Leopold Bauer (born Eliezer Lippa Ben Jossip David ha Cohen: 18 December 1912 – 18 September 1972) was a German political activist and journalist, originally from
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
. For reasons of race and politics he spent the twelve Nazi years in exile. That eventful period included more than one year locked up by the authorities in Switzerland where grounds for his conviction included "damaging wissneutrality" (''"Verletzung der Neutralität"''). After
1945
1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat.
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
Januar ...
he remained politically engaged. In 1953 he was deported by a military court in East Berlin to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
for execution. In the event his sentence was commuted to a 25-year stretch in a Siberian labor camp. Then in October 1955, he was released to
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in the context of a general agreement between the governments in Bonn and Moscow for the return of surviving German prisoners of war. Leo Bauer later became a specialist advisor to Chancellor Brandt on East-West German relations (''"Ostpolitik"'').
Life
Provenance and early years
Leopold Bauer was born in
Skalat
Skálat (; pl, Skałat, links=no, yi, סקאלאט, Skalat) is a town in Ternopil, Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest Europea ...
, a small town in
Eastern Galicia
Eastern Galicia ( uk, Східна Галичина, Skhidna Galychyna, pl, Galicja Wschodnia, german: Ostgalizien) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil), having also essential h ...
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...
.) His father was a watchmaker and a gold trader. During the second half of the nineteenth century the population of
Skalat
Skálat (; pl, Skałat, links=no, yi, סקאלאט, Skalat) is a town in Ternopil, Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest Europea ...
pogroms
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian E ...
taking place in the
western territories
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the West ...
of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
. There are estimates that by 1900 approximately 50% of the town's population were Jewish. In July 1914
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
broke out. According to one source it was in order to get away from more pogroms that the family fled to the west. Elsewhere it is stated simply that they wished to get away from the advancing Russians. They ended up in Chemnitz, in southern central
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
which is where Leo Bauer attended school between 1919 and 1930. He was granted German citizenship in 1924 or 1925.
At school, while still only fourteen, Bauer was influenced by a teacher who was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to join the Young Socialists (''"Sozialistische Arbeiter-Jugend"'') in 1927. The next year he joined the party itself. The period was one of renewed economic austerity and intensifying political polarisation: Bauer quickly became involved in the confrontations that the organised labour movement was facing. In 1930 the family moved to
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
Communists
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, a ...
in 1932.
University and régime change
In 1932 he enrolled at
Berlin University
The Humboldt University of Berlin (german: link=no, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.
The university was established by Frederick Willi ...
and embarked on a degree course covering
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning ...
one-party
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
dictatorship
A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...
. The
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
that in 1932 had merely been a toxic rhetorical device for populist politicians was now transformed into a core pillar of government strategy. Leopold Bauer was excluded from his university studies because of his Jewish provenance and/or of his illegal political activism.
During 1932/33 Bauer was employed by the party's "M-Apparat", which operated in Germany till 1937 as the Communist Party's (rather misleadingly named) intelligence branch. Within the organisation he was known by the code name "Rudi". The
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
had been targeted with increased intensity by
the authorities
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
since the end of February 1933 and Bauer, by now aged 21, was one of many party comrades arrested and detained during March 1933. He was placed in a recently completed concentration camp. It was only with the help of a former school friend who had now joined the "SA" (a Nazi paramilitary organisation) that his release was secured in June 1933. (The friend was himself shot a year later in the context of the