Max Hoelz

Max Hoelz (14 October 1889 – 15 September 1933) was a German Communist, most known for his role as a 'Communist Bandit' in the Vogtland region. Early life Hoelz was born the son of a day labourer and emigrated to Britain in 1905 to become a mechanic. Hoelz served in the German Army during the World War I but was wounded and worked on the railways. Towards the end of the war he was working in a reinforced concrete construction company near Mulhouse in Alsace where he received news that his wife in Vogtland was ill, leading him to travel back to Falkenstein with soldiers returning from the front, amongst whom he helped form the Falkenstein Workers' and Soldiers' Council on 9 November 1918. However, he was shortly forced out of the council by his co-chair Sturl, a USPD member, but despite this he joined the USPD and got a job selling subscription to their new journal for the Vogtland, Vogtlandische Volkszeitung. Hoelz went on to found the local branch of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Falkenstein in Spring 1919 and became a leader of the unemployed in the town. During the Kapp Putsch Hoelz helped form a Red Army in Vogtland. However the activities of his mobile detachment consisting of sometimes as many as 200 armed men caused dismay to the KPD leaders, and soon Heinrich Brandler of the Chemnitz KPD ensure he was expelled from the party. As the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) was at that time bringing together former KPD activists who were disillusioned with the moderate politics of the KPD leadership, he soon joined them, finding himself more at home amongst their ranks. In the aftermath of the crushing of the Ruhr Red Army, the Vogtland was surrounded by 50,000 government troops and Hoelz led his army to the border with Czechoslovakia where they were surrounded by the Reichswehr. The Red Army split up into detachments to avoid the Reichswehr and Hoelz was eventually arrested in Czechoslovakia and then deported to Austria.