Richard Zimmermann (politician)

Richard Zimmermann's grave in the north cemetery in Jena

Richard Zimmermann (born December 31, 1876 in Dresden , † July 11, 1969 in Jena ) was a German politician ( SPD / USPD / KPD / SED ).

Life

Zimmermann came from a working class family in Dresden . His father was a tobacco worker . After attending primary school, he learned the trade of mechanical engineer. In 1899 he joined the SPD . In 1909 he worked for the Jena company Carl Zeiss AG .

In 1917 he founded the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in Jena and was its first chairman. In 1918 he was drafted into the army and took part in the First World War. He became a member of the workers and soldiers council of Jena. In 1919 he founded the “Neue Zeitung” together with Emil Höllein . In 1920 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which with his help came into possession of the Neue Zeitung. From 1921 he was its editor and managing director , and he also served as a works council member at Zeiss.

From 1921 to 1933 he was a member of the Thuringian state parliament. In the internal party disputes in 1928/29, he was the only Thuringian member of parliament who supported the ZK line that was loyal to Moscow until Richard Eyermann joined him as the second .

After the transfer of power to the Nazis he was from 1933 to 1934 in prison , after which he worked again as Dreher . From 1944 he was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp . During this time he was part of the illegal Thuringian KPD district leadership.

After the end of the Second World War he took part in the reconstruction of the Jena KPD local group and was a member of the Jena SED district leadership until 1952 . In 1952, despite his protest, he was deported to work in the city archives . Later he worked as a freelance university employee on the documentation of the history of the Jena labor movement .

A street in Jena-Lobeda (East) is named after him.

literature

• Bernd Zimmermann: "Life picture of a socialist - Richard Zimmermann", epubli, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7450-8666-9
• Steffen Kachel : A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia. Small series, Volume 29), Böhlau: Köln / Weimar / Wien 2011, p. 572.
• Carpenter, Richard . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .