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The Rote Hilfe ("Red Aid") was the German affiliate of the International Red Aid. The Rote Hilfe was affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany and existed between 1924 and 1936. Its purpose was to provide help to those Communists who had been jailed or were imprisoned. [1]
The Rote Hilfe was first organized as a result of the political repression in April 1921 [2] following bloody strikes and communist rebellions in central Germany in March of that year. It was formed after a decision the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In November 1921, a "Berlin Committee" was created as a central committee.
The Fourth World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow from 5 October - 12 November 1922, called for "the creation of organizations to render material and moral aid to all captives of capitalism in prison." This effort later became the International Red Aid, (also known by its Russian abbreviation, MOPR). [3] The Rote Hilfe Deutschlands (RHD) was founded on 1 October 1924 as an organization affiliated with the KPD. Artist Heinrich Vogeler, was one of the founding members and was elected to the Central Committee. The first chairman was Wilhelm Pieck, [4] later the first and only president of the German Democratic Republic. He was previously the leader of the Juristischen Zentralstelle of the Landtag of the Weimar Republic and the Reichstag faction of the KPD. [5] After 1925, Clara Zetkin assumed leadership of the RHD. [4] After the death of Julian Marchlewski that same year, she also led the MOPR.
In the beginning, the organization was active with the campaign, "Rote Hilfe for the victims of war and work", part of an international campaign to support war victims and those disabled at work. The main emphasis of the work was the support of arrested members of the Rotfrontkämpferbund , the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Communist Workers' Party of Germany, unionists, as well as unaffiliated individuals and their family members. [2] [6]
The Rote Hilfe proclaimed 18 March 1923 (anniversary of the Paris Commune) to be the "International Day of Aid for Political Prisoners" and observed this day till they were banned by the National Socialists in 1933. [7]
In March 1930, the Rote Hilfe took part in the founding of a German section of the "International Juridical Union", which dealt with penal, popular, constitutional and labor rights.
In 1933, the Rote Hilfe was banned, following the issuing of the Reichstag Fire Decree. Hans Litten, [8] Felix Halle, Alfred Apfel and other lawyers were arrested the very night of the Reichstag fire. The organization tried to continue its work through 1934, directed by exiled leadership in Paris. [9] By 1935–1936, the Rote Hilfe had been dissolved by the Gestapo. Some members continued to work underground [10] to help threatened individuals go into exile through the Saar (protectorate), then still an autonomous region. Wilhelm Beuttel took over the leadership of the organization from exile in Paris in 1933–1934.
The chapters of the Rote Hilfe consisted of factory and neighborhood cells and were led by district chairmen who worked under a central chairman. An "auditing commission" was adjunct to the Central Committee and monitored compliance with applicable law. Each chapter had a "relief commission", which was supposed to also involve local politicians. The Rote Hilfe employed 60-80 people full-time. There were annual national congresses, at which lawyers such as Kurt Rosenfeld, Felix Halle and Hilde Benjamin gave lectures on criminal law and other legal issues.
In 1933, the Rote Hilfe had 530,000 members, of which 119,000 were also members of the KPD and 15,000 were members of the SPD. There were also 55,600 members who were also in the MOPR.
From 1924 to March 1929, the Rote Hilfe supported 27,000 people and 16,000 people [11] in prison at a cost of four million Reichsmarks (equivalent to 15 million 2021 euros). There was a drop in membership in 1929, the result of partisan fighting. [12] In 1932, the Rote Hilfe helped 9,000 political prisoners, 20,000 family members and 50,000 people on the left with preliminary investigations and trials. Its central committee was connected with the KPD's "juridical central office" and also worked with the Berlin MOPR.
Beginning in 1923, the Rote Hilfe maintained the Barkenhoff children's home at the Worpswede artists' colony after Heinrich Vogeler conveyed his property to them [13] for a mere 15,000 goldmarks. In 1925, they began also maintaining the MOPR Children's Home in Elgersburg, as well. The two homes were managed by a 46-person administrative board, which included such well-known members as Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann.
The Rote Hilfe Deutschland community drew active support by about 600 notable individuals from democratic and leftist intellectual circles. Their campaigns, such as the amnesty for political prisoners in 1928, for freedom in the arts, or in favor of liberalizing the law on abortion were supported by Albert Einstein, Kurt Tucholsky, Käthe Kollwitz, Heinrich Zille, Heinrich Mann, Erich Mühsam, Magnus Hirschfeld, Otto Dix, Max Liebermann, Erwin Piscator, Carl von Ossietzky, Heinrich Vogeler and others. [2] [12]
Hans Litten was especially well known for his activity with the Rote Hilfe. In a series of major political trials during the mid-1920s and into the early 1930s, he doggedly pursued justice for the leftist victims of the growing Nazi terror, once summoning even Adolf Hitler to appear as a witness. By the end of the Weimar Republic, Litten was unable to go out in public without a bodyguard. [14] This was provided by members of the Rotfrontkämpferbund.
During the period of its activity, some 330 attorneys worked for the Rote Hilfe. Of these, 60% were of Jewish background, [10] a fact that had special significance after 7 August 1933, when the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service came into effect and many lost their license to practice in German courts. (First World War veterans were able to continue till the end of 1941 as lay lawyers.) Other lawyers were also affected by the law for reasons of Communist activity, many becoming corporate lawyers after losing their license to practice in court.
According to Josef Schwarz, 22 of its lawyers were sent to Nazi concentration camps. Only a few of the Jewish lawyers who hadn't left Germany by 1942 survived the camps. Two lawyers who moved to the Soviet Union later became victims of the Stalinist purges. Some 30 of the lawyers who went into exile later returned to Germany, nine of them to the German Democratic Republic. [15]
The Communist Party of Germany was a major far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germany during the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956.
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German communist politician who served as the chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as president of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1960.
Johann Heinrich Vogeler was a German painter, designer, and architect, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
The Communist Workers' Party of Germany was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. It was founded in April 1920 in Heidelberg as a split from the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Originally the party remained a "sympathising member of Communist International." In 1922 the KAPD split into two factions, both of whom kept the name but are referred to as the KAPD Essen Faction and the KAPD Berlin Faction.
Hans Achim Litten was a German lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis at important political trials between 1929 and 1932, defending the rights of workers during the Weimar Republic.
Antifaschistische Aktion was a militant anti-fascist organisation in the Weimar Republic started by members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that existed from 1932 to 1933. It was primarily active as a KPD campaign during the July 1932 German federal election and the November 1932 German federal election and was described by the KPD as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD."
The Iron Front was a German paramilitary organization in the Weimar Republic which consisted of social democrats, trade unionists, and democratic socialists. Its main goal was to defend democratic socialism and liberal democracy against totalitarian ideologies on the far-right and far-left. The Iron Front chiefly opposed the Sturmabteilung (SA) wing of the Nazi Party and the Antifaschistische Aktion wing of the Communist Party of Germany. Formally independent, it was intimately associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Three Arrows, originally designed for the Iron Front, became a well-known social democratic symbol representing resistance against monarchism, Nazism, and Marxism-Leninism during the parliamentary elections in November 1932. The Three Arrows were later adopted by the SPD itself.
The Hamburg Uprising was a communist insurrection that occurred in Hamburg in Weimar Germany on 23 October 1923. A militant section of the Hamburg Communist Party of Germany launched an uprising as part of the so-called German October. Rebels stormed 24 police stations, 17 in Hamburg and seven in Schleswig-Holstein Province in Prussia, and established barricades around the city. The communist insurgency in Hamburg was futile, lacking support from the rest of Germany or from the Soviet Union, and disintegrated within a day. Around 100 people died during the Hamburg Uprising and the exact details of the event, as well as the assessment of its impact, remain controversial.
Franz Jacob was a German Resistance fighter against Nazism and a Communist politician.
The Cuno strikes were nationwide strikes in Germany against the government of Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno in August 1923. The wave of strikes demanded, eventually with success, the resignation of the Cuno government, which occurred on 12 August 1923, after only nine months. The strikes also buoyed the hopes of the Communist International of an imminent revolution.
The Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists of Germany was an organization of artists who were members of the Communist Party of Germany. Known primarily by its shortened name, "Asso", it was founded in March 1928. The organization produced posters, placards, propaganda graphics for Communist organizations.
Heinz Neumann was a German politician from the Communist Party (KPD) and a journalist. He was a member of the Communist International, editor in chief of the party newspaper Die Rote Fahne and a member of the Reichstag. He was one of the many victims to Stalin's Great Purge.
Hugo Gräf was a German Communist politician.
Willy Leow was a German communist politician and activist.
International Communists of Germany was a Communist political grouping founded in November 1918 during the German Revolution. The small party was, together with the better known Spartacist League, one of the constituent organizations that joined to form the Communist Party of Germany in 1918.
The Three Arrows is a social democratic political symbol associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), used in the late history of the Weimar Republic. First conceived for the SPD-dominated Iron Front as a symbol of the social democratic resistance against Nazism in 1932, it became an official symbol of the Party during the November 1932 German federal election, representing their opposition towards monarchism, Nazism, and communism.
Rosa Lindemann was a German communist and member of the German resistance to Nazism. She was born in Spandau, her family moved to Moabit when she was a child. She married Karl Lindemann in 1895, both joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1909. She later moved to the USPD, then the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920. She was elected to the city council and an active member of the Workers International Relief and Rote Hilfe.
Bruno Baum was a German official for the Communist Party of Germany and Socialist Unity Party of Germany. He also served as a resistance fighter during World War II.
Ella Ehlers was a German Kindergarten teacher. Through her work, in 1926 she met Adolf Ehlers (1898–1978), a political activist who at around the same time was readmitted to the Communist Party. She became his secretary and then, in 1928, his wife. Ella Schimpf had grown up in a heavily politicised family, and she now participated energetically with her husband in the increasingly polarised politics of the time. After 1933 she engaged in dangerous anti-government resistance, but she nevertheless survived the twelve Hitler years.
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