Willi Paul

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Willi Paul (born July 1, 1897 in Göttingen ; † April 27, 1979 ) was a German author , magazine editor , resistance fighter and anarcho-syndicalist .

Life

After Willi Paul had finished an apprenticeship as a carpenter , he worked as a metal worker in 1915 . He took part in the First World War as a soldier. From 1926 until the end of the Weimar Republic he was unemployed. During his political activities after the First World War, he met his future wife Erna Schüssler.

Act

On the initiative of Josef Hodeck (1876–1945), Paul and others founded a local group of the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) in Kassel with a membership of between 20 and 30 people. His activities included organizing events, agitation, and selling libertarian magazines, The Free Worker and The Syndicalist . He was arrested in 1923 for selling these publications, charged with “calling for a general strike”. An article with this title appeared in Der Freie Arbeiter . Paul was finally acquitted, his lawyer declared in court that it was not about a "appeal ...", but about an " education for a general strike ". At a meeting of the unemployment movement in July 1932, Paul was elected as a delegate for the anti-fascist action . With two others he was able to prevent the KPD from smuggling some National Socialists into the board of the unemployment movement . In 1931, members of the FAUD founded the anti-fascist organization Schwarze Scharen in Kassel , in which Willi Paul was actively involved. As editor of the magazine Proletarian Front and an illegal printing company in the allotment garden, where he produced the magazines Die Kommenden and Internationaler Sozialismus , he led his resistance against the advancing fascism . In 1933 Paul and other FAUD members distributed the publication Die Internationale in front of the employment office in Kassel .

To avoid possible arrest, he first traveled to Amsterdam and stayed there for four weeks. In April 1937 he went to Barcelona, ​​where he was arrested with other anarchists . After his release, he traveled to Tartienta with Paul Sammlung (J. Mümken writes "Tartienta", but Tar d ienta is probably meant (municipality in the province of Huesca )) and fought in the Aslaso division until August 1938 . From Spain he traveled to Paris and after meeting Helmut Rüdiger from there back to Amsterdam. After being arrested again, he spent more than seven months in prison. Here he was deported to Belgium with other inmates. At the time, Belgium had an agreement with France that foreigners could be deported to the south of France. Paul was in three French internment camps and was then handed over to the Gestapo in May 1942 . The Higher Regional Court sentenced him to six years in prison. After the Second World War , he helped found the Federation of Liberal Socialists (FfS), a successor organization to FAUD. As an author, he wrote for the libertarian magazines Zeitgeist and Akratie . Here he was critical of the equation between the RAF and anarchism.

Together with his wife Erna, he kept in touch with anarchist groups and people, such as Helmut Rüdiger and Otto Reimers . In May 1989 his wife received the city medal from the Lord Mayor of Kassel for the resistance against National Socialism, which they both had done.

On June 16, 2018 were the club stumbling blocks for Kassel for Erna Willi and Paul stumbling blocks Mittelgasse 8 (formerly Mittelgasse 20) placed in front of the house. The house in which Erna and Willi Paul lived was destroyed in the Second World War.

literature

Books

  • Hans Jürgen Degen: Anarchism in Germany 1945-1960. The Federation of Liberal Socialists . Klemm & Oelschläger. ISBN 3-932577-37-X
  • Helge Döhring: Black crowds. Anarcho-Syndicalist Workers' Defense 1929 - 1933. Edition AV , Lich 2011. ISBN 978-3-86841-054-9
  • Jürgen Mümken: In the fight against Hitler and Franco. The Spain fighter Willi Paul , in FAU -Bremen (ed.), The CNT as a vanguard of international anarcho-syndicalism. The Spanish Revolution in 1936 . Edition AV, Lich 2006
    • dsb .: anarcho-syndicalism on the Fulda. The FAUD in Kassel and in the resistance against National Socialism and Fascism. In it also Helge Döhring Syndicalism and Anarcho-Syndicalism in Germany. An introduction; Karl Wack: The "Free Youth" Kassel. Edition AV, Lich 2004. ISBN 393604936X
  • Andreas G. Graf (ed.): Anarchists against Hitler. Anarchists, anarcho − syndicalists, council communists in resistance and exile . Lukas Verlag , Berlin 2001

Magazines

  • Otto Reimers, Georg Hepp: On the death of Willi Paul . In Akratie magazine , No. 13, January 1980
  • Jürgen Mümken : On the 25th anniversary of the death of the Spanish fighter Willi Paul . In Direkt Aktion , May / June 2004, No. 163

Web links

  • Full text: (PDF; 1.1 MB) Helge von Horn, Ulrich Schneider: Days of Liberation 1945: Kassel. "Tiger" city, rubble city, dreams of a new era (via Erna Paul)
  • List: FAUD people in Kassel in contact with Paul: Herrmann Hannibal, Paul Breitling, Enno Wolf; with further reference.

Individual evidence

  1. Vhl. on this: Andreas G. Graf, anarchists against Hitler
  2. See: Hans Jürgen Degen, Anarchismus in Deutschland
  3. ^ Jürgen Mümken, On the 25th anniversary of the death of the Spanish warrior Willi Paul. Full text . Retrieved October 28, 2009