Werner Scholem
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Werner Scholem (29 December 1895 – 17 July 1940) was a member of the German Reichstag from 1924 to 1928 and a leading member of the Communist Party of Germany. Scholem and his wife, Emmy, were portrayed in the 2014 documentary "Between Utopia and Counter Revolution".
Background
Scholem was born on December 29, 1895, into a Jewish family in Berlin. His father was a print shop owner. His brother was Gershom Scholem.
In their youth,, Werner and Gerhard (later Gershom) were members of the Zionist youth-movement "
From the age of 16, he was also involved in journalism. In 1917, he joined the
In the
Career
In 1919, Scholem worked in
In 1920, Scholem joined the left wing of the
In subsequent years, Scholem worked in the party organisation, mostly for the Berlin branch. In 1924, he became the leader of the national organization, and consequently a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party. From 1924 to 1928, he was a member of the German
In August 1925, the new party leadership was sidelined. Scholem was expelled from the party in November 1926 after having co-sponsored the Declaration of the 700 against the oppression of the United Left Opposition in the Soviet Union. He subsequently joined the group of Left Communists in the Reichstag and, in April 1928, founded with others a "Lenin Bund". This association grew to become one of the leading splinter Communist organizations in Germany. However, Scholem left the Lenin Bund within the year, and remained unaffiliated while still sympathizing with Trotskyist positions and the Left Opposition (LO). He frequently wrote articles for their newspaper Permanente Revolution.[3]
As a Jew and a communist, Scholem was arrested after the seizure of power by the Nazi Party in 1933, and he continued to be held in "preventative custody" until he was deported to Buchenwald in 1938. He was part of a group of former Reichstag members held at the concentration camp; their prominent status afforded them some degree of protection. However, in 1940, the SS singled out Scholem and another Jewish ex-Reichstag member, Ernst Heilmann, for execution. Heilmann was killed by injection, and Scholem was shot by Hauptscharführer Blank.[4]
Documentary
The life of Scholem and his wife, Emmy, is portrayed in the 2014 documentary "Between Utopia and Counter Revolution" (German: Zwischen Utopie und Gegenrevolution, with English subtitles) by Niels Bolbrinker. It features an interview with Renee Goddard talking about the arrest of her parents by the Nazis in 1933. Already in 2008, Renee Goddard was interviewed by German filmmaker Alexander Kluge, a feature that was shown on German TV under the title "Manche Toten sind nicht tot".
Literature
Monographs
- Ralf Hoffrogge: A Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany. The Life of Werner Scholem (1895 – 1940), Brill Publications 2017, ISBN 978-3-86764-505-8).
- Mirjam Zadoff, Der rote Hiob: Das Leben des Werner Scholem (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 2014), ISBN 978-3-446-24622-5.
- Stephan Abarbanel, Morgenland (bases on the story of the Scholem brothers)
Articles
- Gedenkstätte Buchenwald (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937-1945: A Guide to the Permanent Historical Exhibition, Wallstein Verlag 2004, p. 66–67, p. 119.
- Michael Buckmiller und Pascal Nafe: Die Naherwartung des Kommunismus – Werner Scholem. In: Judentum und politische Existenz. Offizin-Verlag, Hannover 2000, p. 61–82.
- Ralf Hoffrogge: Utopien am Abgrund. Der Briefwechsel Werner Scholem – Gershom Scholem in den Jahren 1914-1919. In: Schreiben im Krieg – Schreiben vom Krieg. Feldpost im Zeitalter der Weltkriege, Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2011, p. 429-440, ISBN 978-3-8375-0461-3.
- Ralf Hoffrogge: Emmy und Werner Scholem im Kampf zwischen Utopie und Gegenrevolution, in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter, Neue Folge Band 65 (2011), S. 157-176.
- ISBN 3-320-02044-7
- Mirjam Zadoff: Unter Brüdern – Gershom und Werner Scholem. Von den Utopien der Jugend zum jüdischen Alltag zwischen den Kriegen. In: Münchner Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur. Band 1, Heft 2, 2007, p. 56–66.
- Zvi Leshem, Werner Scholem, Gershom Scholem, Communism and Hasidism : Mystery of a Book, on the National Library of Israel Blog (Hebrew)
References
- ^ see Mirjam Triendl-Zadoff: Unter Brüdern – Gershom und Werner Scholem. Von den Utopien der Jugend zum jüdischen Alltag zwischen den Kriegen. In: Münchner Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur. Band 1, Heft 2, 2007, p. 56–66 and also Ralf Hoffrogge: Utopien am Abgrund. Der Briefwechsel Werner Scholem – Gershom Scholem in den Jahren 1914-1919. In: Schreiben im Krieg – Schreiben vom Krieg. Feldpost im Zeitalter der Weltkriege, Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2011, p. 429-440.
- ^ Hermann Weber, ed. (2008). Deutsche Kommunisten - Biographisches Handbuch 1918-1945. Karl Dietz Verlag. p. 820.
- ^ Hermann Weber, ed. (2008). Deutsche Kommunisten - Biographisches Handbuch 1918-1945. Karl Dietz Verlag. pp. 821–822.
- ISBN 3-89244-695-4.
External links
- Between Utopia and Counter Revolution, 17-minute documentary by Niels Bolbrinker, German with English subtitles, Germany 2014.
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