Johann (Hans) Beimler

Hans Beimler was born on July 2, 1895 in the Munich district of Haidhausen. After serving his apprenticeship, he worked as a locksmith in Munich and Hamburg. In the First World War, Hans Beimler was drafted into the Navy. In the autumn of 1918 he was involved in the November Revolution in Cuxhaven. He returned to Munich in early 1919 where he fought for the Munich Soviet Republic and joined the newly-established Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD, German Communist Party). In July 1919, Hans Beimler married Magdalena Müller. Their daughter Rosamaria was born the same year. The family lived at Döllingerstraße 5 (today 32). In 1921, Hans Beimler was sentenced to two years and three months imprisonment for intending to sabotage troop movements of the Reichswehr (Reich Defence Force, the German Army during the Weimar Republic) for fighting workers’ uprisings. Following his release, he rose to become one of the leading KPD politicians in Bavaria. In 1932, Hans Beimler was elected to the Landtag (Bavarian Parliament) and the Reichtag (national Parliament). During the final phase of the Weimar Republic he was committed to opposing the rising strength of the Nazis. On April 11, 1933 he was arrested and was one of the first prisoners to be sent to Dachau concentration camp. Being a known Communist, he was treated with particular brutality there. Hans Beimler managed to escape during the night from May 8 to 9, 1933. After living in hiding for several weeks, he escaped to Moscow in July 1933. There, he wrote his pamphlet, “Im Mörderlager Dachau” (“In Dachau murderers’ camp”). Excerpts from this publication were distributed in Germany on illegal broadsheets and it was translated into several languages. From the end of 1933, Hans Beimler supported the illegal resistance movement in Germany on behalf of the KPD in Paris, Prague and Zurich. During the Spanish Civil War, he was involved from July 1936 in setting up the International Brigades, which fought against the dictator Francisco Franco. On December 1, 1936 he was shot near Madrid – by whom is still unclear to this day. (text Friedbert Mühldorfer, editor C. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)