Ernst Wimmer – Wikipedia

Ernst Wimmer (Born June 17, 1924 in Horn, Lower Austria, † October 27, 1991 in Vienna) was an Austrian political journalist, communist, Marxist theorist and politician and aphoristician. In the 1970s and 1980s, he had an important role in the development of the KPÖ and a formative influence on parts of the intellectual and cultural left in Austria.

Ernst Wimmer was the second child of the former officer of the K.U.K. Army and later director of the Creditanstalt Bankverein Otto Wimmer (1895–1957) and his wife Hermine (1897–1990) born in the rural small town of Horn in the Waldviertel, Lower Austria. At the end of 1925 the family moved to Vienna after his father in 1924 within the Anglo-Austrian bank had been appointed there. Wimmer grew up in bourgeois conditions in Vienna-Meidling. This was emphasized by patriotic, monarchist-Catholic milieu of his parents’ house contributed to his anti-fascist attitude. According to Ernst Wimmer’s stories, his experiences of the Austrian Civil War in February 1934 in the development of his political being decisive and sustainably shaped him.

First political activities in the National Socialism period [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

After Austria’s connection to the German Reich in 1938, Wimmer was together with others, including his classmate and later writer Gerhard Fritsch, in the anti-fascist resistance group “Theiss” at his school, the Ignaz-Seipel-Gymnasium (today’s GRG Vienna XII Rosasgasse), politically active. Wimmer, like his sister Edith, was arrested by the Gestapo and brought to the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna on Morzinplatz for interrogation. While Wimmer was released after a short prison, his sister remained in Gestapo for a year. Shortly before his Matura in 1942, Wimmer was relegated by his school by the Reichsgericht and excluded by all schools and universities in the German Reich. Subsequently, he was moved into the German Wehrmacht and trained as a radio operator after basic military training in Znaim in Zistersdorf. According to his own statement, he was very lucky that he was spared the assignment on the war front. In order to refuse to “rescue” the marching order for Berlin, Wimmer deserted together with other Austrian Wehrmacht soldiers in the last months of the war.

After the liberation of Austria from the Allies, Wimmer – he had extraordinary knowledge of the English, Latin and ancient Greek language – was interpreted by the English city commander in Vienna. As a result, he came with many, sometimes well -known anti -fascists such as B. Graham Greene, in personal contact and met Austrian communists home from English exile, such as the philosopher and Freud student Walter Hollitscher. These contacts continued to politicize him.

His path led to political journalism – after a short time as a decent student at the University of World Trade in Vienna. He worked for the first Austrian and non -partisan (ÖVP, SPÖ, KPÖ) post -war newspaper New Austria , the The evening and the cultural policy newspaper Viennese diary . For political-word-looking reasons, he then switched to the central organ of the KPÖ, the daily newspaper Folk vote .

In 1947, Ernst Wimmer married his childhood friend, Eva Margareta Gans (*1925, † 2005) coming from a bourgeois and respected Jewish family. Three sons came from their marriage together. From 1960 the family lived in Vienna-Döbling in the Helmut-Qualtinger-Hof. Convinced of the cause of communism, in particular through the deep friendship with Walter Hollitscher, he decided to live as a professional revolutionary and became a member of the German Communist Party together with his wife and political companion Eva in 1947.

Ernst Wimmer started his work in the editorial team of Folk vote Under the then editor-in-chief Erwin Zucker-Schilling as a journalist in the foreign policy department. In particular, the well -known editors Jakob Rosner, Fritz Glaubauf and Bruno freely promoted him on his way to political journalism. During these years, Wimmer also devoted himself to his further training in a comprehensive manner. In particular in terms of classics and knowledge of scientific socialism as well as in the areas of literature and art and the Romanesque languages.

The XX. Participate in the KPDSU 1956 was a drastic experience for Ernst Wimmer. As a result, the Hungarian uprising employed him in 1956, Maoism in China and the Prague spring. Ernst Wimmer continued with the cause of the revolution, communism. That did not prevent him from differentiating; He criticized a lot in his articles. The party leadership withdrew the foreign policy department at the Folk vote . From now on he worked in the cultural editorial team. According to his self -image as a professional revolutionary, he also understood this area of ​​work as a field of battle for a revolutionary party and acted according to the political situation.

As a result of the invasion of a part of the Warsaw Pact countries in Prague in August 1968, as in the world movement, the ideological arguments for the question of the political-ideological character of the communist parties spoke in the KPÖ. Revisionists and Marxist Leninist rang with each other, especially in the question of attitude to the Soviet Union.

The Marxist Leninist in the KPÖ created a new party organ for the party in this discussion, the magazine New politics . Ernst Wimmer and Walter Hollitscher became the leading head of the editorial college. After the victory of the Marxist Leninists within the KPÖ, the magazine was completely redesigned Way and goal . Wimmer became a member of their five -member editorial college.

Between 1970 and 1974, the KPÖ reorganized on the basis of “scientific socialism”. Wimmer contributed to this as a Marxist theorist and political journalist in a variety of publications in the various organs of the KPÖ, as well as organizers of a number of “theoretical conferences”, as well as participants in discussion events. At the 21st party congress of the KPÖ in May 1970, Wimmer was elected to the party’s central committee.

The collapse of the real socialist states in 1989 blew up the consensus within the communist parties in Western Europe, which had remained Marxist-leninist, over their ideological foundations, including in the KPÖ. Marxism-Leninism as an ideology, with all its political and organizational implications, was now entirely up for disposition. In this situation, Ernst Wimmer referred to the position of maintaining a party with the programmatic goal of overcoming capitalism. In order to be able to make the real existing social contradictions practically usable, Wimmer put the defense of scientific socialism and the analysis of capitalism at the center of the politics in spoken and written.

The political-ideological examination between the forces around the new chairman Walter Silbermayr, who sought to rise the KPÖ in a general left and led the Orthodox Marxist forces around Ernst Wimmer, especially at the 27th party congress of the KPÖ in January 1990 To remove Ernst Wimmers as an ideologist of the KPÖ by the new party leadership.

At the 28th party congress in June 1991, Wimmer said:

“The fact that there will be a Marxism with new knowledge, methods and criteria as long as there will be capitalism and beyond, that is out of the question for me. But whether there will be a Marxist party, a party communist type in the next few years, this is unfortunately not so safe for me. In no way because I would have become as gush or offended that such a party no longer had a right to exist, on the contrary. But I have justified doubts that what makes the party today can pull up and pull together in order to fulfill functions that only result in a right to exist. ”

A few weeks before his death, Wimmer inspired some comrades to create a periodic pioneer, the later “new Volksstimme”. This should attempt to collect the Marxist Leninist in the KPÖ and serve as a political weapon in the political-ideological examination of revisionism.

Ernst Wimmer left around 8000 aphorisms that were created over a period of around 30 years. Wimmer chose the aphorism to achieve his need for a literary expression under the conditions of his self-elected primacy of political-journalistic and political-ideological work as a communist. Almost without exception, he devoted himself to rethinking at least an hour every day and criticism of what seemed important to him.

• “Mole cricket – the Austrian’s inclination to the sloppiness corresponds to his pride in individuality: to claim it, he needs loopholes that leaves them.”

• “The sum of the exceptions that one claims results in the right rule.”

• “Even the most believing pray so often to their God as they seek out to outsmart him.”

• “For our experiences, we behave like to be subordinated: We tell you what you have to tell us.”

• “If we were to endure what we call unbearable, we would have a different story.”

• “No tendency can be so gently to ideal that you don’t go to slide.”

• “Each of us would be a sufficiently large theater for the other, would not mostly be played with almost closed curtain.”

Only a few of his aphorisms and essays have so far been published in book form. Contrary to the promise of the KPÖ’s party leadership, which was still made several times during his lifetime, and despite a corresponding party congress decision to publish works by Ernst Wimmer on a different way, this was the result. The extremely extensive estate of Ernst Wimmer, including the aphorisms and essays, is owned by his sons.

Ernst Wimmer died of leukemia in Vienna in the evening hours of October 27, 1991. He was buried on November 7, 1991 as part of a party burial and with great sympathy of several hundred people in the Döblingen cemetery in Vienna. The grave speech held personal friends of Wimmer, the Austrian poet Arthur West and the Austrian sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka.

• On the location of the working class in Austria Stern Verlag, Vienna 1973
• Antimonopolist democracy and socialism. Glove hirl, who 1974, isbn 3-85364-013-3
• Eurocommunism – a collection of statements (with Franz Muhri, Erwin Scharf)
• Social partnership from a Marxist perspective Globus Verlag, Vienna 1979
• State and democracy – third away or revolution? Glove hiring, who 1982, issbn 3-853644-091-5
• Socialism in Austria’s colors – program of the Austria Communist Party , 1982
• Antonio Gramsci and the revolution Globus Verlag, Vienna 1984
• 100 years of Hainfeld, 70 years KPÖ – Review & Outlook Glove hiring, who 1988, isbn 3853642055

as editor