Alfred Faust

Alfred Faust (15 December 1883 – 14 June 1961) was a German advertising executive, journalist, editor, and left-wing politician.

Born in Alsace (today part of France) in 1883, Faust was the son of a master plumber and winemaker. He had a business education, and an apprenticeship in printing, as well as attending a Catholic seminar in Belgium. In his youth he did military service, graduating as a Grenadier in Berlin, going on to teach French from 1905 on. From 1909 to 1914 Faust was a journalist, later working with advertisement for the company Café HAG, working in Bremen.

Between 1914 and 1918, Faust was called into the Imperial German Army, and fought in the First World War. In 1917, before the war's end, he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), a left-wing split from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). When the war ended in 1918, he became heavily involved in radical politics, joining the December Imperial Council Congress (German: Reichsrätekongress) in Berlin. Returning to Bremen, he joined the government of the brief Bremen Soviet Republic (existing between January and February 1919). He was selected by the city's workers' and soldiers' council to serve as People's Commissar of press and propaganda, together with Curt Stoermer. He also served as editor of the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung, which had been occupied by the workers.

After the defeat of the Bremen Soviet Republic at the hands of the Army and Freikorps Caspari, he became chief editor of the Bremer Arbeiterzeitung. In March 1919 he became a member of the Bremen National Assembly, serving as a deputy of the Bürgerschaft of Bremen from 1920 to 1933. In 1922 he joined the SDP, after the USDP was merged with it once more. Faust became an editor of the Bremer Volkszeitung, led by Wilhelm Kaisen, becoming its chief editor in 1928.

...
Wikipedia