
  • History of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , Berlin 1931
  • Grossdeutschtum and Bohemian cultural traditions , London 1944
  • Main currents of German literature 1750–1848; Contributions to its history and criticism , Berlin 1956
  • From Herder to Kisch. Studies on the history of German-Austrian-Czech literary relations , Berlin 1961
  • Ve dvacátých letech: Vzpomínky , Praha 1966
  • Franz Kafka from a Prague perspective , with Eduard Goldstücker, František Kautman, Academia, Prague 1966.
  • Tečka za Mnichovem , illustrated by Adolf Born , Naše vojsko, Praha 1968.

literature

  • Vilém Kahan: The Communist International 1919-43: The Personnel of its highest Bodies , 1976 (Reprint from International Review of Social History Vol. XXI- 1976 part 2).
  • Reinhard Müller (ed.): The cleansing, Moscow 1936: shorthand of a closed party meeting. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1991f, ISBN 3-499-13012-2 .
  • Michal Reiman : Rusko jako téma a realita doma av exilu - Vzpomínky na léta 1968–1990 , Ústav pro soudobé dějiny, Prague 2008, ISBN 978-80-7285-104-1 .
  • Pavel Reiman: Ve dvacátých letech: Vzpomínky , Praha 1966
  • Vítězslav summer: Angažované dějepisectví: Stranická historiography river made stalinismem a reformním komunismem (1950-1970) , Nakladatelství Lidové noviny / Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, Praha 2011, ISBN 978-80-7308-378-6 / ISBN 978-80-7422-134 -7 .
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Dietz, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-320-02044-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pavel Reiman: Ve dvacátých letech: Vzpomínky, Praha 1966
  2. ↑ Klement Gottwald , curriculum vitae of the portal of the office of the President of the Czech Republic, online at: hrad.cz / ...
  3. ^ A b Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst: German Communists - Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945, Berlin 2004
  4. ↑ a b c Michal Reiman: Rusko jako téma a realita doma av exilu - Vzpomínky na léta 1968–1990 , Prague 2008
personal data
SURNAME Reiman, Pavel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reimann, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech German studies specialist, editor, literary historian and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1976
Place of death Prague