Karl Barthel (20 March 1907 – 21 February 1974) was a German politician, Communist member of the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic, concentration camp survivor, Socialist Unity Party of Germany official, and author.
The leader of the secretariat Hans Tittel was a supporter of Heinrich Brandler, who had fallen out of favour with leading members of the KPD and with Moscow.
In order to remove the so-called "right-wing dissenters", the party demanded that the Thuringian KPD pass a resolution on the decisions of the 4th Session of the Central Council in Moscow.
After a short time on the editorial board of the newspaper "Freedom" ("Freiheit") in Düsseldorf, in November 1931 Barthel was in Kassel and was confirmed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party following the recommendations of Thalmann and John Schehr to the post of political secretary for Hesse-Waldecks as successor to Krämer, who had been imprisoned.
On 28 November 1933, Barthel was arrested by the Gestapo in Breslau at a meeting with the local KJVD district leaders and was held in the custody of Edmund Heines.
Through co-operative SS members such as the mechanic Hans Prinzler, he was able to smuggle out his manuscript to her, which was later published as Die Welt ohne Erbarmen ("The world without mercy") in the German Democratic Republic.
After the bomb attack by the US Air Force on 24 August 1944, Barthel was able to use his keys to the SS drink cellar to provide water to many of the wounded, including Rudolf Breitscheid and the Italian Princess Mafalda of Savoy, but both succumbed to their injuries.