Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
	Thälmann in 1932
Chairman of the; Communist Party of Germany
	In office; 1 September 1925 – 3 March 1933
Preceded by	Ruth Fischer
Succeeded by	John Schehr
Chairman of the; Roter Frontkämpferbund
	In office; 1 February 1925 – 14 May 1929
Second Chairman	Willy Leow;
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Member of the Reichstag ; for Hamburg
	In office; 27 May 1924 – 28 February 1933
Preceded by	Multi-member district
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	16 April 1886; Hamburg, German Empire
Died	18 August 1944 (aged 58); Buchenwald concentration camp, Weimar, Thuringia, Nazi Germany
Party	KPD (1920–1944)
Other political; affiliations	USPD (1917–1920); SPD (1903–1917)
Spouse	Rosa Koch (m. 1915)
Children	1 daughter
Occupation	Dockworker; Politician;
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire; Revolutionaries
Years of service	1915–1918; 1923
Battles/wars	World War I Western Front Second Battle of Champagne; Battle of the Somme; Battle of Arras; Second Battle of the Aisne; Battle of Cambrai; Battle of Soissons; ; ; Hamburg Uprising;
Awards	Iron Cross Second Class; Hanseatic Cross; Wound Badge;
	Central institution membership 1924–1933: Full member,; KPD Politburo ; 1923–1939: Full member,; KPD Central Committee ; Other offices held 1924–1925: Deputy Chairman,; Communist Party of Germany ; 1919–1933: Member,; Hamburg Parliament ;

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Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (German: [ɛʁnst ˈtɛːlman]; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, revolutionary, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933.

A committed communist, Thälmann sought to overthrow the Weimar Republic, especially during the instability of its final years, and to replace it with a socialist state based on Marxism-Leninism. Under his leadership, the KPD became intimately associated with the government of the Soviet Union and the policies of Joseph Stalin. The KPD under Thälmann's leadership regarded the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as an adversary and the party adopted the position that the social democrats were "social fascists". Both the SPD and KPD were already previously split on many key issues, however, this new stance clarified it was impossible for the two parties to form a united front against the Nazi Party.

Thälmann was leader of the paramilitary Roter Frontkämpferbund. After the Nazi regime began, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years. Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov originally sought Thälmann’s release; after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, efforts to that end were abandoned, while Thälmann's party rival Walter Ulbricht ignored requests to plead on his behalf. Thälmann was shot dead on Adolf Hitler's personal order in Buchenwald in 1944.