Wilhelm Florin

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Wilhelm Florin (born March 16, 1894 in Cologne-Poll ; † July 5, 1944 in Moscow ) was a German politician ( KPD ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

The trained riveter Florin came from a Catholic working-class family and was initially involved in the Catholic Young Men’s Association, before he joined the free-trade union German Metalworkers Association and the socialist youth movement in 1913 . He was drafted into the infantry in the First World War in 1914. As a war opponent, he joined the newly founded USPD in 1917 ; for this Florin was temporarily assigned to a punishing unit. With the left wing of the USPD he joined the KPD at the end of 1920 and was active as an honorary functionary and works council until 1923. In 1923, at the instigation of Eugen Eppstein , Florin became an organizer (head of the organization and propaganda department ) of the KPD district of Middle Rhine, until he was expelled from the Rhineland by the French authorities at the end of the year. He continued his political work illegally.

In 1924 Florin was elected to the Central Committee of the KPD, in May of the same year he also became a member of the Reichstag , to which he belonged until Hitler's repeal of the Reichstag on March 8, 1933. At the same time he acted temporarily as Polleiter (Head of the Politics Department) in the districts of Thuringia and Upper Silesia. When Fischer and Maslow were dismissed from the party leadership after Stalin's intervention , Florin stood on the side of the new chairman Ernst Thälmann and, from 1925, reorganized the Ruhr party district, which had been shattered by factional disputes and which he chaired until 1932 and which he brought along the Stalinist line. During this time, the KPD press referred to Florin, who was re-elected to the Central Committee in 1927 and to the Politburo in 1929 , as the “ leader of the Ruhr proletariat ”. In 1932, Florin replaced Walter Ulbricht as pollen manager in the Berlin-Brandenburg district.

After the takeover of the Nazi Party in January 1933 Florin took the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the February 7, 1933 meeting of illegal sports store Ziegenhals part in Berlin.

After the fire in the Reichstag , Florin first went into hiding and emigrated to the Soviet Union via Paris . In Paris in 1936 he signed the appeal for the anti-fascist Popular Front of the Lutetia district . In the internal party disputes over popular front policy , Florin initially belonged to the “left” critics of the new party line with Hermann Schubert , Franz Dahlem and Fritz Schulte , but quickly switched to the position of Wilhelm Pieck and Ulbricht. At the Congress of the Comintern in 1935, Florin also became a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EKKI) and the International Control Commission of the Comintern; He was a member of both bodies until the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. From 1943 until his death, Florin was a founding member of the National Committee Free Germany .

tomb

Florin died as a result of a brief serious illness and was first buried in the Novodewitschi Cemetery in Moscow in 1944 , but his urn was transferred to Berlin in 1955 and buried in the Socialist Memorial at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery.

In the GDR z. B. a barracks of the NVA (in Rostock , today Hanse barracks), the steel and rolling mill in Hennigsdorf , a street in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg (today Lilli-Henoch-Straße) and a secondary school, as well as a street (since 1997 Hoepnerstraße ) named after him in the Gohlis district of Leipzig .

His wife Therese Florin, née Althammer, was for many years deputy chairwoman of the DFD , his son Peter Florin was a GDR diplomat.

Works

  • Questions of our united front policy . In: The International. Journal of the Practice and Theory of Marxism . Founded by Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring. Edited by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Volume 15, issue 7–8. August 1932. Berlin 1932.
  • Results and prospects of the socialist ascent in the Soviet Union. Excerpt from the speech at the Reich Party Workers' Conference of the KPD, October 15-18, 1932 . Communist Party of Germany (Ernst Schneller), Berlin (1932)
  • Wilhelm Pieck. A fighting life in the service of the working class . With contributions by Wilhelm Florin, Johannes R. Becher . Publishing Cooperative of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow 1936.
  • How do we overthrow Hitler? The way to the united front and the anti-fascist popular front in Germany. Speech and closing remarks at the Brussels Conference of the Communist Party of Germany, October 1935 . Publishing Cooperative of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow 1936.
  • The curse of Nuremberg. Hitler's council of war against freedom and peace . With contributions by Wilhelm Pieck, Wilhelm Florin, Peter Wieden. Editions Promethee, Strasbour 1937.
  • Why is Hitler waging war against the Soviet Union? A lecture to German prisoners of war . Publishing house for foreign language literature, Moscow 1942.
  • Against fascism. Speeches and essays. With a biographical abstract by Siegfried Ittershagen . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-320-00648-7

literature

  • Johannes R. Becher: Wilhelm Florin . In: International Literature . Volume 14. Moscow 1944, No. 8, p. 60.
  • Eckhard Trümpler: Florin, Wilhelm . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verliag, Berlin 1970, pp. 133-134.
  • Eckhard Trümpler: The workers' business was his business. Wilhelm Florin . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . 14th year, Berlin 1972, pp. 111-118.
  • Gerhard Nitzsche: Wilhelm Florin's unpublished speech from 1944 . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . Volume 26, Berlin 1984, No. 2, pp. 217-219.
  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads: who was what? , Bacht, Essen 1985, ISBN 3-87034-037-1
  • Florin, Wilhelm . 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 .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Florin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friends of the "Ernst Thälmann Memorial"
  2. ^ History of the German labor movement - Biographisches Lexikon , Dietz Verlag Berlin 1970, p. 135
  3. ^ Joachim Hoffmann : Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. A German National Cemetery , Das Neue Berlin, 2001, p. 180
personal data
SURNAME Florin, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ries, Peter (pseudonym); Müller, Walter (pseudonym); Müller, W. Berlin (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD) and resistance fighters against National Socialism, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne Poll
DATE OF DEATH July 5, 1944
Place of death Moscow