Heinz Neumann
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Heinz Neumann (6 July 1902 – 26 November 1937) was a German politician from the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
(KPD) and a journalist. He was a member of the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
, editor in chief of the party newspaper ''
Die Rote Fahne ''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communi ...
'' and a member of the Reichstag. He was one of the many victims to Stalin's
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
.


Biography

Born in Berlin into a middle-class family, Neumann studied
philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
and came into contact with Marxist ideas. In 1920, he was admitted into the Communist Party by Ernst Reuter, then General Secretary.
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 ...
took him under his wing. Neumann began writing editorials for various KPD newspapers in 1921. He dropped out of university in 1922 and became editor of the ''
Rote Fahne ''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communi ...
'' (''Red Flag''). He was arrested and spent six months in prison, during which he took up
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, learning it so well, he could speak to Soviet party officials without an interpreter. In 1922, he met
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 ...
on a trip, speaking to him in Russian. From that point until 1932, he was a strong supporter of Stalin. He first belonged to the left wing of the KPD, led by Ruth Fischer. In 1923, he aligned himself with
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 ...
and
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 became the political leader of the party's
Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; nds, label= Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schweri ...
district. He participated in the
Hamburg Uprising The Hamburg Uprising (german: Hamburger Aufstand) was an insurrection during the Weimar Republic in Germany as part of the so-called German October communist revolution attempt. It was started on 23 October 1923 by one of the most militant sec ...
and in 1924, had to flee to Vienna, from where he was expelled to the Soviet Union in 1925. There, he succeeded Ivan Katz as Communist Party representative to the Comintern. From July to December 1927, he represented the Comintern in China. Working with Georgian communist
Vissarion Lominadze Vissarion Vissarionovich "Beso" Lominadze ( ka, ბესარიონ ლომინაძე; russian: Виссарион Виссарионович Ломинадзе; 6 June 1897 – January 1935), was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet ...
, he helped Chinese communists to organize the
Guangzhou Uprising Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...
on 11 December 1927. The rebellion was a complete failure and resulted in great casualties. Chinese communist leader
Zhang Guotao Zhang Guotao (November 26, 1897 – December 3, 1979), or Chang Kuo-tao, was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and rival to Mao Zedong. During the 1920s he studied in the Soviet Union and became a key contact with the Comi ...
blamed Neumann for this, claiming that the German had insisted that
Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
should be held at all cost against a National Revolutionary Army counter-offensive although this was not feasible for the local communists. Neumann went back to Germany in 1928 and after the Wittorf Affair, became one of the most important politicians of the KPD. He was considered the major theoretician of the party and became editor in chief of the ''Rote Fahne''. As the chief ideologist, he was responsible for the ultra-left policies, the
Revolutionäre Gewerkschafts Opposition The Revolutionäre Gewerkschafts Opposition (Revolutionary Union Opposition) was the Communist union in Germany during the Weimar Republic.Larry Dean Peterson''German Communism, Workers' Protest, and Labor Unions: the Politics of the United Front in ...
and the
social fascism 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 ...
policy. At the same time, he encouraged fighting the
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
and coined the slogan "Schlagt die Faschisten, wo ihr sie trefft!" (Beat the Fascists wherever you meet them!), valid until 1932. Along with fellow member of the Reichstag
Hans Kippenberger Hans Kippenberger (15 January 1898 – 3 October 1937) was a German politician ( KPD). Between 1928 and 1933 he sat as a member of the National Parliament (''Reichstag''). Like many Communist Party members at the time, he also operated under " ...
, Neumann was the leader of the KPD's paramilitary wing, the Party Self Defense Unit (german: Parteiselbstschutz). As such, Neumann had a major role in the 1931 assassination of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck, both of whom were SPD members and Precinct Captains in the Berlin Police. Elected to the Reichstag in 1930, in 1931, Neumann began to disagree with both Stalin and KPD leader
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 ...
. Neumann felt that by focussing on toppling the ruling SPD, the KPD was underestimating the danger of a takeover by 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 ...
. He was defeated in October 1932, relieved of his party functions in November 1932, and lost his seat in the Reichstag. He was sent to Spain to represent the Comintern, then lived illegally in Switzerland. In September 1933, the
public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...
of Berlin, based on the confessions of 15 of his co-conspirators, charged Neumann with
first degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...
for his involvement in the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. In January 1934, while still a fugitive from the German police, Neumann was accused of having tried to split the KPD, he was forced to write a "self criticism". In late 1934, he was arrested in Zurich by the Swiss immigration authorities and was imprisoned for six months, after which, he was expelled. He was sent to the Soviet Union, where he fell victim to the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
.


Death

Heinz Neumann was arrested by the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
on 27 April 1937. On November 26, 1937, he was sentenced to death by the
Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union ( Russian: Военная коллегия Верховного суда СССР, ''Voennaya kollegiya Verkhovnogo suda SSSR'') was created in 1924 by the Supreme Court of the Sov ...
. He was shot on the same day.


Personal life

Heinz Neumann began dating
Margarete Buber-Neumann Margarete Buber-Neumann (21 October 1901 – 6 November 1989) was a German writer. As a communist, she wrote the memoir ''Under Two Dictators'' about her imprisonment within a Soviet prison, and later a Nazi concentration camp during World War ...
in 1929 and later lived in unmarried union with her. After he disappeared in the Great Purge, she was also arrested and served time in the
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
. After the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Buber-Neumann was handed over to the Nazi
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 ...
along with many other KPD members whom Stalin had sent to the gulag. After her return to Germany, Buber-Neumann was imprisoned by the Nazis in Ravensbrück concentration camp, but survived to write her memoirs of both the gulag and the Nazi death camps. After her release, Buber-Neumann spent the remainder of her life as an outspoken believer in the moral equivalency of Nazism and communism. She died in 1989, just days before the
fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
.


Works

* ''Die vaterländischen Mörder Deutschlands. Bayern in der kleinen Entente. Das Ergebnis des Münchener Hochverratsprozesses.'' Berlin 1923 (with ''Karl Frank'') * ''Maslows Offensive gegen den Leninismus. Kritische Bemerkungen zur Parteidiskussion.'' Hamburg 1925 * ''Was ist Bolschewisierung?'' Hamburg 1925 * ''Der ultralinke Menschewismus.'' Berlin 1926 * ''J. W. Stalin.'' Hamburg 1930 * ''Durch rote Einheit zur Macht. Heinz Neumanns Abrechnung mit der Politik des sozialdemokratischen Parteivorstandes.'' Berlin 1931 * ''Prestes, der Freiheitsheld von Brasilien.'' Moskau 1936.


References


Bibliography

*


External links


Heinz Neumann Archive
at marxists.org *
Heinz Neumann in the ''Neue Deutsche Biographie''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Neumann, Heinz 1902 births 1937 deaths Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck Politicians from Berlin Communist Party of Germany politicians Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic German expatriates in Russia Great Purge victims from Germany Executed people from Berlin