Compromiser

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Compromiser is the derogatory term for an inner-party opposition movement within the KPD during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich .

The Compromisers emerged in the mid-1920s from the so-called middle group around Ernst Meyer of the KPD, which together with the faction around Ernst Thälmann formed the leadership of the KPD from 1926 to 1928. Leading figures of the current alongside Meyer were Arthur Ewert , Hugo Eberlein , Heinrich Süsskind , Gerhart Eisler and Georg Schumann ; The current was strongly represented among trade union cadres , intellectuals and in the full-time apparatus of the KPD. Similar to the “right” wing of the party around August Thalheimer and Heinrich Brandler , the Compromisers advocated a united front policy with the SPD and active participation in the free trade unions and opposed the ultra-left line ( social fascism and RGO policy ) that had been pushed from 1928 onwards ; unlike the “right-wing”, there was no criticism of the dominance of the CPSU in the Comintern and a split in the party was rejected at all costs. However, they advocated a minimum of open exchange of views within the EKKI , which put them in Stalin's way politically.

After u. a. The Compromisers helped to briefly dismiss Ernst Thälmann from party leadership in the context of the Wittorf affair in autumn 1928, the Weddinger party congress in the summer of 1929 and Ernst Meyer's death in early 1930, the Compromisers lost a large part of their influence in the KPD and were only able to do so act covertly . Some Compromisers were also expelled or ousted from the party; Independent Compromisers' Groups were formed around Hans Westermann in Hamburg and the Committee for Proletarian Unity with a focus on Hanover ; others like Heinrich Stahmer joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany or the SPD.

After 1933 in the time of National Socialism , both the independent Compromisers and groups that remained in the party such as the Berlin opposition around Karl Volk and Georg Krausz (of which Heinz Brandt was a member) were active in the anti-fascist resistance . In exile there was a compromise group that published the magazine Funke . As an organized movement, the Compromisers had disintegrated mainly due to the repression by the Gestapo around 1940, prominent members such as Eberlein and Susskind fell victim to the Stalinist purges ; After 1945 surviving relatives mostly joined the KPD and SED , in Germany some also joined the SPD.

literature

  • Klaus Michael Mallmann: Communists in the Weimar Republic. Social history of a revolutionary movement. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1996, ISBN 3-534-13045-6 .
  • Hermann Weber: The change in German communism. The Stalinization of the KPD in the Weimar Republic. European Publishing House, Frankfurt a. M. 1969, OCLC 943330900 .

Footnotes

  1. ^ Bert Hoppe : In Stalin's allegiance - Moscow and the KPD 1928–1933. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58255-0 , p. 54.
  2. ^ Frank Hirschinger : "Gestapo agents, Trotskyists, traitors": Communist party purges in Saxony-Anhalt 1918–1953. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36903-4 , pp. 77-81.
  3. ^ Walter Uhlmann: Die to live: political prisoners in the Brandenburg-Görden prison 1933–1945. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-462-01584-2 , p. 13.