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Fritz Wolffheim | |
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Born | Friedrich Wilhelm Wolffheim (1888-10-30)30 October 1888 |
Died | 17 March 1942(1942-03-17) (aged 53) |
Nationality | Prussian |
Citizenship | German |
Occupation | Accountant |
Known for | Politician |
Political party | Social Democratic Party of Germany Socialist Party of America Communist Party of Germany Communist Workers Party of Germany Gruppe Sozialrevolutionärer Nationalisten |
Fritz Wolffheim (30 October 1888 – 17 March 1942) was a German Jewishcommunist politician and writer. He was a leading figure in theNational Bolshevism tendency that was briefly influential in Germany afterWorld War I.
Wolffheim, who came from a leadingJewish family, trained as an accountant and first became active in politics in 1909 when he joined theSocial Democratic Party of Germany.[1] From 1910 to 1913 he lived inSan Francisco where he was a member of theSocialist Party of America.[1] In theUnited States he also became a member of theIndustrial Workers of the World, editing a paper for them.[2] He also served as secretary of the movement inSan Francisco, working alongsideLala Hardayal in this capacity.[citation needed] Whilst involved with IWW Wolffheim became convinced of the need for a united revolutionary organisation instead of the distinct party andtrade union model and would later use his theories in Germany whereAnton Pannekoek adopted them enthusiastically.[2] After arriving inHamburg in 1913 Wolffheim won support for his ideas amongst the local party to the point where in early 1919 the Hamburg KPD declared that it was incompatible to be a member of both the Party and a traditional trade union.[3]
Within the Hamburg party a power base had been built up byHeinrich Laufenberg withRudolf Lindau,Wilhelm Düwell andPaul Frölich amongst his closest lieutenants. Wolffheim became associated with this tendency and before long became Laufenberg's closest collaborator.[4]
As leaders of the KPD in Hamburg the duo strongly attackedimperialism in Germany, publishing a joint pamphlet in 1915 in which both expansionism and the support that they felt was being given to it by the SPD were attacked.[5] In October 1919 Wolffheim and Laufenberg brought their ideas, which were already known as "national Bolshevism" by that point, to Karl Radek arguing that they should unite behind adictatorship of the proletariat which would harness Germannationalism in order to renew war on theAllies in an alliance with theSoviet Union.[5] The policy emphasised a co-operative struggle for national liberation at the expense ofclass war and thus broke from Marxist orthodoxy.[6] Wolffheim even suggested that in order to bring about the desired revolution thefar left combat units could be fused with elements of thefar rightFreikorps.[7] The idea was rejected as nonsense byVladimir Lenin[8] whilst Radek also criticised the plan strongly.[9] Before long Wolffheim was expelled from the KPD along with Laufenberg after the pair had tried to wrest control fromWilhelm Pieck.[10]
Along with Laufenberg andJan Appel, Wolffheim attended theHeidelberg conference that saw the birth of theCommunist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) and was a founder member of this group.[11] By 1920 however he had been expelled from the party, with his national Bolshevism the official reason for his departure.[12] Individually Wolffheim was close to the rightist GeneralPaul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck whilst along with Laufenberg he had met withErnst Graf zu Reventlow immediately prior to theKapp Putsch.[13]
Following his expulsion from the KAPD Wolffheim became a member of the League for the Study of German Communism, a pro-nationalist group that included representatives of business and army officers amongst its membership. Wolffheim's membership of this group brought him into contact with elements on the fringes of theNazi Party.[14] However his involvement withNazism was never more than perfunctory (probably due to his Jewishness) and he instead became associated with theGruppe Sozialrevolutionärer Nationalisten, a national revolutionary group founded by the journalistKarl Otto Paetel in 1930.[1] Arrested by the Nazis in 1936, he died in theRavensbrück concentration camp in 1942.[1]
He wrote several texts with Laufenburg: