Hans Beimler | |
|---|---|
 Beimler in 1936 | |
| Member of theReichstag forUpper Bavaria–Swabia | |
| In office 31 July 1932 – 28 February 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Member of theLandtag of Bavaria forMunich | |
| In office 24 April 1932 – 31 March 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Johannes Baptist Beimler 2 July 1895 |
| Died | 1 December 1936 (aged 41) |
| Cause of death | Killed in action (gunshot wound to the back) |
| Political party | Communist Party of Germany |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children |
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| Parent |
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| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  German Empire Munich Soviet Spanish Republic |
| Branch/service | Imperial German Navy Spartacus League International Brigades |
| Years of service | 1914–1918 1918–1919 1936 |
| Rank | Commissar |
| Unit | XI International Brigade |
| Battles/wars | |
Johannes Baptist "Hans" Beimler (2 July 1895 – 1 December 1936) was a German trade unionist,Communist Party official,Reichstagdeputy, an outspokenopponent of the Nazis and a volunteer in theInternational Brigades fighting for theSpanish Republic.[1]
Johannes Baptist Beimler was born on 2 July 1895 in Munich to Rosina Beimler, an unmarried cook and a farm worker. As a three-week-old infant, he was sent to the village ofWaldthurn in theOberpfalz region of Northeastern Bavaria to be raised by his maternal grandparents.[2] His grandfather had a locksmith's business and Beimler followed the family tradition into this trade. In 1913 he joined the German Metal Workers Union (DMV).In 1914, he was conscripted and joined theKaiserliche Marine serving on minesweepers and rising eventually to the rank of "Mate". In 1917 he was awarded theIron Cross. In 1918 took part in theNovember Revolution atCuxhaven. Returning to Munich, Beimler joined theSpartacus League and in the chaotic period following the armistice, during which there were several revolutionary governments in Germany, he supported theMunich Soviet ("Räterepublik"). In July 1919 Beimler married Magdalene Müller inHamburg with whom he had a daughter, Rosemarie (1919), and (after moving back to Bavaria) a son, Johann (1921). Following a series of Beimler's extramarital infidelities, Magdalene committed suicide in 1928.[3]In 1930 Beimler married Centa Dengler, who worked at theKPD's Neue Zeitung in Munich.
After the overthrow of theMunich Soviet ("Räterepublik") by the right-wingFreikorps, Beimler settled in Munich where he joined the Communist Party and became chairman of the local branch in the Munich suburb of Nymphenburg.In 1921 he was arrested for attempting to sabotage troop transports and was jailed for 2 years, just months after the birth of their second child.After his release, he worked in the locomotive factory of Krauß & Co, where he became a trade union leader.In 1925 he was nominated by the congress of Munich trade unions to represent them in the first delegation of German workers to visit the Soviet Union.
In 1928 the KPD requested him to re-organize the party in Augsburg in Southern Bavaria, where he was elected to the City Council (Stadtrat).[4]A fervent Communist andanti-Nazi, he was elected as aKPD deputy to theReichstag in theGerman federal election in July 1932. In the same year he was elected to theBavarian Landtag and succeededAlbert Buchmann as leader of theKPD in Southern Bavaria.[5]
In February1933, during the election campaign for the Reichstag, Beimler addressed the crowd at the last public meeting the KPD were able to hold at Circus Krone in Munich. With the battle cry "We shall all meet again at Dachau!" he rallied the crowd to resist the growing Nazi threat, referencing one of the few victories the Red Army of theMunich Soviet ("Räterepublik") had over the right-wingFreikorps at Dachau in 1919.[6][7]
Hitler came to power in January 1933 and with theReichstag Fire Decree for the Protection of People and State, one month later, began interning political rivals, includingKPD andSPD members, inconcentration camps. Beimler and his wife Centa were both arrested in April 1933 and never saw each other again. Already known as an outspoken and defiant anti-Nazi voice in the Reichstag, Beimler and his party colleagues were subjected to two weeks of beatings at the Munich police Praesidium on Ettstraße before being sent toDachau concentration camp, where the SS guards taunted him with his Dachau remark made ten weeks prior.[7][8]Hilmar Wäckerle, Dachau's first camp commandant, boasted that he would kill Beimler himself. Indeed, several Communist prisoners of Jewish heritage had already been murdered under his regime. However, with the suspicious deaths of Dachau prisoners[9] already under investigation,[10] Wäckerle decided that, with sufficient physical and mental abuse, Beimler could be encouraged to commit suicide.[7] After four weeks, however, in May 1933 Beimler managed to escape, possibly with the help of some renegade camp guards.[7][11] He managed to cross intoCzechoslovakia and on to the Soviet Union.
His wife, Centa, was trapped in Nazi Germany and was imprisoned in Moringen women's concentration camp and other prisons until 1945.[12]His children Rosi and Hansi were taken in by relatives in theOberpfalz until Beimler organized their escape to theSoviet Union in 1934.[13]
Beimler wrote an account of his experiences at Dachau which appeared in the Soviet Union in August 1933:Im Mörderlager Dachau: Vier Wochen unter den braunen Banditen.[14][7] It was one of the first published accounts of life inside a Nazi concentration camp and was translated into several languages, including English, Spanish, French and Yiddish.In 1934, Germany revoked Beimler's citizenship.[15]
After short periods in France and Switzerland, working for theInternational Red Aid (Rote Hilfe) organisation, Beimler arrived in Barcelona in August 1936 at the head of the first brigade of German anti-fascist volunteers, fighting alongside the Republican troops under the name "Thälmann's Centurians". He was subsequently appointed ascommissar of allInternational Brigades supporting theSpanish Republic during theSpanish Civil War. In November 1936, while helping to defendMadrid from theNationalists, he was shot and killed. Unverified rumours, which some sources claim were initiated by Nazi authorities, subsequently spread that he was shot from behind by an agent of theNKVD, the secret service of theUSSR.[2][16][17]
Over 2 million people paid their respects as his body was transported from Madrid toMontjuïc Cemetery,Barcelona, where he was buried.[2]He was celebrated in a song ofErnst Busch (after a melody byFriedrich Silcher), which was then recorded by the radio station in Barcelona. TheXI International Brigade was named in his honour.InErnest Hemingway's novel,For Whom the Bell Tolls, the American protagonist Robert Jordan meets with a German revolutionary, Hans, who is based on Beimler.[2]
A week after thefall of Barcelona in January 1939, the Nationalists desecrated the graves of Beimler and his adjutant Luis Schuster (aka Franz Vehlow), burned their corpses and leveled the graves.[17]
His son, Hans Beimler Jr. was arrested in Moscow in the NKVDHitler Youth Conspiracy. He was later released, along with the son ofMax Maddalena, another prominent Communist, and two others.[18] His grandsonHans Beimler is a well-known American screenwriter.
Hans Beimler was granted national hero status in theGerman Democratic Republic, with military divisions, ships, factories, schools and streets named in his honour. TheTarantul-class corvetteHans Beimler (575) was commissioned with theVolksmarine from 1986 to 1990, and following German reunification was preserved atPeenemunde as a museum ship.
TheFreie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), the Communist Party's youth movement, dedicated their paramilitary exercise tournament to him.[19]
His legend grew and he was even spoken of as a left-wing intellectual.[3] In 1956 theGDR instituted theHans Beimler Medal, awarded to citizens who had fought for the Spanish Republic in the civil war.
