Wienand Kaasch

Wienand Kaasch (born January 30, 1890 in Stolp , † January 19, 1945 in Luckau ) was a German communist politician .

Life

Stumbling stone at the house, Parchimer Allee 94, in Berlin-Britz

He was a locksmith by trade and joined the SPD in 1912 . With part of the party he switched to the USPD in 1917 and to the KPD in 1920. In Berlin he carried out several functions for the party. Between 1922 and 1928 he was married to Herta Geffke . In 1923 the party headquarters sent him to the Ruhr area . Then in 1925 he worked in the organization department of the party leadership. After investigating the organization in the Ruhr area, he was briefly arrested. In 1925 he became political leader of the KPD in the Saar area .

He then worked again in the organization department at headquarters and rose to head of department. He was largely responsible for the so-called Reich controls in 1927 and 1929. These were statistical surveys of the internal structure of the party. These form an important source for researching the membership structure of the party. He was also a member of the Prussian state parliament from 1928 to 1932 . However, he was withdrawn from Germany in 1931 and worked as an instructor for the Comintern . He has worked in the USA , Romania and Great Britain , among others .

In 1933 he emigrated to the Soviet Union . In Moscow he was employed at the International Agricultural Institute. In 1935 he secretly returned to Germany with Erich Glückauf . He was supposed to become the political leader of the newly organized illegal leadership in Berlin. On August 7, 1935, Kaasch was arrested at a meeting with the chief technician Wilhelm Knapp . Numerous records of illegal party work were secured by the police.

He was sentenced to twelve years in prison on May 9, 1936. He died of a serious illness in Luckau prison.

On September 9, 2017 , a stumbling block was laid at his former place of residence, Berlin-Britz , Parchimer Allee 94 .

Fonts

• The social structure of the Communist Party of Germany. In: The Communist International 9/1928 pp. 1050-1067

literature

• Kaasch, Wienand . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Web links

Commons : Wienand Kaasch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on ddr-biographien.de