Paul Levi
| Paul Levi | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
March 11, 1883 Hechingen, Province of Hohenzollern, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire |
| Died | February 9, 1930 (aged 46) Berlin, Weimar Republic |
| Nationality | Germany |
Paul Levi (March 11, 1883 – February 9, 1930) was a German Communist and Social Democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After being expelled for publicly criticising Communist Party tactics during the March Action, he formed the which in 1922 merged with the Independent Social Democratic Party. This party, in turn, merged with the Social Democratic Party a few months later and Levi became one of the leaders of its left wing.
Paul Levi was born 11 March 1883 in Hechingen in Hohenzollern Province to a well-to-do Jewish merchant family. He attended the Gymnasium in Stuttgart. Levi started work as a lawyer in Frankfurt in 1906 and also joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) the same year. There he became part of the party’s left wing together with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Beginning in 1913, Levi was also Luxemburg's lawyer in political cases. In 1914 he was elected as an SPD town councillor in Frankfurt.
Levi was one of the twelve delegates to the meeting in March 1915 which led to the formation of the Gruppe Internationale which became the Spartacist League. The following month he was conscripted to the army and sent to the Vosges. After starving himself, Levi was discharged on medical grounds in 1916, settling in Switzerland and associating with Karl Radek, Grigory Zinoviev and Vladimir Lenin, becoming a part of the bureau of the Zimmerwald Left and helping found La nouvelle internationale which he wrote for under the pseudonym 'Hartstein'. He was one of the signatories to a declaration approving of Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries actions in travelling through Germany in a sealed train.
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