Hugo Eberlein was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Communist politician. He took part of the founding congress of the Communist Party of Germany

Communist Party of Germany

The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

 (Dec-Jan 1919), and then in the First Congress of the Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

 (March 2–6, 1919), where he held important posts until 1928, the result of his involvement with the Conciliator faction

Conciliator faction

The Conciliator faction was an opposition group within the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. In East Germany, after World War II, the German word for conciliator, Versöhnler, became a term for anti-marxist political tendencies.- Background :The faction...

. When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, Eberlein fled to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, where he found refuge at the Hotel Lux

Hotel Lux

Hotel Lux was a hotel in Moscow that, during the early years of the Soviet Union, housed many leading exiled Communists. During the Nazi era, exiles from all over Europe went there, particularly from Germany. A number of them became leading figures in German politics in the postwar era...

. In July 1937, he fell under the Stalinist terror

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

. In January 1938, was interrogated and tortured for ten days and nights. In April 1938, he was brought to Lefortovo Prison

Lefortovo prison

Lefortovo prison is a prison in Moscow, Russia, which, since 2005, has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. It was built in 1881...

, where he was tortured for weeks at a time, and then in 1939, he was sentenced to 15 years in the Vorkuta Gulag

Vorkuta Gulag

The Vorkuta Gulag was a Soviet era prison camp located in the Pechora River Basin, in the Komi Republic, part of the Siberian region of Russia, located 1,200 miles from Moscow and 100 miles above the Arctic Circle...

. He was returned to Moscow in 1941, when he was tried and sentenced again and was shot on October 16, 1941. Hugo Eberlein was later rehabilitated

Political rehabilitation

Political rehabilitation is the process by which a member of a political organization or government who has fallen into disgrace, is restored to public life. It is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or...

 and became a national hero in East Germany.

External links

• Founding congress of the KPD (Spartakus) December 31, 1918