Walter Wolfgang

Walter Wolfgang
Wolfgang at a Stop the War demonstration in 2007
Born	Walter Jakob Wolfgang June 1923 (age 93) Frankfurt, Germany
Nationality	British
Known for	Anti-war activist

Walter Jakob Wolfgang (born June 1923) is a German-born British socialist and peace activist. He is Vice-President and Vice Chair of Labour of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition. He became known to the general public after cameras recorded him being forcibly ejected from the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton on 28 September 2005 for shouting "nonsense" during Jack Straw's speech on the Iraq War, in an incident that provoked much media comment and embarrassed the Labour leadership.

In August 2006 Wolfgang succeeded in his bid to become a member of Labour's National Executive Committee.

Wolfgang was born in Germany. As Jews, his family suffered persecution under the Nazis, and in 1937 his parents arranged for the teenaged Walter to move from Frankfurt to Britain (this was before the start of the Kindertransport programme). Wolfgang attended Ottershaw College, Chertsey, while his parents followed him to Britain two years later and settled in Richmond. During World War II, Wolfgang volunteered to serve in the Royal Air Force but was rejected due to a physical condition. After the war, Wolfgang qualified as an accountant; he joined the Labour Party in 1948. He allied with the left and was Secretary of the Bevanite pressure group 'Victory for Socialism' from 1955 to 1958. He co-authored several of Victory for Socialism's pamphlets, including In Pursuit of Peace (1954) and The Red Sixties (1959); Wolfgang also assisted Hugh Jenkins in writing Summit Talks and on an unpublished work on Socialism in general in the late 1950s.