Hoelz Max (German: Max Hoelz; 1889, Saxony — September 15, 1933, Gorky) was a German communist revolutionary and a participant in the German workers' movement in 1919–1921. He died in Nizhny Novgorod (then Gorky), where he is also buried.[5]
Biography
Hoelz came from a poor family: his father was a sawmill worker. From early childhood Max had to earn his own living — he worked as a shepherd, an agricultural laborer, a driver, and a technician, all the while continuing his education with great difficulty. In the First World War he went to the front as a volunteer; in 1917, having become acquainted with the teachings of socialism through a socialist prisoner of war, he came to revolutionary ideas.[2]
In November 1918 Hoelz founded a council of the unemployed in Falkenstein (Vogtland), joined the Communist Party of Germany (the Spartacus League), and established its local group. In 1920, during the Kapp Putsch, he led workers' detachments in Falkenstein, attempting to create a Red Army. Having continued the struggle against party directives after the revolutionary movement declined, he was expelled from the party for breach of discipline. The Saxon government set a reward of 30,000 marks for his capture; Hoelz managed to escape to Bohemia.[2]
In March 1921 Hoelz returned to Germany illegally and, during the March Action, organized armed detachments in Mansfeld against government troops. After the uprising was crushed, he was captured — a special court sentenced him to life imprisonment, accusing him of the murder of the landowner Heß and classifying his activity as criminal. Despite another man's confession, the court refused to reopen the case. Hoelz spent more than seven years in various German prisons.[2]
In 1922, while still in custody, he declared in a political statement the necessity of a strictly organized communist party for the victory of the proletariat, and rejoined the KPD. The Soviet leadership sought his release: in September 1922 the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) adopted a resolution on exchanging Hoelz for a certain Timofeyev, and Joseph Stalin, in a letter to Nikolay Krestinsky, the plenipotentiary representative of the RSFSR in Germany, and to People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin, proposed taking measures to secure his release.[4] A mass campaign organized with the participation of the Comintern and Mezhrabpom led to an amnesty: on July 17, 1928, Hoelz was released, which became the occasion for large proletarian demonstrations.[2]
After his release Hoelz worked as a speaker and publicist. In 1929 his memoirs "Vom weissen Kreuz zur roten Fahne" ("From the White Cross to the Red Banner") were published in Berlin. In 1930 another of his memoirs, "A Year of Struggle in the Ranks of the Komsomol of the Hindenburg Republic," was published in Moscow (translated and edited by A. Blumenau, Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house).[6]
Death and Remembrance in Nizhny Novgorod
Hoelz died in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) on September 15, 1933, under unclear circumstances and was buried in the city's Bugrov Cemetery.[5] Hoelz's name enjoyed great popularity in the USSR: in 1924 a state machine-building plant in Leningrad (the former Semyonov plant) was named after him, and in 1928 the enterprise's charter under the name "Leningrad State Precision Machine-Building Plant named after Max Hoelz" was officially approved.[4] In 1933 the river steamer "Max Hoelz" was laid down at the Chkalovsk shipyard (then Vasilyovo), along with a series of vessels of the same type under the "Max Hoelz" project — "Dimitrov," "Kuybyshev," "Thälmann," "Gazovets," and others, assigned to the port of Gorky.[3]
Sources
- ru.wikisource.org — Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1st ed./Hölz, Max — Wikisource
- people-archive.ru — Max Hölz — Biography and Family
- fleetphoto.ru — PJSC "Chkalovsk Shipyard" — Water Transport
- docs.historyrussia.org — Electronic Library of Historical Documents (EBID) — Indexes — Names — Hölz, Max
- arysmedia.kz
- vgd.ru — Bugrov Cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod, page 2