August Ernst Reinhold Merges (3 March 1870 – 6 March 1945) was a German activist, politician and revolutionary. He was a member of various communist and syndicalist organisations; becoming one of the leaders of the German Revolution in Braunschweig, and subsequently a member of the Weimar National Assembly, convened in 1919 to draw up a constitution for the new German republic. In 1933, he came to the notice of the authorities as a "background member" of an anti-government resistance group. In 1945, after he was found dead in the little summer-hut in his son's allotment (where he lived for the last two years of his life) it was determined that ever since undergoing a succession of severe torture sessions at the hands of the security services during and after 1935, he had suffered without a break from the bone tuberculosis that killed him. His name is accordingly listed on the "Reichstag Memorial" to the 96 members of the parliament who died "unnaturally" during the twelve Hitler years.Gerhard Schildt, In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (Hrsg.): Braunschweigisches biographisches Lexikon. 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Hahn, Hannover 1996, , p. 410
Life Provenance and early years August Ernst Reinhold Merges was born into a Protestant family in 1870 at Malstatt-Burbach, just outside Saarbrücken (into which it has subsequently been subsumed). He was born just six months before the Battle of Sedan which opened the way for the rapid political unification of Germany, formally in January 1871. The outbreak of war forced the family to relocate to Idar-Oberstein in the hill country a short distance to the north of Saarbrücken. August's mother, Anna, died very soon after his birth. Nikolaus Merges, his father, was a butcher and the author of a teaching manual for journeyman butchers on making sausages and other meat products. The family came originally from the south-west of Germany, near the frontier north of Basel. Nikolaus Merges had been conscripted for military service, so the infant was sent to live with foster parents. While in foster-care he contracted Rickets, caused by malnutrition. As a result he never grew above 147 cm, was lame in one leg, and lived his life with a bent back. He would become known in some quarters as "Krummer August" (loosely, "bent August"). Fortunately his formidable mental abilities more than made up for his physical difficulties. After he grew up and took to public speaking, some thought him garrulous, others eloquent.
By the time he was six his father had brought the family back together, and he spent six years attending junior school at Idar-Oberstein. The family then moved away from the Saarbrücken area, settling in Melle (a short distance to the south-east of Osnabrück). August was keen to progress to secondary education, but there was not enough money for that: instead, in 1884, his father sent him away to Bremen to undertake an apprenticeship in tailoring.
Young socialist He combined his apprenticeship with a passionate autodidacticism, reading voraciously on political and academic topics. It was also during this time in Bremen that he joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which until 1890 was operating under a legal ban. In practical terms, the ban was more widely accepted in some parts of Germany than in others. In the booming industrial port-city of Bremen socialism was already becoming well entrenched. By the time he completed his apprenticeship in 1886, Merges was already turning up at public meetings, speaking up for trades unionism and social democracy. He was sent to prison on more than one occasion, but his terms of incarceration were evidently relatively brief, and his eldest son's subsequent notes indicate that August Merges regarded prison as a necessary element in his personal activism.Erinnerungen Alfred Merges, 25.09.1958; in: Bundesarchiv SgY30 EA 0623
After his apprenticeship he moved to Berlin where he pursued his study of tailoring at a vocation college. However, he became convinced that if he spent his life in tailoring it would only be a matter of time before his health was completely destroyed. There was still no question of being able to pursue higher education. Aged 21, and desperate to find an opening in politics, he wrote to the leading SPD Reichstag member, Georg von Vollmar, begging for help in finding him a way to an "academic education, in order to be able to devote himself to the socialist cause afterwards", and setting out his political abilities and experiences. The letter was kept, has been retained among Georg von Vollmar's papers, but there is no sign that its writer ever received an answer.Brief von August Merges vom 2.2.1891 an Georg von Vollmar; Georg von Vollmar Papers Papers Nr. 1419a Institut vor Social History Amsterdam Merges abandoned his course in Berlin and returned to Bremen where he supported himself as a wandering journeyman tailor. He continued with his programme of self-education: after his marriage he would work full-time for the party as an economist at their Alfeld (Hildesheim) trades union building.
Marriage In 1899 he relocated to Delligsen, a small country town between Hanover and Göttingen, where he continued to work at tailoring and where, that same year, August Merges married Minna Hermes. Their son Alfred was born barely nine months later. Between 1901 and 1907 the marriage produced four more recorded children.
Socialist activism in a period of accelerating social and political tension In 1906 he was finally able to abandon tailoring work, becoming instead a salaried party official, working in nearby Hildesheim and Alfeld. Two years later, in 1908, he was elected to membership of the Delligsen municipal council. He was by now gaining a reputation in the region as an effective political orator (or "agitator"). He took a leading role in Labour movement demonstrations, campaigning powerfully for democratic state elections, which meant campaigning against the contentious three-class franchise used in Prussia, whereby the 80% of voters paying the lowest amounts in tax had the same levels of influence in election results as the richest 5% paying the highest amounts. (The precise proportions varied slightly over time according to tax rates and levels of prosperity, but the underlying inequality would endure till 1918.)
In 1910 or 1911 August Merges relocated with his family to the city of Braunschweig, an important commercial and administrative centre for the region. Here he returned to his former trade, running a tailors' shop. He combined this with work as a promoter and contributing editor with "Der Volksfreund" (literally, "The Friend of the People". Founded in 1871, the "Volksfreund" was one of the longest established regional daily party newspapers anywhere in Germany. His written pieces, like his other political activity, marked him out as a representative of the more radical "left-wing" elements in the party. The overturning of "bourgeois capitalist society" was high on his political agenda throughout his political career.
Wartime Pacifist War broke out in July 1914. Socialist activists in the affected countries were appalled to see "patriotism" trumping "internationalism" in the party leaderships. In Germany though not all) of the party's members of parliament backed their parliamentary leadership group by voting in favour of funding for the war. Among the membership, more than four years of war caused a steady increase in anti-war sentiment, as the deaths mounted in the battle zones and extreme hunger became commonplace in the cities. August Merges was among many left-wing members of the party who from the outset campaigned energetically against the "capitulation of social democracy" in 1914. Hostility to official party backing for the "imperialist war" triggered the rapid emergence of an implacable opposition faction among party activists inside the party. August Merges was prominent among them.
Early in 1915 Merges teamed up with Sepp Oerter and August Thalheimer to set up the "Braunschweiger Revolutionsclub" in pursuance of their political objectives. He was also close to the anti-war Spartacus League emerging in Berlin. His friendship with Thalheimer gave him a direct link to the movement's central leadership in Berlin: Thalheimer was a regular contributor to "Spartakusbriefe", the movement's newspaper, from 1916. The "Braunschweiger Revolutionsclub" comprised approximately fifteen members, all united in their opposition to the party leadership decision to support war funding. Roughly half of them were, like Merges, paid officials of the party or of trades unions linked to it. The others were young people from the "Bildungsverein jugendlicher Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen" (loosely, "Young workers' education association"). Especially for these younger club members, August Merges was something of a role model. He was among the first to sign the letter of protest organised by Rosa Luxemburg and addressed by the Spartacus Leagues "International Group" to the SPD party executive on 9 June 1915 in which they demanded an end to party support for the war.
At the start of 1916 the "Braunschweiger Revolutionsclub" renamed itself "Spartakusgruppe Braunschweig". The group's influence and support inside the party continued to grow, and at party conferences and meetings it increasingly found itself sufficiently well represented to be able to determine the outcome of votes taken at the end of debates. In most businesses and factories in the region it was able to appoint "Vertrauensleute" (trusted Spartacus Group representatives). Towards the end of 1916 Merges found himself detained in "protective custody" because of his "anti-military activities against the war".Peter Berger: Brunonia mit rotem Halstuch. Novemberrevolution 1918/19 in Braunschweig. Hannover 1979, p. 110.
In 1917 the party finally split over the contentious issue of parliamentary party support in for war funding. In Braunschweig, where anti-war sentiment was particularly strong, a majority of party members transferred their memberships to the breakaway Independent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands") / USPD. Merges, by this time no longer in prison, was naturally among those switching to the USPD. He was in practice already a member of the Spartacus League and during 1918 also became actively engaged in the emerging International Communists of Germany ("Internationalen Kommunisten Deutschlands"), a short-lived anti-war group that had originated in Bremen, and which a few months later joined with other organisations at a three day congress held in Berlin between 30 December 1918 and 1 January 1919, to form the Soviet inspired Communist Party. During 1917/18 he also headed up "Deserteurzentrale", a group founded by the Spartakists that looked after army deserters, giving them shelter and providing them with (falsified) identity papers and (forged) food stamps.
Revolution As the military lines in the west collapsed, and just over a week before war ended, on 3 November 1918 addressed a (n illegal) anti-war protest rally in Braunschweig attended by around (or at least: sources differ) 1,000 people. Participants had expected to be addressed by Karl Liebknecht, but Liebknecht had cancelled his visit at short notice, travelling instead that day to Kiel.