Walter Fish

Walter Fisch (1946)

Walter Fisch (born February 16, 1910 in Heidelberg , † December 21, 1966 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German politician of the KPD .

Life

The son of a cigarette manufacturer graduated from high school in 1928. In 1925 he joined the Bündische Jugend and in 1927 the Red Aid Germany . Until 1931 he studied business administration in Frankfurt am Main . From 1928 he was a functionary of the KJVD , since 1932 a member of the state secretariat of the KPD in Hesse. In 1933 he was arrested.

Emigration and Remigration

After his release, he was able to flee to Switzerland that same year. There he became emigration leader of the KPD and was therefore expelled from Switzerland in 1935. He went to Prague and worked there for the Red Aid until 1938.

He then returned illegally to Switzerland and was interned there from 1939–1944. In this context, he was due to his political activity, by the second department of the higher court of the canton Aargau on September 1, 1942, on a complaint of the public prosecutor, together with Wilhelm Frank, Rudolf Singer (politician, 1915) and Kurt Seliger "because of activity for the communist party and because of communist propaganda activity or because of the support for such according to Art. 1 and 2 of the BRB of 6 August 1940 concerning measures against communist and anarchist activity, as well as according to Art. 1 and 2 of the BBB of 26 November 1940 concerning Dissolution of the Swiss Communist Party "guilty and sentenced them to prison terms. The judgment was overturned by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court , the Court of Cassation, on November 20, 1942, due to an appeal by the convicted of annulment. So the convicts escaped being expelled by the Swiss Federal Council.

Afterwards, Fisch was a member of the provisional leadership of the Free Germany Movement and in this function was responsible for the work among German military internees and refugees. He was a member of the editorial team of the magazine “Über die Grenzen”.

In May 1945 he returned to Hessen, where he became the state leader of the KPD Hessen . The 15th party congress of the KPD in April 1946 delegated Fisch and eleven other top West German officials to the SED party executive. However, by order of the British and American military governments , they had to resign from these party offices, as the SED was not allowed in the western zones. In 1946, Fisch was a member of the state assembly and advisory state committee of Greater Hesse and in 1947 a member of the Hessian state parliament . At the party congress on April 28, 1948 in Herne / Westphalia , he was elected deputy chairman of the KPD in the western zones. At this party congress the KPD renamed itself the Socialist People's Party of Germany , which was forbidden by the occupation authorities on June 7, 1948 because of “misleading” (according to General Robertson ). Fisch had been one of the theoretical masterminds of this attempt to expand the KPD base into the left-wing social democratic area. From 1949 to 1953 he was a member of the first German Bundestag . On July 27, 1950, he was expelled from the Bundestag for 30 days because of unparliamentary behavior by Vice President Hermann Schäfer . As part of the so-called "Blitzsäuberung" (namely of Western emigrants) in the spring of 1951, he lost his board positions in the party.

After the KPD was banned in 1956, he continued to work illegally for the party and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 1958 for “preparing a treasonous enterprise” in accordance with Section 83 StGB , but was released early in 1959. He then worked as a commercial clerk and freelance journalist in Frankfurt am Main.

literature

Walter Fisch: Socialist People's Party of Germany , in: " Wissen und Tat ", 1948, issue 5, pages 7 ff.
Walter Fisch (article) in: Munzinger, Internationales Biographisches Archiv 48/1959 from November 16, 1959
Gottfried Hamacher. With the assistance of André Lohmar: Against Hitler - Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement: short biographies . Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin. Volume 53. ISBN 3-320-02941-X ( PDF )
Jochen Lengemann : The Hessen Parliament 1946–1986 . Biographical handbook of the advisory state committee, the state assembly advising the constitution and the Hessian state parliament (1st – 11th electoral period). Ed .: President of the Hessian State Parliament. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-458-14330-0 , p. 248–249 ( hessen.de [PDF; 12.4 MB ]).
Jochen Lengemann: MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 129.
"... towards democracy" - The minutes of the Advisory State Committee of Greater Hesse in 1946 - A documentation , edited by Bernhard Parisius and Jutta Scholl-Seibert, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-930221-05-5 , page 35– 36
Short biography for: Fisch, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Walter Fisch - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Fish, Walter. Hessian biography. (As of November 18, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

^ Estates and individual holdings / FM / Frank, Wilhelm. In: ETH Archive for Contemporary History. ETH Zurich, accessed on July 26, 2019 .
↑ Kurt Seliger, then a stateless Austrian, later published his experiences in the book: Basel, Badischer Bahnhof , Vienna, 1987
↑ In January 1942 the police confiscated two copies of the speech Staline iron in Frank's room on November 6, 1941 and an excerpt drawn up by Frank from a report on the activities of the Communist Party in the labor camps for emigrants in 1941. The complainant had received the report from an unnamed third party and returned it to him. Frank also lent his like-minded colleague Rudolf Singer three books. see: SWISS FEDERAL COURT Kassationshof, copy, p. 2, file number: 20.11.1942, Str. 111,113,115AR.
↑ cf. Singer, Rudolf, curriculum vitae 1959, p. 2 in the Federal Archives of the FRG
^ Dietrich Staritz : Communist Party of Germany , in: Richard Stöss (Ed.), Party Handbook, paperback edition, Westdeutscher Verlag , Opladen 1986, p. 1672.

personal data
SURNAME	Fish, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician (KPD), MdL, MdB
DATE OF BIRTH	February 16, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH	Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH	December 21, 1966
Place of death	Frankfurt am Main

[1] Estates and individual holdings / FM / Frank, Wilhelm. In: ETH Archive for Contemporary History. ETH Zurich, accessed on July 26, 2019 .

[2] Kurt Seliger, then a stateless Austrian, later published his experiences in the book: Basel, Badischer Bahnhof , Vienna, 1987

[3] In January 1942 the police confiscated two copies of the speech Staline iron in Frank's room on November 6, 1941 and an excerpt drawn up by Frank from a report on the activities of the Communist Party in the labor camps for emigrants in 1941. The complainant had received the report from an unnamed third party and returned it to him. Frank also lent his like-minded colleague Rudolf Singer three books. see: SWISS FEDERAL COURT Kassationshof, copy, p. 2, file number: 20.11.1942, Str. 111,113,115AR.

[4] . Singer, Rudolf, curriculum vitae 1959, p. 2 in the Federal Archives of the FRG

[5] Dietrich Staritz : Communist Party of Germany , in: Richard Stöss (Ed.), Party Handbook, paperback edition, Westdeutscher Verlag , Opladen 1986, p. 1672.