Hermann Remmele

Hermann Remmele (November 15, 1880 – March 7, 1939) was a German socialist politician (SPD, USPD, KPD). In Moscow exile he had the code name Herzen (English: "Hearts").^[1]

Life

Early years

Born in Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg, Hermann Remmele was the son of a miller, and brother of the later president of Baden, Adam Remmele. Remmele attended elementary school in Ludwigshafen and then trained as an iron turner. After a period as an itinerant labourerer, he worked until the war broke out in 1914 in the profession for which he had trained. In 1897 Remmele became a member of the SPD and German Metal Workers' Union. In the years 1901 to 1914 he was honorary representative and board member of the union in the Mannheim, Darmstadt and Offenbach am Main. He also became involved in leading the association of young workers in Mannheim and graduated in 1907/08 a course of Central Party School of the SPD in Berlin. Besides Remmele was working volunteer for some Social Democratic papers as an author.

From 1914

From 1914 Remmele was a soldier in the First World War. In 1917, he co-founded the USPD. During the November Revolution he was a member of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council in Mannheim. He was in February 1919 one of the co-initiators of the Soviet Republic (de) in Mannheim. That same year he was USPD District Secretary for Baden and the Palatinate. Thereafter, until 1920 he held the same position in Württemberg. He also played a leading role in the left wing of the party nationwide.

Together with a section of the party Remmele joined in 1920 the KPD. He was then from 1920 to 1933 a member of the Central Committee of the KPD and 1924 briefly its chairman. From 1923 to 1926 he was also editor of the party organ Die Rote Fahne. He was a member of the Reichstag from 1920 to 1933. From 1930 he was chairman of the Kampfbund against fascism. Remmele was from 1926 Member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI). From 16 members of the committee of the Communist Party organ, in 1924 only Remmele and Ernst Thälmann were left in the Official in 1929.^[2]

Living in Moscow

Remmele lived from August 1932 in Moscow. After he and Heinz Neumann was inferior at factional disputes within the KPD, he left in October 1932 from the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the KPD. In November 1933, he was also excluded from the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politbüro and forced to resign from his functions in the ECCI.

Following the Nazi seizure of power, his German citizenship was revoked^[3] in March 1934.

Remmele was married, from the marriage were born two children.

Death

In 1937, he and his wife Anna (1888-1947), ^[4] and his son Helmut Remmele (1910-1938),^[5] former member of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of Germany, were arrested under Stalinist purges. On March 7, 1939 Remmele was sentenced to death and shot the same day on the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow. A Soviet court rehabilitated him in 1988.

Further reading

• Schröder, Wilhelm Heinz:: Sozialdemokratische Parlamentarier in den deutschen Reichs- und Landtagen 1867–1933. Biographien, Chronik und Wahldokumentation. Ein Handbuch. Düsseldorf, 1995. ISBN 3-7700-5192-0, p.673.
• Hermann Weber (2003), "Remmele, Hermann", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 21, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 419 ; (full text online)
• Remmele, Hermann. In: Weber, Hermann, Herbst, Andreas: Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 bis 1945. 2., überarb. und stark erw. Auflage. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6.
• Münz-Koenen, Inge: Familie Remmele. In: Hedeler, Wladislaw, Münz-Koenen, Inge (Hg.): „Ich kam als Gast in euer Land gereist ...“ Deutsche Hitlergegner als Opfer des Stalinterrors. Familienschicksale 1933–1956. Lukas Verlag, Katalog zur Ausstellung, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86732-177-8, S. 89–103.

References

1. ↑ Kurzbiographie Remmele, Hermann (Herzen) in: Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Hrsg.): In den Fängen des NKWD: Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, S. 183
2. ↑ Hermann Weber: Kommunistische Bewegung und realsozalistischer Staat. Beiträge zum deutschen und internationalen Kommunismus, herausgegeben von Werner Müller. Bund-Verlag, Köln 1988, S. 166/168.
3. ↑ Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): M.d.R. Die Reichstagsabgeordneten der Weimarer Republik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Politische Verfolgung, Emigration und Ausbürgerung 1933–1945. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-5162-9, S. 458f.
4. ↑ Kurzbiographie Remmele, Anna in: Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Hrsg.): In den Fängen des NKWD: Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, S. 183
5. ↑ Short Biography Remmele, Helmut in: Institute for Labour History (ed.): in the clutches of the NKVD: German victims of the Stalinist terror in the USSR . Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1991, ISBN 3-320-01632-6, p.183