The Union of Manual and Intellectual Workers (''Union der Hand- und Kopfarbeiter'') was a German trade union that was politically close to the

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 ...

(KPD). It was formed in the period after the

German Revolution of 1918–1919 German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and existed to the end of 1925.

History

The Union was formed in September 1921 by the merger of three left-wing trade unions that had not joined the

Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund The General German Trade Union Federation (, ADGB) was a confederation of German trade unions in Germany founded during the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1919 and was initially powerful enough to organize a general strike in 1920 against a rig ...

(ADGB), which they, like other radicalized workers in the General Workers Union of Germany (''Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands'') and the

Free Workers' Union of Germany The Free Workers' Union of Germany (; FAUD) was an anarcho-syndicalist trade union in Germany. It stemmed from the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FDVG) which combined with the Ruhr region's Freie Arbeiter Union on September 15, 1919. ...

had felt was

reformist Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...

. The three unions were the

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; ) is the List of cities in Germany by population, 25th-most populous city of Germany and the 11th-most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher, Emscher River (a tribu ...

Free Workers' Union, the Berlin-based Association of Manual and Intellectual Workers and the

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

-based Farmworkers' Association (''Landarbeiterverband'').

Gustav Sobottka Gustav Sobottka (12 July 1886 – 6 March 1953) was a German politician, a member of the Communist Party of Germany in exile during the Nazi era who returned in 1945 as head of the Sobottka Group and later worked in the East German government. ...

was one of the founding members of the union.Biographical details, Gustav Sobottka

Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur The Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship (, alternatively translated as "(Federal) Foundation for the Study of Communist Dictatorship in East Germany") is a government-funded organisation established in 1998 by the Bundest ...

, Retrieved November 25, 2011 At the national level, the newly merged Union became part of the

Profintern The Red International of Labor Unions (, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern (), was an international body established by the Communist International (Comintern) with the aim of coordinating communist activities within trade unions. Formally ...

. The Union's was mainly focused in the

Ruhr region The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populatio ...

and bordering areas, as well as in the Berlin area. The dominant sectors were

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

and

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

. In the Ruhr region, about half the KPD members who were members of various

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s were also members of the Union.Eric D. Weitz
Origins of the RGO
''Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State'', Princeton University Press (1997) pp. 151-153. Retrieved August 12, 2011. At its inception, the Union had roughly 90,000 members. Between 1922 and 1923, it grew to over 100,000 members. Although losing members by the end of 1923, it still had the strongest voice in Ruhr region mining council elections in 1924. The Union's membership contained different sorts of radicals, many of whom were undisciplined, and caused problems for the more disciplined KPD. The KPD, seeking to advance the

class struggle In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...

, wanted to establish revolutionary unions to displace the Christian and liberal unions' position of power in the workplace. The KPD tried to organize party factions within the Union, but with little success. After the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in 1924, communists were urged to join the free unions, but the more radical Union instead urged workers to leave those unions, further straining relations with the KPD until the KPD ended it completely. Members withdrew and joined the ADGB and by the end of 1924, the Union was just over 20,000 strong; the following August, just 8,000 and faded from activity.

Bibliography

* Eva Cornelia Schöck, ''Arbeitslosigkeit und Rationalisierung. Die Lage der Arbeiter und die kommunistische Gewerkschaftspolitik 1920-28''. Frankfurt am Main/New York 1977 , v.a. pp. 88–113 and p. 249 * Hermann Weber, ''Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus. Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik. Band 1''. Frankfurt/Main 1969, v.a. S. 68f, p. 98f and p. 168

References

{{Reflist Syndicalist trade unions Organizations based in the Weimar Republic Defunct trade unions of Germany Communist organisations in Germany Trade unions established in 1921