Friedrich Stampfer

The German Social Democrat and journalist Friedrich Stampfer lived from 1933 in what is now Prague 2, in Albertov. After studying economy and political science, Friedrich Stampfer started his journalistic career as an editor at the Social Democrat newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung. In 1916 he went to Berlin, where he took over the role of editor-in-chief of the central newspaper of the German Social Democrats, the daily Vorwärts. He was also a member of the Reichstag, and from the mid-1920s he was a member of the party’s higher leadership. He was thus in the frontline of the struggle against Nazism. Leipziger Volkszeitung. V roce 1916 odešel do Berlína, kde převzal funkci šéfredaktora centrálního orgánu německé sociální demokracie, deníku Vorwärts. Kromě toho byl i členem Říšského sněmu a od poloviny 20. let patřil do úzkého vedení strany. Stál tedy v první linii boje proti nacismu.

After the Nazis seized power, Stampfer emigrated in spring 1933 to Prague, where he soon became part of the Social Democrat structures, and together with other social democrats founded the exile leadership of the party. As editor-in-chief he established a newspaper following on from the German Vorwärts, the weekly Neuer Vorwärts, the central newspaper of the exiled Social Democrats. As an inveterate anticommunist he refused all suggestions that a coalition with the left be formed, but his position did not meet with only positive reactions in the party leadership. Stampfer continued in the function of editor-in-chief of Neuer Vorwärts in 1938 to 1940 in Paris, before fleeing to New York.

There he continued to work as a journalist, and was also active in the German Labour Delegation. Three years after the end of the war, Stampfer returned to the western occupied zones and worked as a reader at the Academy of Labour (connected with the trade unions) in Frankfurt. Friedrich Stampfer died at the age of 83 in December 1957 in the town of Kronberg im Taunus.

Historikové Swen Steinberg a Mike Schmeitzner o Friedrichu Stampferovi a novinách „Neuer Vorwärts“:

Author: Lea Calmano