Max Sievers

Max Sievers ( born June 11, 1887 in Berlin, † 17 January 1944 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was Chairman of the German Freethinkers Association, and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

Sievers was born into a working class family in Berlin. After schooling, he held various activities. In January 1915 Sievers had unwillingly under arms and suffered a serious wound. After the war he became politically active, including as editor of the Workers' Council, in 1919 the USPD joined and changed in 1920 in the KPD; he was at times the secretary of their headquarters. This, however, he left after a short time, in criticism of the March Action in 1921, and joined the short-lived Communist Association (CISA ) from which the managing committee he belonged.

On October 1, 1922 Sievers was managing director of the company founded in Berlin in 1905 the Association of Freethinkers for Cremation ( VdFfF ), which was increasingly politicized by Sievers. He began in 1925 the publication of the Freethinkers central organ of the free-thinkers, in 1927 was elected chairman of the Association of German freethinkers and joined again the SPD. 1930, the freethinkers were renamed " German Freethinkers Association " and already had over 600,000 members.

After the Reichstag fire, February 27, 1933 Sievers was commissioned in SA prison Papestraße in "protective custody". In April 1933 he was released surprising and emigrated to Brussels. On August 23, 1933 Germany took the expatriation Sievers ' - he was one of the personalities who were on the first Ausbürgerungsliste of the German Empire of 1933. Sievers continued to work in the interim. From Saarbrücken still appeared the freethinkers. After the victory of the Nazis in the referendum in the Saar, 1935, he was from Brussels Sievers correspondence ( SIKO ) and from the beginning of 1937, the weekly newspaper Free Germany out. All of these publications were distributed illegally in Germany.

Sievers and his staff agitated against the tyranny of National Socialism, the Concordat of the Catholic Church (1933 ) referred to as an alliance of the clergy with the Nazis, they were promoting resistance and the overthrow of the regime. According to Sievers ' conviction would have after the victory over Nazism a socialist- democratic order in the form of a council democracy follow. In his book, Our fight against the "Third Reich " (1939 ) he led from these considerations. He sharply criticized the policy of the SPD and KPD in the years before 1933. In February 1939, the couple Sievers emigrated to the U.S., but returned in the same year returned to Belgium after Switzerland had refused him the visa.

On May 17, 1940, the Wehrmacht occupied Brussels, and Sievers was arrested. He managed to escape and hid with his Belgian wife under a false name in Chéreng in northern France. He was arrested on June 3, 1943 by the Gestapo, was sentenced on November 17, 1943 by the People's Court, chaired by Roland freisler because of " conspiracy to commit high treason by aiding the enemy, " death and January 17, 1944 in the penitentiary Brandenburg- Gorden by guillotine executed.

Honors

Works

• Our fight against the Third Reich - from the Nazi dictatorship to a socialist democracy. Holmströms Förlag, Stockholm, 1939.
• Gernot Bandur: Max Sievers. Freethinker - socialist fighters against fascism. In: freethinker [special ], Cologne, 63 Jhrg, No. 3, Fig