Independent workers' party of Germany

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Independent Workers' Party of Germany (UAPD)
founding 1951
Place of foundation Worms
Alignment Socialism , Titoism
Government grants from Yugoslavia until autumn 1951
Number of members about 400

The Independent Workers' Party of Germany (UAPD) was a left-wing socialist party in the Federal Republic of Germany that was free of any block in the sense of Titoism and existed from 1951 to 1952. The title of the party newspaper was Freie Tribüne .

Development, positions

As early as 1947, some functionaries broke with the Moscow-based KPD . They wanted to continue working independently and decided to break away from the central committee of the KPD in Frankfurt. In July 1950, a preparatory conference in Ratingen passed a six-point paper that clearly distinguished itself from the SPD and KPD. In August of the same year the Free Tribune appeared in large numbers. Weekly newspaper for socialist politics. Organ of the preparatory committee for the formation of an independent workers' party in Germany . In March 1951, the party was finally formally founded in Worms. There was thus a third workers' party in the Federal Republic of Germany alongside the SPD and the KPD. In addition to Josef Schappe , Georg Fischer and Wolfgang Leonhard, the co-founders included the Trotskyist International Communists of Germany (IKD).

Winfried Müller, who is better known under the name Si Mustapha-Müller , also took part in the founding congress in Worms . With reference to Stasi files, Fritz Keller writes :

“Müller heads the Hessen State Secretariat in Frankfurt. In this role he forged the nominations for a candidate for the party, which earned him a three-month prison sentence for forgery. The conviction is reported extensively in the local press. In order to evade the prosecution, he went to Yugoslavia for a while. "

- Fritz Keller : A Life on the Edge of Probability , p. 31

Due to considerable financial support from Yugoslavia , the small party was able to employ 14 full-time functionaries with only 400 members. The weekly newspaper Freie Tribüne , which was subtitled Organ of the Independent Workers' Party of Germany after the party was founded, was published by a Düsseldorf publisher that was founded especially and also financed from Yugoslavia. The editor-in-chief was Josef Schappe. 10,000 and more copies were distributed weekly.

The party program included: non-alignment, immediate exit from the military alliances and the establishment of a parliamentary democracy. Already in the preparatory phase there had been violent conflicts between the ex-Communist Party members and the Trotskyists over the content of the party, which intensified after it was founded. In the debate about rearmament , the former KPD members wanted to strengthen the West militarily, while the IKD Trotskyists vehemently criticized remilitarization .

As early as August 1951, the UAP secretariat, which was dominated by former CPs, decided to expel the Trotskyists for “forming factions and justifying the system in the Soviet Union”. Georg Jungclas was also one of the excluded . Soon afterwards, the Yugoslav communists stopped funding because they had agreed to work more closely with the SPD. The party, weakened in terms of personnel and finances, dissolved a year later, in September 1952.

According to Arno Klönne , the Labor Party had never been able to build ties with the workers . And Gregor Kritidis notes that the party could hardly recruit younger members: "The experienced but defeated fighters from the second row of the labor movement who wanted an honest, politically and morally intact and combative class party gathered here."

literature

  • Peter Kulemann: The Left in West Germany after 1945. The first post-war period. Between social democratic integration and the Stalinism of the KPD - The failure of the "Titoist" Independent Workers' Party UAP 1950 , Hanover: SOAK-Verlag, 1978, ISBN 3-88209-013-8
  • Gregor Kritidis: Left Socialist Opposition in the Adenauer Era. A contribution to the early history of the Federal Republic of Germany , Hanover: Offizin, 2008, ISBN 978-3-930345-61-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This and the following information is based, unless otherwise indicated, on: Gregor Kritidis, Left Socialist Opposition in the Adenauer era. A contribution to the early history of the Federal Republic of Germany , Hanover 2008, pp. 160–168.
  2. ↑ Fritz Keller: A Life on the Edge of Probability. Si Mustapha alias Winfried Müller: From Wehrmacht deserter to hero of the Algerian liberation struggle , Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-85476-544-8
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Leonhard: Meine Geschichte der DDR , Berlin 2007, p. 128 ff.
  4. ^ Biographical Handbook of the German Communists: Georg Jungclas
  5. ^ Arno Klönne, Left Socialists in West Germany , in: Christoph Jünke , Left Socialism in Germany: Beyond Social Democracy and Communism? , Hamburg 2010, pp. 90-105, here p. 91 f.
  6. ↑ Gregory Kritidis, Left Socialist opposition in the Adenauer era. A contribution to the early history of the Federal Republic of Germany , Hanover 2008, pp. 160–168, here p. 164.

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