Ernst Thälmann - Hitler's forgotten rival

Ernst Thälmann

One man who would have relished today's crisis, just as he hoped to benefit hugely from the interwar slump, was the German communist leader Ernst Thälman. He is little remembered today but, in his time, was seen as Hitler's great rival in the battle for power on the streets of Weimar Germany. 

Born in Hamburg in 1886, he worked as a docker, and was an enthusiastic trade unionist, and also lived for a while in the USA. After fighting in the First World War, he joined the German communists and in March 1921 he was fired from his job at the job centre due to his political activities. In December Thälmann was elected to the Central Committee of the KPD. In 1925 he became leader as champion of the Stalinist faction. That summer Thälmann went as a representative of the KPD to the 3rd Congress of the Comintern in Moscow and met Lenin. In June 1922 Thälmann survived an assassination attempt at his flat. Members of the right-wing nationalist organisation Consul threw a hand grenade into his ground floor flat. His wife and daughter were unhurt; Thälmann himself came home only later.