The Conciliator faction was an opposition group within the
Communist Party of Germany during the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
and the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. In
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the German word for conciliator, ''Versöhnler'', became a term for anti-
Marxist political tendencies.
Background
The faction emerged in the mid-1920s from the "middle group" aligned with
Ernst Meyer. Meyer, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), was elected to its
central committee in 1927. Along with the faction led by
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933.
A committed Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist, Thälmann played a major r ...
, they formed the leadership of the KPD from 1926 to 1928.
The leading people aligned with Meyer were
Hugo Eberlein
Max Albert Hugo Eberlein (4 May 1887 – 16 October 1941) was a German Communist politician. He took part of the founding congress of the Communist Party of Germany (Dec–Jan 1919), and then in the First Congress of the Comintern (2–6 March 19 ...
,
Arthur Ewert
Arthur Ernest Ewert (30 November 1890 – 3 July 1959) was a German communist political activist and functionary of the Communist International (Comintern). Ewert is best remembered as an official Comintern representative to the United States, C ...
,
Heinrich Süßkind,
Gerhart Eisler
Gerhart Eisler (20 February 1897 – 21 March 1968) was a German politician, editor and publicist. Along with his sister Ruth Fischer, he was a very early member of the Austrian German Communist Party (KPDÖ) and then a prominent member of the Co ...
and
Georg Schumann[Ulrich Weißgerber]
''Giftige Worte der SED-Diktatur: Sprache als Instrument von Machtausübung und Ausgrenzung in der SBZ und der DDR''
LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin (2010) pp. 356-357. . Retrieved July 18, 2011 and came from the ranks of
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
ists, intellectuals and full-time KPD employees. They supported a
united front
A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...
with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany,
similar to the right wing of the KPD, aligned with
August Thalheimer
August Thalheimer (18 March 1884 – 19 September 1948) was a German Marxist activist and theorist.
Early life
He was born in 1884 in Affaltrach, now called Obersulm, Württemberg, Germany in to a Jewish working-class family. He studied at the ...
and
Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler (3 July 1881 – 26 September 1967) was a German communist, trade unionist, politician, revolutionary activist, and political writer. Brandler is best remembered as the head of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the party ...
. They also pushed for active participation with the Federation of General Trade Unions in Germany (''
Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
The General German Trade Union Federation (german: Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, ADGB) was a confederation of German trade unions in Germany founded during the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1919 and was initially powerful enough to ...
''), a federation of
socialist trade unions.
They opposed the ultra-left policies of the
Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition against the
International Federation of Trade Unions
The International Federation of Trade Unions (also known as the Amsterdam International) was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU.
IFTU had close links to the Labou ...
, who were social democrats. Adopted in 1928 by the
Profintern
The Red International of Labor Unions (russian: Красный интернационал профсоюзов, translit=Krasnyi internatsional profsoyuzov, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern, was an international body established by the Comm ...
, the
party line branded the social democrats as "
social fascists
Social fascism (also socio-fascism) was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way ...
".
Social fascism
BookRags. Retrieved July 18, 2011 The Conciliator faction refrained from criticizing the hegemony of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Comintern and they rejected all suggestion of a split in the KPD.
A series of events between 1928 and 1930 led to a loss of their influence in the KPD. In autumn 1928, there was a scandal
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
involving a close friend of Thälmann, John Wittorf, who was accused of embezzling between 1,500 and 3,000 Reichsmark
The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
from the KPD. He was defended by Thälmann, despite his guilt. Afterward, Thälmann was deposed from the party's central committee, with support of the Conciliator faction. Thälmann was soon reinstated by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
and the Conciliator faction was driven out of the KPD leadership. With Meyer's death in early 1930, the Conciliator faction lost a large part of its influence in the KPD and afterward, found themselves needing to be discreet. Pressure from Stalin led to the expulsion and defamation of several members. Individual, unaffiliated Conciliator groups began to emerge. In Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, a group was formed by Hans Westermann in Hamburg. Eduard Wald founded the Committee for Proletarian Unity (''Komitee für Proletarische Einheit'') working primarily in Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
. Others joined the Socialist Workers' Party or the Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
(SPD).
After 1933, when the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
seized control of the government, the Conciliators joined the German Resistance, both unaffiliated groups and those still in the KPD, such as the "Berlin Opposition" aligned with Karl Volk Karl Volk (1 April 1896 – March 1961) was a Communist politician, journalist and German Resistance fighter against Nazism.
Biography
Volk was born in Schowkwa, Galicia (today Ukraine) to a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in Moravian Pr ...
and Georg Krausz. There was a meeting of Conciliators in Zurich in 1933 and one group published a magazine in exile, called ''Funke''. By 1940, many Conciliator groups had disintegrated, primarily because of repression by the Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
. Other prominent members, such as Eberlein and Süßkind, fell victim to the stalinist purges
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
. Most members who survived the war rejoined the KPD and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED) and some joined the SPD.
Postwar term
After the war, the German word for conciliator, ''versöhnler'', was used in the German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
(GDR) to refer to anti-Marxist tendencies. The term had been previously used by Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
, Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
to vilify certain party members. The third party convention of the SED continued the attack on Social Democratism, with propaganda including the fight against all liberalism and conciliatory tendencies as essential to the fight's effectiveness. The 1984 ''Handbuch der deutschen Gegenwartsprache'' ("Handbook of German Contemporary Speech") published in the GDR defined ''versöhnler'' as "within the labor movement, someone who exhibits unprincipled anti-marxist behavior, fomenting right or left opportunism".
References
External links
Letters: Karl Volk (scroll down, don't use hot link)
Revolutionary History. Retrieved July 18, 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conciliator faction
Communist Party of Germany
Political parties in the Weimar Republic