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Hermann Remmele | |
|---|---|
 Remmele c. 1930 | |
| Born | (1880-11-15)November 15, 1880 |
| Died | March 7, 1939(1939-03-07) (aged 58) |
| Political party | Communist Party of Germany (1920–) Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (1917–1920) Social Democratic Party of Germany (1897–1917) |
| Spouse | Anna Remmele (née Lauer) |
| Military Service | |
| Allegiance | .svg/1280px-Flag_of_Germany_(1867%E2%80%931918).svg.png) German Empire |
| Branch | Imperial German Army |
| Service years | 1914–1917 |
| Conflicts | First World War |
Hermann Remmele (15 November 1880 – 7 March 1939) was a German communist politician of the SPD, USPD and KPD. During exile in Moscow he carried the code name Herzen (English: "Hearts").[1]
Biography
Early years
Born in Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg, Hermann Remmele was the son of a miller. His brother, Adam Remmele, would go on to become the president of Baden. Remmele attended elementary school in Ludwigshafen and then trained as an iron turner. After a period as a wandering journeyman, he worked until the start of the First World War in 1914 in the profession for which he had trained.[citation needed]
In 1897, Remmele became a member of the SPD, as well as the German Metal Workers' Union. In the years 1901 to 1914 he was an honorary representative and board member of the union's Mannheim, Darmstadt and Offenbach am Main branches. Remmele also became involved in leading the association of young workers in Mannheim and attended the SPD's Central Party School in Berlin in 1907/08. At the same time, he wrote for several social democratic publications.[citation needed]
1914 to 1932
From 1914 Remmele served in the First World War. In 1917, he co-founded the USPD. During the November Revolution he was a member of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council in Mannheim, and was one of the co-initiators of the Soviet Republic in Mannheim (1919). That same year he was USPD District Secretary for the Republic of Baden and the Palatinate. He held the same position in Württemberg until the end of 1920.[citation needed]
Together with a faction of the party, Remmele joined the KPD in 1920, where he was a member of the Central Committee between 1920 and 1933, while being a member of the Reichstag during the same period. He briefly became KPD chairman in 1924. From 1923 to 1926 he also served as editor of the party newspaper, Die Rote Fahne. Remmele became Member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) from 1926 onwards.[citation needed]
In a 1923 speech to a mixed audience of both Communist and Nazi party members, Remmele condemned Nazi antisemitism. However, upon protests from the public, he took a more ambiguous stance, appeasing antisemitic elements in the crowd by stating: "One merely needs to go down to the Stuttgart cattle market in order to see how the cattle dealers, most of whom belong to Jewry, buy up cattle at any price".[2]: 340–341 In another public debate during the same year, Remmele said he was more willing to cooperate with the Nazi Party than with the SPD (which was a breach of official Communist Party policy).[2]: 341 In October 1923, Remmele stated during a speech that the Communist Party was contemplating armed revolution, thereby foreshadowing the Hamburg Uprising.[2]: 427
In 1925, he led a Communist Party delegation on a visit to the Soviet Union, about which he published the influential pro-Soviet leaflet Was sahen 58 deutsche Arbeiter in Russland? ("What did 58 German workers see in Russia?")[3]: 15 as well as an extensive 1932 book.[4]: 11
From 1930 he was chairman of the Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus (de).[citation needed]
Of the 16 members that made up the Communist Party committee in 1924, only Remmele and Ernst Thälmann remained in 1929.[5]
Exile in Moscow
After he, along with Heinz Neumann, lost a factional conflict within the KPD, Remmele relinquished his position in the party's Secretariat of the Central Committee in October 1932. This was followed in November 1933 by his exclusion from the Central Committee and the Politburo, and he was forced to resign from his functions in the ECCI. He subsequently left Germany for Moscow.[citation needed]
Following the Nazi seizure of power, his German citizenship was revoked (based on the 1933 Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Withdrawal of German Nationality) in March 1934.[6]
Death
Remmele, his wife and their son Helmut were arrested in May 1937 during the Great Purge.[3]: 19 [7] Helmut was either shot immediately after his condemnation in January 1938[8] or died on his way to the Gulag.[3]: 19 On 7 March 1939, Hermann Remmele was sentenced to death and shot the same day at Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow. A Soviet court rehabilitated him in 1988.
Personal life
Remmele was married to Anna Lauer (1888–1947).[7] They had two children, Helmut Remmele (1910–1938) and Hedwig Remmele (1907–1984).[9][4]: 12–21
Further reading
- Schröder, Wilhelm Heinz:: Sozialdemokratische Parlamentarier in den deutschen Reichs- und Landtagen 1867–1933. Biographien, Chronik und Wahldokumentation. Ein Handbuch. Düsseldorf, 1995. ISBN 3-7700-5192-0, p. 673.
- Hermann Weber (2003). "Remmele, Hermann". Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German). Vol. 21. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. p. 419. (full text online).
- Remmele, Hermann. In: Weber, Hermann, Herbst, Andreas: Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 bis 1945. 2., überarb. und stark erw. Auflage. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6.
- Münz-Koenen, Inge: Familie Remmele. In: Hedeler, Wladislaw, Münz-Koenen, Inge (Hg.): „Ich kam als Gast in euer Land gereist ...“ Deutsche Hitlergegner als Opfer des Stalinterrors. Familienschicksale 1933–1956. Lukas Verlag, Katalog zur Ausstellung, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86732-177-8, S. 89–103.
References
- ^ Kurzbiographie Remmele, Hermann (Herzen) in: Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Hrsg.): In den Fängen des NKWD: Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, S. 183
- ^ a b c Angress, Werner T. (1963). Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921-1923. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- ^ a b c Hoyer, Katja (2024). Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780141999340.
- ^ a b Andreas Petersen, Die Moskauer. Wie das Stalintrauma die DDR prägte. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2019.
- ^ Hermann Weber: Kommunistische Bewegung und realsozalistischer Staat. Beiträge zum deutschen und internationalen Kommunismus, herausgegeben von Werner Müller. Bund-Verlag, Köln 1988, S. 166/168.
- ^ Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): M.d.R. Die Reichstagsabgeordneten der Weimarer Republik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Politische Verfolgung, Emigration und Ausbürgerung 1933–1945. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-5162-9, S. 458f.
- ^ a b Kurzbiographie Remmele, Anna in: Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Hrsg.): In den Fängen des NKWD: Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, S. 183
- ^ "Remmele, Helmut". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
- ^ Kurzbiographie Remmele, Helmut In: Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Hrsg.): In den Fängen des NKWD: Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, S. 183.
