By the summer of 1935, the virgin IISH asked prominent socialists to write their political memoirs. Paul Frölich, who co-founded the German Communist Party KPD in 1919, was one of them. His memoirs ended up being far too long to be published by the Institute and the project passed into oblivion. The original manuscript was found many years later and added to the IISH's archival collections. In 2010, the Milan-based Edizioni Pantarei published an Italian translation of Frölichs autobiography. BasisDruck Publishers in Berlin is now closing the circle with a German-language edition, edited by Reiner Tosstorff and published in close cooperation with the IISH: Im Radikalen Lager, Politische Autobiographie 1890-1921 (2013).
Paul Frölich (1884-1953) was raised in a Leipzig working-class family of eleven children. He was a founding member of the German Communist Party (1919) from which he would be expelled in 1928. He was involved in the Munich Räterepublik of 1919 and the communist März Aktion in 1921. He remained politically active among the radical left, first in Germany, then in exile. Frölich writes almost exclusively about his personal experiences and conversations. This has resulted in a fine document about the rise of the German communist movement, as well as about German social-democracy from the later 19th century onward.(text: Margreet Schrevel)
Paul Frölich, Im Radikalen Lager, Politische Autobiographie 1890-1921 Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort von Reiner Tosstorff. In Kooperation mit dem IISG Amsterdam. Hardcover und Schutzumschlag, mit 25 Abbildungen und einem Textanhang, 416 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-86163-147-7.
