Wilhelm Hein (politician, 1889)

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Wilhelm Hein (born January 10, 1889 in Goldbeck , Satzig district ; † February 17, 1958 in Berlin ) was a German metal worker and politician (KPD).

Life

Hein, a trained machine former, began to get involved in the labor movement before the First World War . Since February 1, 1918 - according to the handbook of the Reichstag members - it was "politically organized." Hein had been a member of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV) since March 1913.

After the war, Hein joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), for which he increasingly began to work as a functionary in the following years. From 1924 to September 1929 he worked in the middle administration of the Berlin administrative office of the DMV in Berlin.

Hein held his first public office from October 1925 to October 1928 as a city councilor for his party in Berlin. As a close friend of Ernst Thälmann , Hein joined the Central Committee in 1927 and in 1929 the Politburo of the KPD. From 1928 he was a member of his party for constituency 2 (Berlin) in the Reichstag, in which he served as a parliamentarian for four legislative periods until 1933. In September 1929 Hein was expelled from the DMV due to his active support of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). Hein took on various functions between 1928 and 1933, particularly for the RGO. In January 1930 he organized the DMV opposition together with Rudolf Lentzsch . Industry of the iron formers and colleagues , which was led by him and Lentzsch. It was an RGO organization that appeared as a communist split from the Berlin DMV. The association, also known as the “Revolutionary Former Association”, consisted primarily of qualified skilled workers like Hein who were excluded from the DMV. With the founding of the Unified Association of Metal Workers Berlin (EVMB), the first “red RGO association”, in November 1930, the “Revolutionary Former Association” joined the EVMB collectively. Wilhelm Hein became a member of the closer EVMB board and held the function of "chairman of the auditors".

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " in 1933, Hein was taken into protective custody. After a very short term, he was released. Hein now earned his living as the host of a beer pub in the north of Berlin. The SPD politician Herbert Wehner , who had been a party friend of Hein's party in the KPD during the Weimar period, wrote in his memoirs in 1982 that Hein had been “in contact” with the Gestapo since his release from prison. According to Wehner, Hein was used by the Gestapo as agent provocateur : As a prominent communist, the innkeeper Hein - according to the Gestapo calculation - was supposed to attract communists who had remained secretly true to their communist convictions as guests. Since his company was under constant surveillance, the Gestapo could have identified anti-regime workers as dissidents when they visited the restaurant , in order to be able to prosecute them all the more easily. The assertion that Hein changed sides after 1933 can also be found in Siegfried Bahne - who calls him in connection with the "activity of provocateurs" - and in Hermann Weber : He explains that Hein defected to "Hitler" or that he had "Surrenders to the NSDAP [...]."

As a person, Hein von Wehner is characterized as a "vigorous renown proletarian" who has "benefited a lot from his so-called originality".

literature

  • Hein, Wilhelm . 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 .
  • Stefan Heinz : Moscow's mercenaries? The unified association of metal workers in Berlin. Development and failure of a communist union . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, pp. 151, 277, 367f., 395, 446, 453, ISBN 978-3-89965-406-6 .
  • Andreas Herbst: "I am not aware of any anti-party acts ..." Comments on the biography of the KPD top functionary Wilhelm Hein . In: Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism, 2016, pp. 1–18.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gisela Helwig: Germany Archive , 1970, p.
  2. ^ The Berliner Börsen Courier of March 10, 1933 lists Hein in the list of people in protective custody at the time.
  3. ^ Herbert Wehner: Testimony . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-462-01498-6 , p. 79.
  4. ^ Siegfried Bahne: The Communist Party of Germany . In: Erich Matthias / Rudolf Morsey (eds.): The end of the parties 1933 . (Publication by the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties), Droste, Düsseldorf 1960, p. 693.
  5. ^ Hermann Weber: From Rosa Luxemburg to Walter Ulbricht. Changes in Communism in Germany . 4th, verb. Edition, Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, Hannover 1970, ISBN 3-7716-2071-6 , p. 106.
  6. ^ Herbert Wehner: Testimony . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-462-01498-6 , p. 79.
personal data
SURNAME Hein, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Goldbeck , Satzig district
DATE OF DEATH 17th February 1958
Place of death Berlin