Karl Schröder
1884-1950
SPD 1913
USPD
Spartakus Bund
KPD(S)
KAPD 1920 - 1922
KAPD-Essen 1922
SPD 1924
SWV
RK
GIS
SED 1948-50
Karl Zech (1920)
Karl Wolf (1925-29)
Biography:
Karl Schröder was born on the 13.th of November 1884 in Polzin (Pomerania) as son of a schoolteacher. 1904 he finished a humanist high school in Köslin and moved to Berlin to begin studies in philosophy, science of literature, history and history of arts. After doing his military service in 1908-9 he worked as a private teacher at various places. 1911 Schröder resumed his studies in Marburg and finished in 1912 as Dr. phil. on a dissertation within history of literature. Then continued occupation as private teacher.
1913 Schröder moved to Berlin and entered the SPD, where he became scientific consultant for the central party-commission on questions concerning workers' education. 1914 Corporal in the German Army and for a period Attendant at the Grünewald camp for russian prisoners of war.
During the War Schröder followed first the USPD and later the Spartakus-Bund, where he got to know Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht; In 1918 he was co-editor on "Roten Fahne" and in 1919 Editor of the local organ of the KPD(S) in Berlin.
In Berlin Schröder soon became an important figure in the left opposition within the KPD(S) and he was one of the leading initiators in the founding of Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, KAPD, in April 1920. For periods he was Chairman of the KAPD and also chief editor of the party organ 'Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung', KAZ. Together with Herman Gorter he developed the Program of the new party. In November 1920 Schröder, Rasch and Gorter went to Moskow to negotiate with the Bolsheviks and the EKKI for the KAPD as "sympathizing member" of the III. International.
After the final break between the KAPD and the III. International in 1921 Schröder and others from the central KAPD-leadership began a purification or strengthening of the basic theory and principles of the party. The concept of the 'death crisis of capitalism' was introduced and from this point of view the KAPD was suggested to advocate non-participation in daily workers struggles within capitalism and immediate formation of a new Communist Workers International.
In 1922 the discussions on theses subjects lead to the split between the majority KAPD-Berlin tendency and the minority KAPD-Essen tendency - Karl Schröder being the leading figure of the latter. Schröder and some of his close associates were expelled from KAPD by the majority of the Berlin section of the party. But as elected to the central body of the party-leadership the Essen tendency continued claiming a legitimate position within the KAPD.
From Essen Schröder and his fraction actually set up a competing KAPD-leadership with parallel publications of both the party-organ KAZ and the KAPD/AAU-organ 'Kampfruf'. The Essen tendency got some support from various other local KAPD-sections around Germany, but also at the national level there was a clear majority against the proposed changes of principles.
In 1922 Schröder - with the support of Herman Gorter - was active in actually founding a 'Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale', the KAI. Apart from the KAPD-Essen tendency in Germany this new International consisted only of a few other other small left communist groups from around Europe - Holland, Bulgaria, some Russian Left Communists, The Workers Dreadnought-group in England a.o. After the founding conference both the KAPD-Essen tendency and the foreign associate groups soon shrank or disappeared into nothing. So the KAI was more or less a failure from the very beginning, but existed formally with the restgroups of the KAPD-Essen for some years until about 1925.
From the end of 1922 Karl Schröder like others of the prominent founders of the KAPD were no longer active within either the KAPD or any of its later splitters-organizations - KAPD-Essen, KAPD-Berlin, AAU, AAU-E etc. From 1922 to 1924 Schröder worked as private secretary at an iron factory in Schlesien.
In 1924 Schröder followed others from the the old KAPD-leadership and joined the SPD, where he began teaching at seminars and courses in the SPD-organizations for workers education. From 1926 he worked as lecturer at Bücherkreis Gmbh, a SPD-publicinghouse and book-club for workers. Schröder edited the quarterly journal of literature and also began writing novels himself. In this period he also contributed as literary reviewer at the SPD-organ 'Vorwärts'.
In 1924 Paul Levi (former chariman of the KPD(S) and expelled in 1921) had founded the Sozialwissenschaftlichen Vereinigung (SWV). This was a loose union of 'socialists' interested in theoretical and political discussions on the problems of socialism and held together by monthly meetings and week-end seminars. Speakers at the meetings were several of the prominent figures from all organizations of the left scene. The meetings were attended mostly by oppositional members of the SPD, but also by others from the restgroups of the KAPD and the AAU. By 1928 the SWV had around 800 members within Berlin alone.
In 1929 Karl Schröder and others of the old KAPD-Essen group came to the conclusion that the crisis of capitalism and the general political development would lead to a period of dictatorship and illegality for revolutionary communists. They therefore started to build up an organization within the SWV of the most reliable elements - an organization later to be known as Roten Kämpfer.
Many former members of the KAPD was recruited for the closed network and operated mainly within the SPD, especially the youth-organizations, where they participated in the debates and supported the left oppositional currents with the perspective of mass clarification and further recruitment for the RK-network.
From 1931 the Schröder/Schwab-group had fully taken over both the SWV and the bulletin 'Der Rote Kämpfer', which originally was setup by a lokal SPD oppositional group in the Ruhr-area.
At the same time Schröder and Schwab began more systematically to transform the network around the SWV- and RK-publications into a disciplined organization prepared for illegal political activity.
Thus by 1933 the RK-network was relatively well prepared for the new conditions as a clandestine organization covering all parts of Germany. Karl Schröder together with a small handful or two of old KAPD-members constituted the central leadership and organizational guards of the RK-network. The basic groups of trusted members may have been about 300-400 persons, who were active within almost all parties and organizations except the Stalinist KPD.
The theoretical and political positions of the RK was clearly inherited from the former KAPD-movement, but - unlike the other council communist groupings such as the KAU - they were developed anew in close connection to current events and discussions within the SPD, the SPD Youth-organisations, the SAP and the shifting policies of the KPD. Schröder made the main part of the concluding articles for the bulletin RK-Korresponz, which was distributed through the network and widely discussed in left oppositional circles of all workers organizations.
The RK-network managed to keep its activities going under the Nazi-regime until November 1936, when the Gestapo by accident got informed of its existence and by the use of torture found out the names of some of the key persons in the organization. In a following series of arrests almost the whole kernel of the RK-organization was caught including Karl Schröder. In May 1937 about 150 persons had been arrested and the RK-network was practically destroyed.
In October 1937 the main process against the RK-leadership was held giving Schröder a sentence of 4 years - which he ended in 1940 in the concentration camp Börgermoor. During the war he worked as assistant in a printing house. In 1942 a small group of former RK-members in Berlin took up activity again, and it its very likely - but not knovwn - that Schröder participated in this.
After 1945 Schröder - like many other from the 'old' movement - took part in rebuilding the educational institutions in Germany. From 1946 he was head of the folk high school VHS Berlin-Neukölln and associated at the publishing house Gebrüder-Weiss-Verlag.
Following the II. World War the 'council communists' like other political currents tried to reorganize and take up political activities again. After some short attempts to cooperate with some Trotskyite circles former members of the KAU and the RK reestablished a framework much like that of the SWV/RK in the early 30'ies.
With Alfred Weiland as a central figure a new network of groups were organized in Berlin calling themselves Group of International Socialists, GIS, and publishing Neues Beginnen. This network adopted the principles of closed group-organizations of the RK and operated mainly behind educational activities in the folk high school sector and in the schooling-courses of trade unions and the SPD. The VHS Neuköln headed by Schröder was one of the places, where the GIS-network could organize public meetings. A new SWV was founded to cover the GIS and provide an official frame for the activities.
Physically weakened by the experience of the Nazi trial and concentration camp Schröder did not take up the same role or level of political activity as previous. In Neukölln Schröder and other former RK-members were active in a local group and from 1948 this group got more closely linked to the network around Neues Beginnen.
After the Berlin Blockade Schröder himself withdraw from resignation and joined the SED. From November 1948 to May 1949 he was in Schwitzerland for health treatment. Back in Berlin he then was working for the publishing house "Volk und Wissen".
Karl Schröder died on April the 6.th 1950 in East-Berlin.
Texts by Karl Schröder on this site: