Philipp Fries (9 August 1882 – 7 December 1950) was a German politician (

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together wi ...

USPD The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of t ...

, KPD). He sat as a member of the national parliament (''"Reichstag"'') between 1920 and 1924.

Life

Philipp Fries was born in Roggendorf (Mechernich), then a village in the Eifel hills southwest of

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. His father was a railway official. He attended school in Roggendorf between 1888 and 1896 before training as a tailor. He then spent time as an itinerant tradesman. He undertook his military service between 1903 and 1905. Fries joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1900, becoming politically active in the trades union movement and the party from 1907, while continuing to work in tailoring till 1919. In 1910 he became district

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

chairman in

, becoming in 1914 a member of the Upper Rhine Party Regional Executive (''"SPD Bezirksvorstand Oberrhein"''). In October 1919 he became a Cologne city councillor. He undertook his

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

service between 1914 and 1918 but was able to remain politically engaged. The decision of the party leadership to agree what amounted to a parliamentary truce on the issue of war funding for the duration of the war proved contentious within the

from the outset: in June 1915 Philipp Friess was one of seven party activists in Cologne to add their signatures to a letter of protest drafted by

Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...

and addressed to the Party Executive on the matter. Two years later the

finally split apart over the same issue: Fries was a member of the breakaway faction that now became the Independent Social Democratic Party (''"Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"'' / USPD). As a USPD candidate he was elected in June 1920 to the newly constituted national parliament (''"Reichstag"''), representing Electoral District 23 (

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

). Within the USPD, he was a strong advocate both for linking up with the Communist International (Comintern) launched the previous year in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and for a party merger in Germany between the USPD and the newly formed

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...

. In October 1920 he took part in the USPD party conference at Halle and then, early in December 1920, in what became the "Unification" party conference in Berlin at which most (though not all) USPD members switched to what came to be known without irony, at least for a few months, as the United Communist Party of Germany (''"Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands"'' / VKPD), in which he was in the same month elected to the national control commission (''"zentrale Revisionskommission"''). In Cologne he became regional chair for the VKPD. Within the Reichstag he joined with other USPD members and two

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

members,

Paul Levi Paul Levi (; 11 March 1883 – 9 February 1930) was a German communist and social democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After bein ...

and

Clara Zetkin Clara Zetkin (; ; ''née'' Eißner ; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights. Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the Inde ...

, to form the VKPD faction. Party unity proved elusive, however, and during the first part of 1921, in the wake of the ill-fated "

March Action The March Action ( or , i.e. "The March battles in Central Germany") was a failed communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communi ...

", Fries was one of those who resigned from the VKPD with

and together set up the short-lived Communist Workers' Community (''"Kommunistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft"'' / KAG). By April 1922 he was back in the

. Between 1919 and 1921, and again between 1924 and 1933, Philipp Fries served as a

city councillor. Between 1924 and 1933, he also sat as an

member of the Prussian regional parliament (''"Landtag"''). By this time Fries had gained a reputation as an effective public speaker, and after 1922 he found himself ferociously and repeatedly attacked by his

former comrades as a "renegade". The political backdrop changed dramatically after January 1933 when he

Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

took power and lost no time in transforming

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

into a

one-party A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

. The

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, ...

at the end of February 1933 was immediately blamed on "communists", and politicians who were or had been active in communist politics found themselves at the top of the government target list. Philipp Fries was arrested in June 1933 an interned successively in the concentration camps at

Esterwegen Esterwegen is a municipality in the Emsland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography Esterwegen lies in northwest Germany, less than from the Dutch border and about from the sea. Demographics In 2015 the population was 5,280. Government ...

and Lichtenburg. However, he was released in December 1933. Following the unsuccessful attempt on the leader's life in July 1944 a mass-arrest of non-Nazis took place on the night of 22/23 August 1944. Philipp Fries was arrested and detained for a time, after which, fearing further arrest or worse, he spent the rest of the

in hiding. After the

ended, formally in May 1945, Cologne found itself in the

British occupation zone The British occupation zone in Germany (German: ''Britische Besatzungszone Deutschlands'') was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II. The United Kingdom, along with the Commonwealth, was one of the three major Allied po ...

. Amid much uncertainty there was a widespread assumption that the end of the war would mark a return to multi-party democracy, and in the second half of 1945 Philipp Fries was involved in re-establishing the

in Cologne where, till 1947, he served as chair of the party for the local sub-region and as a member of the party executive for the Middle Rhein district. Between 2 October 1946 and 19 April 1947 he was a member of the regional parliament (''"Landtag"'') for the newly defined state of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

. There having not yet been time to organise elections, seats were allocated to the political parties at the direction of the military occupation forces, allocating seats to democratic parties in the proportions defined by the elections of 1932, which were widely considered to be the last free and fair election in Germany. Fries's own tenure was cut short in April 1947 when he retired from politics on grounds of ill-health. He died in

on 7 December 1950.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fries, Philipp 1882 births 1950 deaths People from Mechernich Politicians from the Rhine Province Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Communist Party of Germany politicians Communist Working Group (Germany) politicians Members of the Reichstag 1920–1924 Members of the Landtag of Prussia Members of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia Esterwegen concentration camp prisoners Lichtenburg concentration camp survivors Politicians from North Rhine-Westphalia