can find no reference on the web to this excellently-named german group from the 1920s which i learned about here p. 43:
http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/libertarian-anthology-3.pdf.
actually that article gives good information but if anyone has anything else, perhaps images of their symbol ...
there is not that much
there is not that much written about them and the other independent communist unions of that period, see the references under http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_der_Hand-_und_Kopfarbeiter (all in German)
vielen dank, i actually
vielen dank, i actually understood a good deal of that.
in the same period, there
in the same period, there existed also the "Association of Expelled Construction Workers" formed by ~ 25.000 workers, mostly close to the KPD, who had been expelled from the main (SPD-controlled) construction workers union
several issues of the
several issues of the fortnightly paper of the "Bund Revolutionärer Industrieverbände" (BRIV, Confederation of Revolutionary Industrial Unions) from 1932-33 online: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bibliothek/bestand/alz-00203/index.html ... these unions evolved around 1923/24 during the "ultra-leftist turn" of the Maslow-Fischer leadership of the KPD but were dumped by the KPD already in 1924 when the CI demanded that the KPD members should all participate in the SPD controlled "Free Unions", after some splits and realignments, they had around 1929/30 somewhere between 30.000-50.000 members, probably 2/3 of them construction workers in the IVdB which was the dominant union up to 1933 in the construction trade in Berlin and some smaller unions of textile, metal and engineering, print, shipbuilding and mine workers. They were fairly critical of both the SPD and the KPD (occasionally calling to support the latter critically at elections) and their respective unions ADGB and RGO, the BRIV called for a united class front against fascism (together with the Brandlerite KPO, the FAUD, the reminders of the USPD, the Leninbund and some cultural orgs, they formed a short lived "united front" in Berlin in early 1931) ... among their members were both critical KPD members who disobeyed the official party line on unions but also members oft smaller left wing groups like some groups inspired by Korsch and the independent trotskyist group around Kurt Landau (coordinated later the international press of the POUM, murdered by the Stalinists in Barcelona in 1937), they supported the GFP, an atheist organization which was sometimes considered to be a front of the FAUD. On an international level, they had fraternal relationships with the NAS in the Netherlands
unfortunately, very little is written about these specific unions ... but I'm still looking for a topic for a phd thesis ;-)
sounds like you've got a
sounds like you've got a topic!
... if I can piece the
... if I can piece the scattered sources together
just another thread to be
just another thread to be resurrected: for those who can read German, a recently finished phd thesis of a friend on the KPD in the Ruhr area during the 1920ies with loads of stuff about the ‘Union der Hand- und Kopfarbeiter’ (and its predecessor FAU/Räteorganisation or FAU-Gelsenkirchen which according to the research was sympathizing with the KPD but also a radical, combative and grassroots-run union) and about left breakaway groups from the KPD: http://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-43619/Diss_Berens.pdf