August Enderle

August Enderle (5 August 1887 – 2 November 1959) was a German socialist politician, trades unionist, journalist and author.

Life Provenance and early years August Enderle was born into a cooper's/carpenter's family in Feldstetten, a small artisanal town in the hills between Stuttgart and Ulm. He trained and qualified for work in the metals based industry sector and took work as a machinist in Stuttgart. It was in Stuttgart that in 1910 he joined both the Social Democratic Party ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / SPD) and the Metal Workers' Union ("Deutscher Metallarbeiter-Verband" / DMV). He was opposed to war but was conscripted into the military in 1915 and remained in the army till the war ended.

Largely as a result of the sustained surge in support for right-wing populism, there was a growing belief among thoughtful left-wing politicians that the Nazis would only be kept out of power if the left could present a united front. Within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) this gave rise to a break-away faction that urged a merger with the Communist Party. This faction became the Socialist Workers' Party ("Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands" / SAPD). There was in some ways an obvious parallel between the SAPD's emergence from the left wing of the SPD and the KPD-O's emergence from the right wing of the Communist Party. During 1931/32 the KPD-O itself effectively split, with a number of prominent members, including August Enderle, transferring to the SAPD. Others who made the same switch included Paul Frölich and Jacob Walcher. In the SAPD Enderle became editor of the party's daily newspaper, Sozialistische Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Socialist Workers' Newspaper"), initially based in Berlin. During the closing years of the war Enderle and Brandt took a lead in the SAPD members' decision to join or rejoin the Social Democrats at the end of 1944. Less than two years later, in April 1947, he became editor in chief of "Bund", the Cologne based Trade Union Confederation newspaper for the British zone. He died in Cologne on 2 November 1959.