Ernst Niekisch
| Ernst Niekisch | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 23 May 1889 Trebnitz, Province of Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire |
| Died | 23 May 1967 (aged 78) West Berlin, West Germany |
Ernst August Karl Niekisch (23 May 1889 – 23 May 1967) was a prominent supporter of National Bolshevism.[1]
Contents
Life
- 23.5.1889 Niekisch is born in Trebnitz near Breslau as first and only son of craftsman August Niekisch (1858–1934) and his wife Maria, née Schnell (1867–1937). Niekish grew up in Bavaria.
- The family, which was joined by five daughters over the next few years, moved from Silesia to Nördlingen in Bavaria and Swabia in 1891. The father bought his former teacher's small workshop there and became self-employed. In Nördlingen the family encountered anti-Prussian sentiment, and Niekisch suffered from this and the bourgeois narrow-mindedness of the neighborhood children and classmates throughout his school years.
- 1912 After studying at a teaching seminar, and completing a one-year voluntary military service with the Bavarian Army, he was appointed a public school teacher in Augsburg.
- 1914–1917 Military service with the Imperial German Army
- 1917 Was requested by the city of Augsburg to work as a teacher. He decides to become politically active and joins the SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany).
- 1919 Niekisch is elected Chairman of the Central Council of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers in Bavaria. After the defeat of the communist Bavarian Soviet Republic, Niekisch is arrested by the Freikorps and joins the USPD (Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany), disappointed by the undecidedness of the SPD.
- 1919–1921 Two years of imprisonment and removal from state service. After being released from prison by the end of August 1921 he becomes chairman of the USPD national parliamentary faction.
- 1922 Reunification of the USPD and the SPD. At the end of the year Niekisch turns his back on Bavaria. He moves to Berlin.
- 1922-1926 Niekisch overtakes the youth office of the board of German Textile Workers’ Union, is journalistically active and is among other things editor in chief of the weekly newspaper “The Firn. Socialist Observations”, publishes his first own writings.
- 1926 After the break with the SPD and the trade unions, Niekisch commits himself to the Oldsocialists (ASP), directs its organ "The People's State" (Der Volksstaat until 1928) and founds his own monthly magazine Resistance (Widerstand).
- 1929–1934 After his departure from the ASP, Niekisch focuses his work on Resistance, and the group, which has formed around him. Organisational experiments, efforts of collaboration and active alliances all ultimately failed. As early as April 1933, his national-revolutionary weekly magazine Decision (Entscheidung, as of October 1932) was banned, and from December 1934 an onwards the ban also included Resistance.
- 1934–1937 Underground journalistic activities and foreign travels to for example to Mussolini in Rome.
- 1937 Arrested by the Gestapo.
- 1939 Because of high treason and for violating the law against the formation of new parties, the People’s Court sentences Niekisch to life long imprisonment in January 1939.
- 1945 Red Army soldiers liberate him from the Brandenburg-Görden prison. In the summer, he joined the Communist Party (KPD).
- 1945–1948 Head of the Adult Education Center Wilmersdorf in Berlin (West).
- 1948 Niekisch becomes professor at the Humboldt University, East Berlin, is a member of the People's Congress, and from there tried to help neutralist, pan-German tendencies in West Germany.
- 1950 The SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) member is part of the presidium of the national council for the National Front, and is a member of the People’s Chamber.
- 1953 After the violent suppression of the uprising on 17 June 1953, he distanced himself from the SED and resigned from all political offices.
- 1955 In February 1955, he left the SED.
- 1963 He flees to West-Berlin (Wilmersdorf). The rest of his life he spends fighting for reparation claims for himself.
- 1966 On 21 june 1966 with effect from 1 Janaury 1966, he received a monthly pension of 1,500 DM. The Senate of Berlin covered his medical costs and he ultimately received a one-off allowance of 35,000 DM.
- 1967 On 23 June 1967, Niekisch dies at age 78, having celebrated his last birthday alone, forgotten, disenchanted and disillusioned in Berlin. He was buried in Wilmersdorf.
Works
- Der Weg der deutschen Arbeiterschaft zum Staat. Verlag der Neuen Gesellschaft, Berlin 1925
- Grundfragen deutscher Außenpolitik. Verlag der Neuen Gesellschaft, Berlin 1925
- Gedanken über deutsche Politik. Widerstands-Verlag, Dresden 1929
- Politik und Idee. Widerstands-Verlag Anna Niekisch, Dresden 1929
- Entscheidung. Widerstands-Verlag, Berlin 1930
- Der politische Raum deutschen Widerstandes. Widerstands-Verlag, Berlin 1931
- Hitler – ein deutsches Verhängnis. Drawings by A. Paul Weber. Widerstands-Verlag, Berlin 1932
- Im Dickicht der Pakte. Widerstands-Verlag, Berlin 1935
- Die dritte imperiale Figur. Widerstands-Verlag 1935
- Deutsche Daseinsverfehlung. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin 1946, 3. Edition Fölbach Verlag, Koblenz 1990
- Europäische Bilanz. Rütten & Loening, Potsdam 1951
- Das Reich der niederen Dämonen. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1953
- Gewagtes Leben. Begegnungen und Begebnisse. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln und Berlin 1958
- Die Freunde und der Freund. Joseph E. Drexel zum 70. Geburtstag, 6. Juni 1966., Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nürnberg 1966
- Erinnerungen eines deutschen Revolutionärs. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Köln
- Volume 1: Gewagtes Leben 1889–1945. 1974
- Volume 2: Gegen den Strom 1945–1967. 1974
External links
References
- ↑ Ernst Niekisch 1889-1967
- ↑ Ernst Niekisch – Preuße und Nationalbolschewist
- ↑ Ernst Niekisch: Die dritte imperiale Figur, Berlin 1935, p. 23
- ↑ Irrwege eines Antisemiten – Ernst Niekisch in der frühen DDR
