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

This biography of Werner Scholem (1895–1940), former Zionist activist and later chief organiser of the German Communist Party, sheds new light on German-Jewish relations in the Weimar Republic, focussing on a revolutionary's lifelong struggle against Anti-Semitism. 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 Thalmann, 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. First published in German by UVK Verlagsgesellschaft as Werner Scholem - eine politische Biographie (1895-1940), Konstanz, 2014. “... in the field of historical research, it is the more refined work by Ralf Hoffrogge that will make a lasting impression. His reconstruction of events is the only one that allows us to understand Scholem's arrest and trial ...” - Lorenz Jaeger, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 4th 2014.