The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-09
Do You Know Thaelmann?

WHEN I pronounce this Red name, Z
W which. d spite everything,
spreads out over oppressed Ger
many, when I recall this fighter,
whom the enemy has seized upon
as its most hated and most impor-
tant victim, whom it has kept bar
barously hidden in some dungeon
for the past year, while waiting for
a parody trial-this prisoner Of
whom it may be said that he has
been officially condemned see
him as 1 have seen him many times,
in the environment where he was
formed and where he grew up: at
Hamburg, among the workers.
1t was at a huge meeting of work.
erS and war veterans. The immense
hall was jammed: five, six thou
sand workers. I fraternized on the
platform with Thaelmann. I see
him and I hear him. A powerful
figure, healthy and solid frame,
strong voice, the fine, plain, express
slve face Of a worker conscious of
the power of his class, strengthened
by his revolutionary theory, I'M
shakably confident of victory.
The audience heard him with at
tention, with love. What struck one
was the resemblance between the
speaker and those who listened to
him. He spoke to them; it also
seemed that it was they who were
speaking with his voice. He truly
personif1ed this proletarian crowd.
He had been modelled and built to-
gether with those who were there.
And it was not very long before
saw him again for the last time.
1t was at Paris, in the midst of a
crowd of workers, at the Butler
Hall, towards the end of 1882. They
were celebrating the fifteenth an
niversary Of the Russian Revolu-
ton. In the midst of indescribable
enthusiasm he appeared on the
platform. He was always the same
big, broad-shouldered, his face
calm, his eyes clear. Leader of the
German anti-fascists and anti-cap-
italists, speaking to the French
proletariat, he cried out: Com
rades, the Geman Communists are
the vanguard of the world prole-
tariat in the struggle against fas-
cism. Our struggle is your struggle"
The cheers which answered him
demonstrated that in Paris. as in
Hamburg, Thaelmann was under
stood as well as he was loved by
the workers ennobled by the spirit |
Of their class.
The Worker Thaelnlann
The Partisan workers cheered the
man who had fought against the
re-arming Of Germany, the man
who had created the workers COM
mittee Of the French, Polish,
Czechoslovakian and German work !
ers for struggle against the policy
of Imperialism.
They cheered the anti-imparialist
Ernst Thaelmann.
Thaelmann has always been a
worker. His example shows what a
worker can become.
TT is forty eight years since Ernst
Thaelmann was born in Ham
burg. His childhood was in no way
different from that Of millions of
workers throughout the world His
father was worker with socialist
views, which did not make the life
OF the family easier; black listed, he
passed from trade to trade, buffet
ed by chance, but never deciding to
become well thinking" for his own
interests. The humble home knew
cruel privationS and misery. 1t was
in that environment that the in
fant opened its clear eyes.
Ernst was a harbor worker, a
transport worker, ever since he
could use his hands. At the be-
ginning Of his life there is drawn.
as on fresco, the picture Of the
athletic worker loading cargo from
the dock to the ship, from the ship
to the dock, in one Of the busiest |
and most important harbors of old
Europe.
At the age of sixteen, in 1902, he
"a entered the Social-Dsmocratic
Party. The next year he became
member of the German Transport
Workers Union, in which he was to
remain nearly thirty years. He left
N7E II