Ernst Torgler

Ernst Torgler ( born April 25, 1893 in Berlin, † January 19, 1963 in Hannover ) was a German politician and co-defendant in the Reichstag fire trial.

Torgler occurred in 1910 in the Social Democratic Party of Germany a. After his military service during the First World War he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and was the merger of the USPD with the Communist Party of Germany in 1920 a member of the KPD.

Torgler 1921 was elected to the city council in Berlin- Lichtenberg, which he remained until 1930. In 1924 he was elected for the Communist Party in the Reichstag. In 1927 he became first deputy group chairman and finally 1929, which made him leader of the KPD to one of the most powerful members of the KPD. From 1932 to 1933 he published the magazine of the Communist Party parliamentary group, together with Wilhelm Pieck.

Against the will of the KPD leadership, Torgler presented on 28 February 1933 the Reichstag fire voluntarily to the police. He was detained without charge until July 1933. In July he was charged with arson and high treason. In the process, from September 21 to December 23, 1933, he was acquitted. The KPD closed it in 1935 from the party because of his attitude in the process of. Torgler was taken after the process until 1935 in "protective custody".

After the assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944 Torgler remained unmolested, which claims a personal intervention prevented Goebbels ' his detention. He was then employed in Poland and came with a Nazi office in 1945 on the retreat in Lower Saxony Biickeburg. After 1945 he found employment in the city administration Biickeburg.

After the Second World War, Torgler tried in vain for readmission to the Communist Party and joined the SPD in 1949 instead. Also in 1949 he helped the former Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels in his denazification process.

Ernst Torgler died in 1963 in Hanover.