Wolfgang Fernbach

Wolfgang Fernbach (* 1889 ; † after January 11, 1919 ) was a German socialist and participant in the November Revolution . He was murdered on January 11, 1919 following the January uprising .

Life

Wolfgang Fernbach came from a Berlin Jewish family; his parents ran a lending library for a middle-class audience. Wolfgang Fernbach was involved in the Zionist alliance Hasmonaeon in 1907 , but later turned to socialism. Fernbach became a member of the Spartacus group and worked together with Leo Jogiches during the First World War on the publication of the Spartacus letters. During the November Revolution he joined the editorial team of the "Red Flag", the newly founded newspaper of the KPD.

Party founder Rosa Luxemburg greeted him warmly: "We were counting on your cooperation with the newspaper without further ado. There will be a lot to work", she wrote to him on November 18, 1918.

During the January uprising he was one of the parliamentarians from the occupied building of the editorial office of the social democratic newspaper "Vorwärts" in Berlin who wanted to negotiate with the government troops besieging the house on the morning of January 11, 1919. Fernbach had helped with the production of the "Red Forward" during the occupation, the newspaper published by the occupiers.

However, the government troops were not interested in a peaceful surrender. Instead of negotiations, the seven parliamentarians, including the working-class poet Werner Möller , were led away by government troops and shot in the courtyard of the Berlin dragoons. A memorial plaque in the entrance area of ​​the building on Mehringdamm, which today serves as the tax office, reminds of Wolfgang Fernbach, among others.

literature

• David Fernbach: Wolfgang Fernbach (1889–1919): Jewish socialist and victim of the Berlin January battles in 1919, in progress - Movement - History , Issue I / 2019, pp. 60–77.
• Eugen Fernbach, David Fernbach (ed.): Assimilation - Zionism - Spartacus. Chronicle of the Berlin Fernbach family (1879–1934) , Berlin 2019.

Web links

• Wolfgang Fernbach as a soldier (Jewish Museum Berlin)
• Rosa Luxemburg, letter to Wolfgang Fernbach from November 18, 1918
• David Fernbach: Wolfgang Fernbach and the Spartacus Uprising (2019)
• Commemorative plaque for parliamentarians of the forward occupation, tax office Mehringdamm, Berlin-Kreuzberg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rosa Luxemburg, letter to Wolfgang Fernbach November 18, 1918, quoted from Rosa Luxemburg: Gesammelte Briefe, vol. 5, August 1914 to January 1919, Berlin, p. 416.
2. ↑ Memorial plaque for parliamentarians, Mehringdamm tax office