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Hermann Remmele | |
|---|---|
 Remmelec. 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 |  German Empire |
| Branch | Imperial German Army |
| Service years | 1914–1917 |
| Conflicts | First World War |
Hermann Remmele (15 November 1880 – 7 March 1939) was a Germancommunist politician of theSPD,USPD andKPD. Duringexile inMoscow he carried thecode nameHerzen (English:"Hearts").[1]
Born inZiegelhausen near Heidelberg, Hermann Remmele was the son of a miller. His brother,Adam Remmele, would go on to become the president ofBaden. Remmele attended elementary school inLudwigshafen and then trained as an iron turner. After a period as awandering 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 theSPD, as well as theGerman Metal Workers' Union. In the years 1901 to 1914 he was an honorary representative and board member of the union'sMannheim,Darmstadt andOffenbach am Main branches. Remmele also became involved in leading the association of young workers in Mannheim and attended the SPD'sCentral Party School [de] inBerlin in 1907/08. At the same time, he wrote for several social democratic publications.[citation needed]
From 1914 Remmele served in theFirst World War. In 1917, he co-founded theUSPD. During theNovember Revolution he was a member of theWorkers' and Soldiers' Council in Mannheim, and was one of the co-initiators of theSoviet Republic in Mannheim (1919). That same year he was USPD District Secretary for theRepublic of Baden and thePalatinate. He held the same position inWürttemberg until the end of 1920.[citation needed]
Together with a faction of the party, Remmele joined theKPD in 1920, where he was a member of theCentral 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 theComintern (ECCI) from 1926 onwards.[citation needed]
In a 1923 speech to a mixed audience of both Communist andNazi party members, Remmele condemned Naziantisemitism. 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 armedrevolution, thereby foreshadowing theHamburg Uprising.[2]: 427
In 1925, he led a Communist Party delegation on a visit to theSoviet Union, about which he published the influential pro-Soviet leafletWas 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 theKampfbund gegen den Faschismus (de).[citation needed]
Of the 16 members that made up the Communist Party committee in 1924, only Remmele andErnst Thälmann remained in 1929.[5]
After he, along withHeinz 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 theNazi seizure of power, his German citizenship was revoked (based on the 1933Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Withdrawal of German Nationality [de]) in March 1934.[6]
Remmele, his wife and their son Helmut were arrested in May 1937 during theGreat Purge.[3]: 19 [7] Helmut was either shot immediately after his condemnation in January 1938[8] or died on his way to theGulag.[3]: 19 On 7 March 1939, Hermann Remmele was sentenced to death and shot the same day atDonskoy Cemetery inMoscow. A Soviet courtrehabilitated him in 1988.
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
