Ernst Thälmann
Encyclopedia
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD) during much of the Weimar Republic
. He was arrested by the Gestapo
in 1933 and held in solitary confinement
for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald
on Adolf Hitler
's orders in 1944. During the Spanish Civil War
, several units of German republican
volunteers (most notably the Thälmann Battalion
of the International Brigades
) were named in his honour.
, Thälmann was a Social Democratic Party
member from 1903. Between 1904 and 1913 he worked as a stoker on a freighter. He was discharged early from his military service as he was seen as a political agitator.
In January 1915, on the day before his call up for military service in World War I
, he married Rosa Koch. Towards the end of 1917 he became a member of the Independent Socialist Party of Germany
(USPD). On the day of the German Revolution
, 9 November 1918, he wrote in his diary on the Western Front
, "...did a bunk from the Front with 4 comrades at 2 o'clock."
, Thälmann sided with the pro-Communist group which in November 1920 merged with the KPD. In December Thälmann was elected to the Central Committee of the KPD. In March 1921 he was fired from his job at the job centre due to his political activities. That summer Thälmann went as a representative of the KPD to the Congress of the Comintern in Moscow and met Lenin. In June 1922 Thälmann survived an assassination attempt at his flat. Members of the right-wing nationalist organisation Consul threw a hand grenade into his ground floor flat. His wife and daughter were unhurt; Thälmann himself came home only later.
Thälmann participated in and helped organise the Hamburg Uprising
of October 1923. The uprising failed, and Thälmann went underground for a time. After the death of Lenin in January 1924, Thälmann visited Moscow and for some time maintained a guard of honour at his bier
. From February 1924 he was deputy chairman of the KPD and, from May, a Reichstag
member. At the 5th Congress of the Comintern that summer he was elected to the Comintern Executive Committee and a short time later to its Steering Committee. In February 1925 he became chairman of the Rote Frontkämpferbund (RFB), the defence organisation of the KPD.
In October 1925 Thälmann became Chairman of the KPD and that year was a candidate for the German Presidency
. Thälmann's candidacy in the second round of the presidential election split the centre-left vote and ensured that the conservative Paul von Hindenburg
defeated the Centre Party's Wilhelm Marx
. In 1933 Hindenburg would appoint Adolf Hitler
as German Chancellor.
In October 1926 Thälmann supported in person the dockers' strike in his home town of Hamburg. He saw this as solidarity with the British miners' strike which had started on 1 May and had been profitable for Hamburg Docks as an alternative supplier of coal. Thälmann's argument was that this "strike-breaking" in Hamburg had to be stopped. In March he took part in a demonstration in Berlin, where he was injured by a blow from a sword.
In 1928 during the Wittorf affair
he was ousted from the party central committee
for trying to cover up embezzlement by a party official who was his close friend and protégé, John Wittorf, possibly for tactical reasons. But Stalin
intervened and had Thälmann reinstated, signaling the beginning of a purge
and completing the Stalinization of the KPD.
At the 12th party congress of the KPD in June 1929 in Berlin-Wedding, Thälmann, in conformity with the position adopted by the Soviet Union
leadership under Joseph Stalin
, adopted a policy of confrontation with the SPD. This followed the events of "Bloody May", in which 32 people were killed by the police in an attempt to suppress demonstrations which had been banned by the Interior Minister, Carl Severing
, a Social Democrat.
During that time, Thälmann and the KPD fought the SPD as their main political enemy, acting according to the Comintern
policy which declared Social Democrats and Socialists to be "social fascists"
. By 1927, Karl Kilbom
, the Comintern representative to Germany, had started to combat this ultra leftist
tendency of Thälmann within the German Communist Party, but found it to be impossible when he found Stalin was against him. Another aspect of this strategy was to attempt to win over the leftist elements of the Nazi Party, especially the SA
, who largely came from a working class background and supported socialist economic policies. These guidelines on social democracy
as "social fascism" remained in force until 1935 when the Comintern officially switched to endorsing a "popular front" of socialists, liberals and even conservatives against the Nazi threat. By that time, of course, Adolf Hitler
had come to power and the KPD had largely been destroyed.
In March 1932, Thälmann was once again a candidate for the German Presidency, against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg
and Hitler. The KPD's slogan was "A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler; a vote for Hitler is a vote for war." Thälmann returned as a candidate in the second round of the election, as it was permitted by the German electoral law, but his vote count lessened from 4,983,000 (13.2%), in the first round, to 3,707,000 (10.2%), which seems to indicate that, despite his fierce opposition, Hindenburg received more than a million of communist votes. After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Thälmann proposed that the SPD and KPD should organise a general strike
to topple Hitler, but this was not achieved. In February 1933, a Central Committee meeting of the already banned KPD took place in Königs Wusterhausen
at the "Sporthaus Ziegenhals", near Berlin, where Thälmann called for the violent overthrow of Hitler's government. On 3 March he was arrested in Berlin by the Gestapo
.
for complicity in the Reichstag fire
, the Nazi regime did not want to allow the possibility of further embarrassment in the courtroom.
For his 50th birthday, in April 1936, Thälmann received greetings from around the world, including from Maxim Gorky
and Heinrich Mann
. That same year the Spanish Civil War
broke out, and two units of the International Brigades
named themselves after him.
Thälmann spent over eleven years in solitary confinement. In August 1944, he was transferred from Bautzen prison to Buchenwald concentration camp
. There, on 18 August, perhaps on Hitler's orders, he was shot. His body was immediately cremated
. Shortly after, the Nazis announced that together with Rudolf Breitscheid
, Thälmann had died in an Allied
bombing attack on 23 August.
of the Soviet Communist Party
. Supporters of a more autonomous course were expelled. A leading German communist, Clara Zetkin
, described Thälmann as "uninformed and not educated in theory", and as caught in "uncritical self-deception and self-infatuation [which] borders on megalomania."
During World War I
and the Weimar Republic
, the KPD competed for leadership of the working class with the more moderate Social Democratic Party of Germany
(SPD), particularly after the latter supported German involvement in the War. Thälmann and the KPD focused their attacks primarily on the SPD to prevent it from retaining power. Thälmann did this at the expense of ignoring the then-young Nazi Party, which likely allowed them to gain power several years later. During World War II
Tito organized a battalion of Danube Swabians
as the Ernst Thälmann Battalion to fight the Nazis.
After 1945, Ernst Thälmann, and other leading communists who were murdered, such as Rosa Luxemburg
and Karl Liebknecht
, were widely honoured in East Germany, with many schools, streets, factories, etc., named after them. Most of these names were abolished after German reunification
though it is still possible to find places named after Thälmann in cities like Berlin
, Hamburg
, and Frankfurt an der Oder
. The East German pioneer organisation
was named the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
in his memory. Members pledged that "Ernst Thälmann is my role model," adding that "I promise to learn to work and fight [struggle] as Ernst Thälmann teaches". In the 1950s, an East German film in two parts, Ernst Thälmann
, was made. In 1972, Cuba
named a small island, Cayo Ernesto Thaelmann
, after him.
The British
Communist composer and activist Cornelius Cardew
named his Thälman Variations for piano
in Thälmann's memory.
.
Ernst Thälmann Memorial in Hamburg, Germany.
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD) during much of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
. He was arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
in 1933 and held in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
on Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's orders in 1944. During the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, several units of German republican
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
volunteers (most notably the Thälmann Battalion
Thälmann Battalion
The Thälmann Battalion was a battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. It was named after the imprisoned German communist leader Ernst Thälmann and included approximately 1,500 people, mainly Germans, Austrians, Swiss and Scandinavians. The battalion fought in the defence...
of the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
) were named in his honour.
Political career
Born in HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Thälmann was a Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
member from 1903. Between 1904 and 1913 he worked as a stoker on a freighter. He was discharged early from his military service as he was seen as a political agitator.
In January 1915, on the day before his call up for military service in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he married Rosa Koch. Towards the end of 1917 he became a member of the Independent Socialist Party of Germany
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...
(USPD). On the day of the German Revolution
German Revolution
The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...
, 9 November 1918, he wrote in his diary on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, "...did a bunk from the Front with 4 comrades at 2 o'clock."
KPD
When the USPD split over the question of whether to join the CominternComintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, Thälmann sided with the pro-Communist group which in November 1920 merged with the KPD. In December Thälmann was elected to the Central Committee of the KPD. In March 1921 he was fired from his job at the job centre due to his political activities. That summer Thälmann went as a representative of the KPD to the Congress of the Comintern in Moscow and met Lenin. In June 1922 Thälmann survived an assassination attempt at his flat. Members of the right-wing nationalist organisation Consul threw a hand grenade into his ground floor flat. His wife and daughter were unhurt; Thälmann himself came home only later.
Thälmann participated in and helped organise the Hamburg Uprising
Hamburg Uprising
The Hamburg Uprising was an insurrection during the Weimar Republic in Germany. It was begun on October 23, 1923 by the one of the most militant sections of the Hamburg district Communist Party , the KP Wasserkante. From a military point of view, the attempt was futile and it was over within 24...
of October 1923. The uprising failed, and Thälmann went underground for a time. After the death of Lenin in January 1924, Thälmann visited Moscow and for some time maintained a guard of honour at his bier
Bier
A bier is a stand on which a corpse, coffin or casket containing a corpse, is placed to lie in state or to be carried to the grave.In Christian burial, the bier is often placed in the centre of the nave with candles surrounding it, and remains in place during the funeral.The bier is a flat frame,...
. From February 1924 he was deputy chairman of the KPD and, from May, a Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
member. At the 5th Congress of the Comintern that summer he was elected to the Comintern Executive Committee and a short time later to its Steering Committee. In February 1925 he became chairman of the Rote Frontkämpferbund (RFB), the defence organisation of the KPD.
In October 1925 Thälmann became Chairman of the KPD and that year was a candidate for the German Presidency
President of Germany
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany is the country's head of state. His official title in German is Bundespräsident . Germany has a parliamentary system of government and so the position of President is largely ceremonial...
. Thälmann's candidacy in the second round of the presidential election split the centre-left vote and ensured that the conservative Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
defeated the Centre Party's Wilhelm Marx
Wilhelm Marx
Wilhelm Marx was a German lawyer, Catholic politician and a member of the Centre Party. He was Chancellor of the German Reich twice, from 1923 to 1925 and again from 1926 to 1928, and also served briefly as minister president of Prussia in 1925, during the Weimar Republic.-Life:Born in Cologne to...
. In 1933 Hindenburg would appoint Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
as German Chancellor.
In October 1926 Thälmann supported in person the dockers' strike in his home town of Hamburg. He saw this as solidarity with the British miners' strike which had started on 1 May and had been profitable for Hamburg Docks as an alternative supplier of coal. Thälmann's argument was that this "strike-breaking" in Hamburg had to be stopped. In March he took part in a demonstration in Berlin, where he was injured by a blow from a sword.
In 1928 during the Wittorf affair
Wittorf affair
The Wittorf affair was an embezzlement scandal in Germany in 1928. John Wittorf, an official of the Communist Party , was a close friend and protégé of party chairman Ernst Thälmann. Thälmann tried to cover up the embezzlement, for which he was ousted from the central committee...
he was ousted from the party central committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
for trying to cover up embezzlement by a party official who was his close friend and protégé, John Wittorf, possibly for tactical reasons. But Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
intervened and had Thälmann reinstated, signaling the beginning of a purge
Purge
In history, religion, and political science, a purge is the removal of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, from another organization, or from society as a whole. Purges can be peaceful or violent; many will end with the imprisonment or exile of those purged,...
and completing the Stalinization of the KPD.
KPD vs SPD
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
leadership under Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, adopted a policy of confrontation with the SPD. This followed the events of "Bloody May", in which 32 people were killed by the police in an attempt to suppress demonstrations which had been banned by the Interior Minister, Carl Severing
Carl Severing
Carl Wilhelm Severing was a German Social Democrat politician during the Weimar era.He was Interior Minister of Prussia from 1920 to 1926, Minister of the Interior from 1928 to 1930 and Interior Minister of Prussia again from 1930 to 1932...
, a Social Democrat.
During that time, Thälmann and the KPD fought the SPD as their main political enemy, acting according to the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
policy which declared Social Democrats and Socialists to be "social fascists"
Social fascism
Social fascism was a theory supported by the Communist International during the early 1930s, which believed that social democracy was a variant of fascism because, in addition to a shared corporatist economic model, it stood in the way of a complete and final transition to communism...
. By 1927, Karl Kilbom
Karl Kilbom
Karl Kilbom was a Swedish Socialist politician.-Youth:As the son of a blacksmith, Karl Kilbom grew up in a working-class family of Walloon origin in the small town of Österby outside Uppsala, where he started working in the steel mills at an early age.In the year 1900, a socialist agitator visited...
, the Comintern representative to Germany, had started to combat this ultra leftist
Ultra leftism
The term ultra-leftism has two overlapping uses. It is used as a generally pejorative term for certain types of positions on the left that are seen as extreme or intransigent in particular ways...
tendency of Thälmann within the German Communist Party, but found it to be impossible when he found Stalin was against him. Another aspect of this strategy was to attempt to win over the leftist elements of the Nazi Party, especially the SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
, who largely came from a working class background and supported socialist economic policies. These guidelines on social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
as "social fascism" remained in force until 1935 when the Comintern officially switched to endorsing a "popular front" of socialists, liberals and even conservatives against the Nazi threat. By that time, of course, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had come to power and the KPD had largely been destroyed.
In March 1932, Thälmann was once again a candidate for the German Presidency, against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
and Hitler. The KPD's slogan was "A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler; a vote for Hitler is a vote for war." Thälmann returned as a candidate in the second round of the election, as it was permitted by the German electoral law, but his vote count lessened from 4,983,000 (13.2%), in the first round, to 3,707,000 (10.2%), which seems to indicate that, despite his fierce opposition, Hindenburg received more than a million of communist votes. After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Thälmann proposed that the SPD and KPD should organise a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
to topple Hitler, but this was not achieved. In February 1933, a Central Committee meeting of the already banned KPD took place in Königs Wusterhausen
Königs Wusterhausen
Königs Wusterhausen is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district of the state of Brandenburg in Germany.-Geographical location:Königs Wusterhausen – or "KW" as it is often called locally – lies on the Notte Canal and the river Dahme southeast of Berlin...
at the "Sporthaus Ziegenhals", near Berlin, where Thälmann called for the violent overthrow of Hitler's government. On 3 March he was arrested in Berlin by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
.
Imprisonment and execution
Thälmann's trial, which he said that he looked forward to, never took place. Thälmann's interpretation was that his two defence lawyers, both Nazi Party members (he nonetheless trusted them to a certain extent) at some point gathered that he planned to use the trial as a platform to appeal to world public opinion and denounce Hitler, and had told the court. Furthermore, Thälmann assumed that after the failure of the trial of Georgi DimitrovGeorgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
for complicity in the Reichstag fire
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
, the Nazi regime did not want to allow the possibility of further embarrassment in the courtroom.
For his 50th birthday, in April 1936, Thälmann received greetings from around the world, including from Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
and Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
. That same year the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
broke out, and two units of the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
named themselves after him.
Thälmann spent over eleven years in solitary confinement. In August 1944, he was transferred from Bautzen prison to Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
. There, on 18 August, perhaps on Hitler's orders, he was shot. His body was immediately cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
. Shortly after, the Nazis announced that together with Rudolf Breitscheid
Rudolf Breitscheid
Rudolf Breitscheid, was a leading member of the Social Democratic Party and a delegate to the Reichstag during the era of the Weimar Republic in Germany....
, Thälmann had died in an Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
bombing attack on 23 August.
Legacy
While heading the KPD, Thälmann closely aligned the German Communists with the hegemonyHegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
of the Soviet Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. Supporters of a more autonomous course were expelled. A leading German communist, Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....
, described Thälmann as "uninformed and not educated in theory", and as caught in "uncritical self-deception and self-infatuation [which] borders on megalomania."
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, the KPD competed for leadership of the working class with the more moderate Social Democratic Party of Germany
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD), particularly after the latter supported German involvement in the War. Thälmann and the KPD focused their attacks primarily on the SPD to prevent it from retaining power. Thälmann did this at the expense of ignoring the then-young Nazi Party, which likely allowed them to gain power several years later. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Tito organized a battalion of Danube Swabians
Danube Swabians
The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially alongside the Danube River valley. Because of different developments within the territory settled, the Danube Swabians cannot be seen as a unified people...
as the Ernst Thälmann Battalion to fight the Nazis.
After 1945, Ernst Thälmann, and other leading communists who were murdered, such as Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
and Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...
, were widely honoured in East Germany, with many schools, streets, factories, etc., named after them. Most of these names were abolished after German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
though it is still possible to find places named after Thälmann in cities like Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, and Frankfurt an der Oder
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
. The East German pioneer organisation
Pioneer movement
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined the Young Communist League...
was named the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
The Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation, consisting of the Young Pioneers and the Thälmann Pioneers, was a youth organisation of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14, in East Germany...
in his memory. Members pledged that "Ernst Thälmann is my role model," adding that "I promise to learn to work and fight [struggle] as Ernst Thälmann teaches". In the 1950s, an East German film in two parts, Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann (film)
Ernst Thälmann is an East German film in two parts about the life of the German Communist leader Ernst Thälmann, directed by Kurt Maetzig and starring Günther Simon in the title role. The first picture, Ernst Thälmann - Sohn seiner Klasse , was released at 1954...
, was made. In 1972, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
named a small island, Cayo Ernesto Thaelmann
Ernst Thälmann Island
Ernst Thälmann Island is a 15 kilometre long and 500 metre wide Cuban island in the Gulf of Cazones named for German Communist politician Ernst Thälmann. It contains highly developed reef formations with a high degree of biodiversity and hosts a number of endangered species, including black coral...
, after him.
The British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Communist composer and activist Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
named his Thälman Variations for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
in Thälmann's memory.
Sources
Biography of Ernst Thälmann on the website of the Deutsches Historisches MuseumDeutsches Historisches Museum
The German Historical Museum , DHM for short, is a museum in Berlin devoted to German history and defines itself as a place of enlightenment and understanding of the shared history of Germans and Europeans....
External links
Discourses and writings by and about Ernst Thälmann, on the Marxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet Archive
Marxists Internet Archive is a volunteer based non-profit organization that maintains a multi-lingual Internet archive of Marxist writers and other similar authors...
.
Ernst Thälmann Memorial in Hamburg, Germany.