Gedenktafel Gneisenaustr 41 (Kreuzb) Max Sievers

Max Georg Wilhelm Sievers (11 June 1887 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

– 17 January 1944 in

Brandenburg an der Havel Brandenburg an der Havel () is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, which served as the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg until it was replaced by Berlin in 1417. With a population of 72,040 (as of 2020), it is located on the banks of the ...

) was chairman of the

German Freethinkers League The German Freethinkers League ('Deutscher Freidenkerbund') was an organization founded in the late 19th century by German freethinkers and atheists with the main goal to oppose the power of the state churches in Germany. Its aim was to provide a ...

, writer and active

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

Life

Politics

Max Sievers opposed the first world war and was an unwilling participant and suffered an arm injury in 1915. The experiences during the war led him to become politically active. He became a socialist, editing the '' Arbeiter-Rats '' (german: 'Workers' Council') and joining the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) by 1919 among other things. In 1920, he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) even serving as a secretary of its headquarters when needed. However, he was strongly critical of the

March Action The March Action (German "März Aktion" or "Märzkämpfe in Mitteldeutschland," i.e. "The March battles in Central Germany") was a 1921 failed Communist uprising, led by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Communist Workers' Party of Germa ...

(attempted Putsch) and as a result left the organization for the Kommunistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, a group of communists who opposed the tactics of the KPD. However, the group began falling apart, and by 1927 Sievers had returned to the Communist party of Germany (KPD). During the post-

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

crackdown he was placed into "protective custody" and the party was thrown into disarray. Unlike most communist activists, Sievers was released a few months later and left for Belgium. He remained active and advocated bringing about a socialist government in the form of a Soviet Republic to replace the

National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

Freethought

In 1922 he became active in the organization, Union of Freethinkers for Cremation, gaining an administrative position. He started the freethought publication "Der Freidenker" in 1925. In 1927 he was elected as chairman of the German Freethinkers League. By 1930 the organization boasted 600,000 members and took on the new name. Sievers opposed the Nazi government in his

freethought Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

articles, writing of the

Reichskonkordat The ''Reichskonkordat'' ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later be ...

as an "alliance" between the Nazi government and the clergy and promoting the idea they be replaced with a Soviet model. He wrote the book "Unser Kampf gegen das Dritte Reich" to outline many of his objections with the third reich.

Death

Grabmal Sievers Urnenfriedhof Gerichtstraße

Sievers immigrated to the United States in 1939, but he could not get a visa, so he returned to Belgium.Palmier, Jean-Michel. ''Weimar in exile: the antifascist emigration in Europe and America'' Translated by David Fernbach. Published by Verso, 2006. page 148 He was arrested on 3 June 1943 by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

, sentenced on 17 November 1943 to death by the '' Volksgerichtshof'', with a former Marxist,

Roland Freisler Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945), a German Nazi jurist, judge, and politician, served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945. As ...

, presiding, for "conspiracy to commit

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

along with favouring the enemy", and beheaded at the

guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at t ...

on 17 January 1944 at Brandenburg Prison.

Literature

* Heiner Jestrabek: Max Sievers. Freidenker, Sozialist, Antifaschist (1887–1944), in:

Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung ''Arbeit - Bewegung - Geschichte'' ("''Labour - Movement - History''") is an academic journal covering the history of labour and other social movements. It was established in 2002 as ''Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung ...

, No. II/2008.

References

''Based on the article in the German Wikipedia.''

External links

Max Sievers timeline

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sievers, Max 1887 births 1944 deaths Freethought writers People from Berlin executed by Nazi Germany People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine Communists in the German Resistance German Army personnel of World War I