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Rote Hilfe

January 01, 1970

For the group founded in 1975, see Rote Hilfe e.V.

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]

Whitsun gathering of Rotfrontkämpferbund with a wagon promoting the Rote Hilfe, May 1928

Origin edit

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.

Membership and statistics edit

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.

 
The Barkenhoff in Worpswede, 2007

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]

The lawyers edit

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]

Trials and campaigns edit

  • "German Cheka Trial" (February–April 1925) against KPD members accused of high treason[16]
  • Series of trials resulting from the Hamburg Uprising (January–May 1925)
  • 1926 "Free Max Hoelz and all political Prisoners" – amnesty campaign
  • 1929 Berlin "Blutmai" Trial
  • 1931 Saxon "Weapons Cache Trial" on the leftist take-over of a Der Stahlhelm camp on Reichswehr property
  • 1932 "Röntgenstraßen Trial" – involving a murdered SA man[14]
  • 1932 "Felseneck Trial" – murder trial resulting from the SA attack of an arbor colony inhabited by SPD and KPD members
  • Defense in other trials about "freedom of art", for the SPD and Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold members

Publications edit

References edit

  1. ^ Dallin, David J (1955). Soviet espionage. New Haven, Yale University Press. p. 144. OCLC 219289334.
  2. ^ a b c "Rote Hilfe" Retrieved June 3, 2010 (in German)
  3. ^ Cited in Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern: New, Revised, and Expanded Edition. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, California (1986), pg. xxviii
  4. ^ a b "Der Rote Frontkämpferbund". dhm.de. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Pieck timeline Retrieved June 10, 2010 (in German)
  6. ^ Sabine Hering, Kurt Schilde (Editors), Die Rote Hilfe - Die Geschichte der internationalen kommunistischen "Wohlfahrtsorganisation" und ihre sozialen Aktivitäten in Deutschland (1921-1941). VS-Verlag (2003)
  7. ^ "18. März - Aktionstag für die Freiheit aller politischen Gefangenen und gegen Repression" Libertad Online, official website. (March 16, 2010) Retrieved June 26, 2010 (in German)
  8. ^ Knut Bergbauer, Sabine Fröhlich and Stephanie Schüler-Springorum, Denkmalsfigur. Biographische Annäherung an Hans Litten 1903 - 1938 pp. 229-230, Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen (2008) ISBN 3-8353-0268-X (in German)
  9. ^ Atina Grossmann, "German Communism and New Women" in: Helmut Gruber and Pamela M. Graves (eds.) Women and Socialism, Socialism and Women: Europe Between the Two World Wars (1998), p. 157. Berghahn Books ISBN 1-57181-152-4 Retrieved November 13, 2011
  10. ^ a b "Neue Forschungen zur Roten Hilfe" Two reviews. Retrieved June 8, 2010 (in German)
  11. ^ Retrieved June 10, 2010 (in German)
  12. ^ a b Nikolaus Brauns, Schafft rote Hilfe! Geschichte und Aktivitäten der proletarischen Hilfsorganisation für politische Gefangene in Deutschland (1919-1938). Bonn (2003) pp. 78, 192. ISBN 3-89144-297-1
  13. ^ "Schwieriges Erinnern – die Rote Hilfe Deutschlands in der Geschichtsschreibung" Retrieved June 8, 2010 (in German)
  14. ^ a b Cord Brügmann, Unvergessener Anwalt 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine (PDF) Deutsche Anwalt Verein, Detusche Anwalt Verlag (February 1998) pp. 75-81 (in German)
  15. ^ Heinz Jürgen Schneider, Erika Schwarz, Josef Schwarz, Die Rechtsanwälte der Roten Hilfe Deutschlands: politische Strafverteidiger in der Weimarer Republik; Geschichte und Biografien. Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn (2002) ISBN 3-89144-330-7 (in German)
  16. ^ TIME (magazine) 4 May 1925 Retrieved June 8, 2010
  17. ^ Klaus Drobisch, Günther Wieland, System der NS-Konzentrationslager: 1933-1939 Akademie Verlag (1993), p. 243. ISBN 3-05-000823-7. Retrieved December 21, 2011 (in German)

Further reading edit

  • Siegfried Bresler and others, Der Barkenhoff - Kinderheim der Roten Hilfe. Lilienthal (1991) ISBN 3-922516-91-2
  • Hermann Weber, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus. Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik. Frankfurt am Main 1969

External links edit

  • History of the Rote Hilfe (in German)

January 01, 1970
rote, hilfe, group, founded, 1975, this, article, includes, list, general, references, lacks, sufficient, corresponding, inline, citations, please, help, improve, this, article, introducing, more, precise, citations, 2021, learn, when, remove, this, message, g. For the group founded in 1975 see Rote Hilfe e V This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations May 2021 Learn how and when to remove this message 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 Whitsun gathering of Rotfrontkampferbund with a wagon promoting the Rote Hilfe May 1928 Contents 1 Origin 2 Membership and statistics 3 The lawyers 4 Trials and campaigns 5 Publications 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksOrigin editThe 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 Rotfrontkampferbund 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 Membership and statistics editThe 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 nbsp The Barkenhoff in Worpswede 2007 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 Kathe Kollwitz Heinrich Zille Heinrich Mann Erich Muhsam Magnus Hirschfeld Otto Dix Max Liebermann Erwin Piscator Carl von Ossietzky Heinrich Vogeler and others 2 12 The lawyers editHans 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 Rotfrontkampferbund 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 Trials and campaigns edit German Cheka Trial February April 1925 against KPD members accused of high treason 16 Series of trials resulting from the Hamburg Uprising January May 1925 1926 Free Max Hoelz and all political Prisoners amnesty campaign 1929 Berlin Blutmai Trial 1931 Saxon Weapons Cache Trial on the leftist take over of a Der Stahlhelm camp on Reichswehr property 1932 Rontgenstrassen Trial involving a murdered SA man 14 1932 Felseneck Trial murder trial resulting from the SA attack of an arbor colony inhabited by SPD and KPD members Defense in other trials about freedom of art for the SPD and Reichsbanner Schwarz Rot Gold membersPublications editMaterial uber den Hitlerdeutschland Rote Hilfe Deutschland February 1936 a compilation of allegations of murder and other crimes at Dachau Borgermoor and Kemna concentration camps 17 References edit Dallin David J 1955 Soviet espionage New Haven Yale University Press p 144 OCLC 219289334 a b c Rote Hilfe Retrieved June 3 2010 in German Cited in Branko Lazitch and Milorad M Drachkovitch Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern New Revised and Expanded Edition Hoover Institution Press Stanford California 1986 pg xxviii a b Der Rote Frontkampferbund dhm de Retrieved 30 September 2019 Wilhelm Pieck timeline Retrieved June 10 2010 in German Sabine Hering Kurt Schilde Editors Die Rote Hilfe Die Geschichte der internationalen kommunistischen Wohlfahrtsorganisation und ihre sozialen Aktivitaten in Deutschland 1921 1941 VS Verlag 2003 18 Marz Aktionstag fur die Freiheit aller politischen Gefangenen und gegen Repression Libertad Online official website March 16 2010 Retrieved June 26 2010 in German Knut Bergbauer Sabine Frohlich and Stephanie Schuler Springorum Denkmalsfigur Biographische Annaherung an Hans Litten 1903 1938 pp 229 230 Wallstein Verlag Gottingen 2008 ISBN 3 8353 0268 X in German Atina Grossmann German Communism and New Women in Helmut Gruber and Pamela M Graves eds Women and Socialism Socialism and Women Europe Between the Two World Wars 1998 p 157 Berghahn Books ISBN 1 57181 152 4 Retrieved November 13 2011 a b Neue Forschungen zur Roten Hilfe Two reviews Retrieved June 8 2010 in German Hans Litten Rechtsanwalt 1903 1938 Retrieved June 10 2010 in German a b Nikolaus Brauns Schafft rote Hilfe Geschichte und Aktivitaten der proletarischen Hilfsorganisation fur politische Gefangene in Deutschland 1919 1938 Bonn 2003 pp 78 192 ISBN 3 89144 297 1 Schwieriges Erinnern die Rote Hilfe Deutschlands in der Geschichtsschreibung Retrieved June 8 2010 in German a b Cord Brugmann Unvergessener Anwalt Archived 2011 07 18 at the Wayback Machine PDF Deutsche Anwalt Verein Detusche Anwalt Verlag February 1998 pp 75 81 in German Heinz Jurgen Schneider Erika Schwarz Josef Schwarz Die Rechtsanwalte der Roten Hilfe Deutschlands politische Strafverteidiger in der Weimarer Republik Geschichte und Biografien Pahl Rugenstein Bonn 2002 ISBN 3 89144 330 7 in German Germany Cheka Trial TIME magazine 4 May 1925 Retrieved June 8 2010 Klaus Drobisch Gunther Wieland System der NS Konzentrationslager 1933 1939 Akademie Verlag 1993 p 243 ISBN 3 05 000823 7 Retrieved December 21 2011 in German Further reading editSiegfried Bresler and others Der Barkenhoff Kinderheim der Roten Hilfe Lilienthal 1991 ISBN 3 922516 91 2 Hermann Weber Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik Frankfurt am Main 1969External links editHistory of the Rote Hilfe in German Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rote Hilfe amp oldid 1187005028, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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