Born in Saxony, he became involved with the anarchist movement after the German Revolution of 1918–1919, becoming a leading member of the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD).

Helmut Rüdiger was born on 11 January 1903,[1] in the Saxon town of Frankenberg,[2] into the family of a theologian.

[1] He succeeded Augustin Souchy as the editor of the FAUD's newspaper Der Syndikalist in 1928 and was elected to head its executive commission in 1930.

[1] After the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, he was made head of German language propaganda for the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).

[1] He soon became one of the leading figures of the Swedish anarchist movement,[7] and an influential theoretician of the "revisionist" tendency of anarcho-syndicalism.