Wilhelm Herlinger

Wilhelm Herlinger ( Czech Vilém Herlinger ; born February 11, 1873 in Grabau near Mährisch-Ostrau , Austria-Hungary ; † March 16, 1939 in Oppau an der Oder ) was a Czechoslovak politician ( KPTSch ). He was a senator of the Czechoslovak National Assembly.

Life

Herlinger came from a middle-class, German-Jewish family who came from Orlau , lived in Witkowitz from 1870 and ran an inn there. He was one of seven children. Herlinger attended the elementary and community school in Witkowitz. By attending libraries, museums and theaters, he acquired an extensive self-taught education. Since he grew up in a Czech environment, Herlinger spoke Czech fluently and without an accent. Herlinger was a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAP) from an early age and at times worked for socialist newspapers. He fell out with his family, who did not share his political views. Against the will of his parents, he married a working class woman outside the church and declared himself an atheist . Herlinger refused to take up a "bourgeois" job and became a worker in the machine factory in the Witkowitz ironworks. Because of his left-wing socialist activities, he was under police supervision at an early stage. However, the solidarity of his work colleagues always kept him from losing his job. During the First World War he was not sent to the front because the authorities did not want to provoke any difficulties in this vitally important operation.

In 1919 Herlinger joined the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic (DSAP), and as a supporter of the DSAP left, he became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KPTsch) in 1921. Herlinger was considered an excellent speaker and enjoyed a great reputation among the Witkowitz ironworks. He was a district official of the KPTsch, a member of the Wittkowitz municipal council and from 1925 to 1929 senator of the Czechoslovak National Assembly. In 1927 he took part in the fourth party congress of the CPC. Herlinger was one of the 26 MPs and senators of the KPTsch who protested on March 27, 1929 against the so-called ultra-left policy of the new leadership around Klement Gottwald . On April 18, 1929 he was therefore expelled from the CPC. On June 6, 1929 made Herlinger with other senators the club of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia-Leninists. As a result of the dissolution of the National Assembly on September 25, 1929, Herlinger also lost his income with his Senate seat. He then became a worker again in the Witkowitz machine factory and withdrew from active politics.

After German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia , Herlinger was arrested. On March 16, 1939, he was shot together with his wife in Oppau (Zábřeh).

literature

• Rudolf M. Wlaschek: Biographia Judaica Bohemiae . Volume 2. Publications of the Research Center for East Central Europe at the University of Dortmund 1997, ISBN 3-923293-57-7 , p. 20.
• Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest. Statistical-biographical handbook of the parliamentarians of the German minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919–1945 . Volume 1. Documentation Verlag, Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , pp. 431f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Collective of authors: Přehled dějin KSČ v Severomoravském kraji do roku 1948. Ostravsko . Volume 2. Profile, Ostrau 1981, p. 63.