Lothar Erdmann

During the Weimar Republic he was the editor of the trade union theory organ Die Arbeit [de].

He was a main supporter of the turning away of trade unions from social democracy at the end of the Republic.

The death of his friend August Macke affected him deeply and led to a change in his attitude toward war.

It appeared in 1928 in an anthology published by Ernst Jünger under the title Die Unvergessenen [de].

After some time in Germany, Erdmann worked in Amsterdam as a press officer for the International Trade Union Confederation.

[1] Erdmann remained editor-in-chief of the new journal until 1933, from which position he was able to exert considerable influence on the trade union leadership's attitude toward current issues.

[4] Erdmann, who was also active as a speech writer for Leipart, was instrumental in introducing ideas from Ernst Jünger's publication The Worker: Dominion and Form into the trade union environment.

[6] In this article, Erdmann distanced himself from the SPD in a hitherto unknown sharpness and emphasized the difference in character with the trade unions.

He ended his contribution with an appeal to the National Socialists to integrate the trade unions into the new State.

Other younger ADGB functionaries at the middle level also shared his positions, for example Walter Pahl [de].

When the trade-union headquarters were occupied on the Tag der nationalen Arbeit [de] (2 May 1933), Erdmann lost his employment.

In 1960, the German Democratic Republic postal authority issued a stamp series of portraits of anti-fascists murdered in a concentration camp.

[1] In the ring wall of the Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten [de] in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Erdmann is also remembered on a red porphyry plaque.

In 2003 in the Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen [de], above all, former active trade union functionaries whose fate is little known were honoured.