German author
Theodor Bergmann (Berlin, March 7, 1916 – Stuttgart, June 12, 2017) was a German agronomist and published author. Until 1981 he was Professor for international comparisons in agrarian policy at University of Hohenheim. Bergmann was “the last participant and eyewitness to the German labor movement of the Weimar era”.
Life.
Family and early years.
Seventh son of a Berlin rabbi, Judah Bergmann, Theodor Bergmann was born the youngest brother of Alfred Bergmann, Ernst David Bergmann, and Felix Bergmann. Growing up in Berlin, he joined Jungspartakusbund and Sozialistischer Schülerbund in 1927. In 1929, he joined the KJVD-O, youth organization of the just-established KPDO. In 1933, he just made it to finish his Abitur, but had to emigrate as a consequence of Hitler's Machtergreifung.
Exile and return.
Crossing the Saarland, he fled to a kibbutz in British Palestine. From there, he went to Děčín, Sudetenland in the northern Czechoslovak Republic in 1935, where he studied agricultural science. All the while, he was an active anti-fascist, producing and helping smuggle and distribute leaflets into near Germany. After the 1938 Munich Agreement, he fled on to Sweden, where he led structures of the KP-Opposition, and was active in the Landesgruppe Deutscher Gewerkschafter in Schweden (national organization of German unionists in Sweden).
Having returned to Germany in 1946, in 1947 he earned his degree in agricultural science in Bonn, acquiring a doctorate degree at University of Hohenheim in 1955, reflecting on the structural transformation of agriculture in Sweden.
Profession and leadership.
In 1965, after working as an adult educator and by order of the Chamber of Agriculture in Hannover, he entered service at University of Hohenheim as research associate. Passing his state doctorship in 1968, he conducted a guest professorship at University of New England (Australia) in Armidale, New South Wales. Returning to University of Hohenheim, in 1973 he received the professorship for international comparative studies in agrarian politics.
At University of Hohenheim, he was one of a few professors speaking on behalf of marxist students prone to regulations of the Radikalenerlass laws, that maintained to target various forms of extremism, but was mainly anti-communist in nature. Following his 1981 retirement, he turned towards exploring the history of proletarian movements, focusing especially on the KPO.
In the post-war period, he was a leading member of the KPO's successor organization, the Gruppe Arbeiterpolitik (GAP). 1948 through 1952 he had been the publisher of their periodical "Arbeiterpolitik". During all his post-emeritus life, he has been an active contributor to leftist workers' union movements. In 1990, he had joined PDS and ran for them in 1990 Bundestag elections. In 1990/'91, he also was the president of PDS's Baden-Württemberg regional association. In 2007, he became member of Die Linke.
Bergmann authored, edited and translated more than 50 books pertaining to agronomics and the history of international proletarian movements. His contributions to the history of workers' movements were released by VSA-Verlag in Hamburg. Additionally, he authored a number of contributions for Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism.
Lastly, he lived in Stuttgart, where he died aged 101 after short illness.
Publications.
An extensive bibliography can be found in the brochure: "Die Tradition kritischer Solidarität von Luxemburg bis Gorbatschow", Pankower Vorträge, Heft 200, hrsg. v. Helle Panke, Berlin 2016, S. 24–60.
References.
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