Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany: The Life of Werner Scholem (1895a 1940)

Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany: The Life of Werner Scholem (1895a 1940)

Hoffrogge, Ralf

Paperback

Series: Historical Materialism, Book 141

Historical FiguresPolitical BiographiesSocial Movements

ISBN10: 1608469964
ISBN13: 9781608469963
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: Dec 11 2018
Pages: 660
Weight: 1.95
Height: 1.50 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

Walter Benjamin derided Werner Scholem as a 'rascal' in 1924. Joseph Stalin referred him as a 'splendid man', but soon backtracked and labeled him an 'imbecile', while Ernst Thälmann, chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), warned his followers against the dangers of 'Scholemism'. For the philosopher and historian Gershom Scholem, however, Werner was first and foremost his older brother. The life of German-Jewish Communist Werner Scholem (1895-1940) had many facets. Werner and Gerhard, later Gershom, rebelled together against their authoritarian father and the atmosphere of national chauvinism engulfing Germany during World War I. After inspiring his younger brother to take up the Zionist cause, Werner himself underwent a long personal journey before deciding to join the Communist struggle. Scholem climbed the party ladder and orchestrated the KPD's 'Bolshevisation' campaign, only to be expelled as one of Stalin's opponents in 1926. He was arrested in 1933, and ultimately murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp seven years later. This first biography of Werner Scholem tells his life story by drawing on a wide range of original sources and archive material long hidden beyond the Iron Curtain of the Cold War era.

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