Karl Kreibich

Karl Kreibich (14 December 1883 – 2 August 1966), also known as Karel Kreibich, was a Sudeten German communist politician and author in Czechoslovakia. Kreibich emerged as the main leader of the revolutionary socialist movement amongst German workers in Bohemia after the First World War. He was a leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and a functionary of the Communist International. During the First Czechoslovak Republic, he was elected to parliament thrice (twice to the Chamber of Deputies and once to the Senate). During the Second World War he was part of the exiled Czechoslovak State Council, based in London. After the war he served as Czechoslovak ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Youth and war years Kreibich was born in Zwickau on 14 December 1883. The leftwing elements in the DSAP, centered in Reichenberg and led by Kreibich, took part in the December 1920 general strike. The DSAP party leadership issued a statement on 8 January 1921, condemning the Reichenberg party branch for violation of party discipline. On 15 March 1921 the newly constituted Central Committee of the party elected Kreibich as its chairman.

Building the Communist Party Kreibich, along with his colleague Alois Neurath, built the new party with inspiration from the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Notably, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (German Division) was the first communist party in the new republic, with the Czech Marxist left forming their party only in May 1921. Lenin in particular was pushing for the unification of the communist movement in Czechoslovakia into a single party, a move that the Czech leftists had initially resisted. Šmeral sought to gather as many left social democrats as possible before formalizing the split in the Czech social democracy, prompting Kreibich to accuse the Czech Marxist left of being a platform for 'centrists' and 'opportunists'. The dispute between the Šmeral and Kreibich factions was resolved at this meeting, the Comintern instructed that a unified international Communist Party to be formed in Czechoslovakia within three months (which Šmeral had resisted) whilst Kreibich was reprimanded for 'leftist deviations'.

Unification with the Czech left A unification party conference, merging the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (German Division), was held between 30 October 1921 and 4 November 1921. Šmeral and Kreibich were the main speakers at the event. All 169 delegates at the conference voted in favour of a unified Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, without any distinction of nationality. In 1927 he returned to Czechoslovakia, retaking his seat in the party politburo, but returned to Moscow again in 1929.

Fascism and World War He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1933, become the editor of the daily newspaper Rote Fahne ('Red Banner'). He was elected to the Czechoslovak Senate in 1935. In 1938 he emigrated to London, following the Munich Pact. In spite of his anti-fascist credentials, Kreibich was interned by British authorities due to his German ethnicity for a period.

During the Second World War, Kreibich collaborated with Edvard Beneš' Czechoslovak government-in-exile. In 1948 he became chairman of the Czechoslovak-Israeli Friendship Association. Kreibich fell out of favour with the Communist Party, as he emerged as a major critic of the Slánský trial. He was abruptly recalled from his Moscow posting.

From 1952 onwards, Kreibich was politically isolated. His biography did not get published, and the Institute of Party History began downgrading his past role as a founder of the communist movement in Czechoslovakia. Kreibich died in Prague on 2 August 1966.