Hans Marchwitza

Hans Marchwitza ( born June 25, 1890 in Scharley in Bytom ( Silesia ), † January 17, 1965 in Potsdam- Babelsberg ) was a German worker poet, writer and Communist.

Life

Marchwitza was the son of Thomas Marchwitza miner and his wife Thekla Maxisch. Already with 14 years Marchwitza was 1904 even underground works. In 1910 he was enlisted as a miner into the Ruhr.

But just two years later he was unemployed for participating in a strike. By the time he was drafted into the army in 1915, is Marchwitza earned his livelihood as a laborer. Until 1918, he served as a soldier on the Western Front. After returning from the war, he became a member of the Soldiers' Council weir in the same year.

1919 Marchwitza joined the USPD. The following year, he fought as a platoon commander of the Red Ruhr Army against the Kapp Putsch, Freikorps and the Reichswehr. In 1920 he also joined the KPD. When France occupied the Ruhr, also performed Marchwitza fierce resistance.

In the meantime he had become unemployed again as participants in the strike. During this time he also won his literary endeavors. Alexander Abusch, an editor at the Ruhr- Echo, supported and promoted Marchwitza and published his first work. From 1924 Marchwitza could also publish Red Flag and Red Front in Communist newspapers.

In 1929 he was invited along with several journalists and writers in the Soviet Union. 1930 Marchwitza debuted with his first book, Storm on Food ( documentary about the fighting in the Ruhr 1920). Immediately after the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, he fled to Switzerland, but was expelled again in 1934. Until 1935 he was responsible for the KPD in French-occupied Saarland and fought as an officer from 1936 in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1938 he returned from Spain and was immediately arrested and detained at the border crossing to France. In 1941 he managed to flee to the United States. He has also interned in New York City, but was able to work as a construction laborer and. In 1946 he returned to Germany, first to Stuttgart, then in 1947 to Babelsberg, in the SBZ. In 1950 he became a founding member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR. For this task, you thanked in 1950 with the National Prize of the GDR. This award was bestowed on him in 1955 and again in 1964. In the same year he was appointed cultural attaché in Prague, and he held this office until 1951. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, we gave him the Karl -Marx- Orden and the honorary title of Dr. phil. H.C. the Humboldt University.

At the age of 74 years Hans Marchwitza died on January 17, 1965 in Potsdam. His ashes were buried in the grave complex " Pergolenweg " the memorial of the Socialists in the Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin- Lichtenberg.

Works

His autobiographical trilogy " The Kumiaks " (1934, 1952, 1959) and his autobiography " My Youth" (1947 ) provide sketches from the life of German working-class families in Silesia and the Ruhr Area.

• Storm on Food ( documentary, 1930)
• Rolling mill (novel, 1932)
• The Kumiaks (novel, 1934)
• My Youth ( 1947)
• In France (1949 )
• Among us (stories, 1950)
• The return of the Kumiaks (novel, 1952)
• Pig iron (novel, 1955)
• The Kumiaks and their children (novel, 1959)
• In America (novel, 1961)
• Poems (1965 )
• In France - In America (1971 )