Heckert, Fritz

Fritz Heckert was born into a working-class family. My father was a master in making knives, my mother worked as a weaver. Heckert's parents were members of the SPD . After graduating from school, Fritz learned to be a bricklayer and continued his education at a vocational school.

In 1902, Heckert joined the German Union of Masons and the SPD . After the Dresden Party Congress, where Heckert fiercely criticized the revisionist wing of the Social Democrats, he joined the left group, led by Rosa Luxemburg . During his wanderings in 1911, he worked at construction sites in Switzerland , where he established contacts with the Russian Bolsheviks who lived in emigration and met his future wife, Wilma Stamberg (1885-1967). Wilma, a Latvian by birth, was in the RSDLP and introduced Heckert to Lenin , thanks to whom Heckert got close to the Bolsheviks. Hekkert's memoirs about Lenin were published in the USSR.

In early 1912, Heckert returned to Chemnitz to the position of a vacant trade union worker. Since the beginning of the First World War, Fritz Heckert actively worked in the “ Union of Spartak ”, which was on internationalist positions, and resolutely fought against chauvinism for a revolutionary way out of the war. Subsequently joined the NSDPG . For the revolutionary activities of Hekkert was expelled from the party, and also subjected to arrest. In November 1918, Heckert headed the Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies in Chemnitz. Heckert was a delegate to the founding congress of the KKE. The party got its name at the suggestion of Fritz Heckert.

Under the leadership of Heinrich Brandler and Heckert, the Chemnitz branch of the KKE became one of the largest in Germany. Together with his friend Brandler Heckert, after the unifying congress with the NSDPG in December 1920, entered the CC of the CPG. For a brief break in 1924, Heckert was a member of the Central Committee until his death. For some time, Heckert was the representative of the KKE in the Red International of Trade Unions in Moscow, then from 1922 he was the deputy of Jacob Walcher , the head of the department of the trade unions of the KKE in Berlin .

As part of the party leadership under Brandler Heckert, on the eve of the communist uprising being prepared in October 1923, he became part of the workers' government of Erich Zeygner and held the position of Minister of Economy of Saxony for 19 days. In 1923–24, when the KPD was in the underground, Heckert was actively involved in preparing the party for the civil war. In October 1924, Heckert was arrested, he was released in July 1925 by the decision of the Reichstag to recognize his immunity .

In the May 1924 elections, Heckert was elected to the Reichstag from the KKE and remained its deputy until 1933. At the XI Congress of the KKE in 1927, Fritz Heckert was elected to the Politburo, until April 1928 he headed the trade unions department of the Central Committee of the KPG, then the Comintern sent him to work in Moscow. While in Moscow, Heckert, along with Walter Ulbricht , opposed the removal from office of Ernst Thalmann , who was implicated in the case of Jon Vittorf . Since the VI Congress of the Comintern in 1928-1935, Heckert was a member of the presidium of its Executive Committee. At the XII Congress of the KKE, Heckert was re-elected to the Central Committee of the KKE and the Politburo and, together with Ernst Telman, largely contributed to the transformation of the KKE into a militant Marxist-Leninist party. In 1931, Hekkert was seriously wounded during a clash with assault troops at a meeting in Gelsenkirchen .

In 1932, Heckert again arrived in Moscow as a representative of the KPD. Heckert considered the USSR to be the fatherland of all the working people and admired the successes of the Soviet people. After the national socialists came to power, Heckert became one of the organizers of the struggle for KKE against Nazism, was declared in Germany on a wanted list, then was deprived of German citizenship on the first list . In 1933, Fritz Heckert's work “What is happening in Germany?” Was published in Moscow about the current political situation in the country. In it, Heckert focused on the reasons for the fascists coming to power , from a Marxist-Leninist point of view, he considered the prospects for the fascist dictatorship in Germany and the mistakes of the German Communists in this regard. Fritz Heckert died of a stroke in Moscow and was buried near the Kremlin wall .

• Fritz Heckert. What is happening in Germany? - Partizdat. - M. , 1933. - 40 p. - 125 000 copies
• Fritz Heckert. “Well, tell us about your heroic deeds in Central Germany” // About Lenin. Memories of foreign contemporaries / comp. S. F. Bezneselny, D. E. Greenberg. - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1962. - p. 417-423. - 60 000 copies

In the GDR the name of Fritz Heckert was called:

• the highest award of the Association of Free German Trade Unions - Fritz Heckert Medal
• Holiday home OSTS in Quedlinburg
• Central School of the Association of Free German Trade Unions
• engineering plant
• football team
• cruise passenger ship
• residential area panel building in Karl-Marx-Stadt
• Fritz Heckert district - district of Kherson region in 1926-1939
• Fritz-Heckertow is now a urban-type settlement of Vysokopole in the Kherson region.
• Heckert is depicted on a 1973 GDR postage stamp.

• Abramov A.S. “Well, tell me about your exploits in Central Germany” // At the Kremlin wall / comp. S. F. Bezneselny, D. E. Greenberg. - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1962. - p. 417-423. - 60 000 copies

• Great Soviet Encyclopedia
• Soviet historical encyclopedia
• Biography (German)