Willi Langrock

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Willi Karl Langrock (also Willy Langrock ; born November 13, 1889 in Leipzig , † September 18, 1962 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ) and employee of the Communist International (Comintern).

Life

Langrock, the son of a cigar maker, attended elementary school and completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter from 1904 to 1908 . He then worked in various printing houses, from 1912 in the printing house of the " Leipziger Volkszeitung ". In 1906 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), from 1915 he belonged to the International Group . From 1915 to 1917 he was district chairman of the Free Socialist Youth in Leipzig. On 23/24 April he took part in the illegal conference of opposition socialist youth groups in Jena . In 1917 he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) via.

During his military service in the First World War , he was arrested and sentenced to six months in prison in 1916 for “preparation for high treason and treason”. Langrock had carried out anti-war propaganda and distributed leaflets. In 1917 he was drafted into the Landsturm , in September 1918 he deserted from the army. During the November Revolution of 1918 he was a member of the Leipzig Workers 'and Soldiers' Council. Langrock was a co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Leipzig at the beginning of 1919 and until 1922 Political Secretary of the KPD for the district of Central Germany, based in Leipzig. On the III. At the party congress in Karlsruhe in February 1920 , he was elected as a candidate for the headquarters of the KPD, to which he belonged until January 1923. From December 1920 to September 1922 Langrock was a member of the Saxon state parliament (1st electoral period). From 1923 to 1925 he was in charge of the KPD printing and publishing house in Leipzig, and from 1925 to 1929 he was in charge of the entire KPD printing and publishing business (paper production and recycling company, Peuvag). In this area he was also the representative of the International Control Commission of the ECCI for Europe.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, he built up illegal communist printing companies and publishing bases from March to July 1933 and then traveled through various European countries as a finance and publishing specialist on behalf of the Comintern until 1937. He was charged with transferring the KPD's assets to Switzerland. For this purpose he founded Imprimmob AG in Basel and the Diligentia publishing house in Birsfelden . He used the pseudonym "Kurz" and stated that he was a businessman and lived in Strasbourg . On February 21, 1935, he and his colleague and partner Martha Scholz (* 1907) were arrested in Switzerland and expelled as a "Comintern financial agent". In 1936 he was charged with espionage in France. He was also temporarily imprisoned in Austria. In 1937 he was denounced by Herbert Wehner in Moscow . Wehner put him in touch with Gestapo agents. In 1938/39 Langrock was an instructor at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . From 1939 to 1941 he stayed in Norway, including in the home of Nansen Help near Oslo . Then he fled to Sweden . He was interned there for three months. From 1941 to 1946 he worked as a typesetter in Falköping and acted as head of the KPD group in Stockholm .

In June 1946 he returned to Germany and was from 1946 to 1949 head of the administration department of the party operations in the Central Secretariat of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). He was largely concerned with securing the former party assets of the KPD. At the same time, he also worked as managing director and head of various publishing houses, such as the Deutsches Frauenverlag, the Bildende Kunst publishing house, from 1947 the Volk und Welt publishing house and Universal-Verlag Leipzig. At the beginning of August 1949 he was appointed head of the main printing and paper processing department at the light industry headquarters of the German Economic Commission, and from October 1949 he was head of the printing and paper processing department in the light industry department of the Ministry of Industry. Between March and June 1951 he had to be treated at the government hospital for a ruptured heart muscle . From 1949 until his retirement in 1954, Langrock was head of the main administration for the printing industry in the Ministry of Light Industry.

Fonts (selection)

  • (together with Erich Schumann and Artur Heimburger): The beginnings of the socialist youth movement in Leipzig . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , September 12th and 19th and October 1st and 17th, 1957.
  • (together with Erich Schumann and Artur Heimburger): The resolution of the youth conference in Jena in 1916. An important document from the illegal struggle of the socialist working class youth during the First World War . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , 6 (1958), pp. 817–821.
  • The Spartacus League was the driving force . In: Forward and don't forget. Experience reports from active participants in the November Revolution 1918/1919 . 2nd Edition. Dietz, Berlin 1960, pp. 405-416.
  • (together with Helmut Arndt and Gerhard Seifert): Workers' unit smashed Kapp-Putsch . Propaganda department of the Leipzig district leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Leipzig undated [1960].

Awards

literature

  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933–1945 . Volume 1: Politics, Economy, Public Life . Saur, Munich 1980, p. 419.
  • Einhart O. Lorenz: Exile in Norway. Living conditions and work of German-speaking refugees 1933–1943 . Nomos, Baden-Baden 1992, ISBN 3-7890-2721-9 , pp. 67, 196, 210 and especially 355.
  • Brigitte Studer: Un parti sous influence: le Parti communiste suisse, une section du Comintern 1931 à 1939 . L'Âge d'Homme, Lausanne 1994, ISBN 2-8251-0565-1 , p. 672 and passim.
  • Michael F. Scholz : Would you like some Scandinavian experience? Post-exile and remigration. The former KPD emigrants in Scandinavia and their further fate in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07651-4 , p. 361 and passim.
  • Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 6: Kraatz - Menges . Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-25036-3 , p. 255.
  • Andreas Herbst :  Langrock, Willi . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Entry: Langrock, Willi . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Stadelmaier: Between Langemark and Liebknecht. Working Youth and politics in the First World War . Federal Board of the Socialist Youth of Germany - Die Falken, Bonn 1986, p. 92.
  2. ^ Reinhard Müller: Herbert Wehner Moscow 1937 . Hamburger Edition 2004, p. 250.
personal data
SURNAME Long skirt, Willi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langrock, Willi Karl (full name); Long skirt, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD / SED) and functionary of the Comintern
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1962
Place of death Berlin