Doppelte Loyalitäten: Willi Agatz, die KPD und die Durchsetzung gewerkschaftlicher Einheit nach 1945

Abstract

Through an evaluation of the rise and fall of the high ranking communist and trade union leader, Willi Agatz, this essay tries to shed light on the process of trade union integration after fascism. Agatz work was characterized by the initially successful attempt to reconcile a program of social revolution with day-to day union business. However, in the face of political polarization at the end of the 1940s Agatz position within the IV Bergbau became increasingly precarious. His refusal to renounce communist politics ultimately let to his expulsion from the union. All in all, his work as a TU secretary had a paradoxically effect. In fostering the integration of important groups of radical miners into the Trade Union organization he involuntarily helped to weaken the communist movement in the pit fields, the basis of his own power within the Union.