Dutch council communist arrested for the Reichstag fire of 1933 and executed
Born in Leiden, he worked as a bricklayer and at sixteen, in 1925, joined the Communist Party of the Netherlands and its youth section. An accident at work damaged his eyes and left him unemployed; in Leiden he founded the "Lenin House" and was active among unemployed workers. In 1931 he broke with the party and approached the Group of International Communists. He went to Germany in 1933 and on 27 February was arrested inside the burning Reichstag. The Nazis cast him as part of a communist conspiracy and exiled communists as a Nazi tool, but he maintained that he had acted alone to protest against the condition of the German working class. Sentenced to death at Leipzig, he was guillotined on 10 January 1934 and pardoned posthumously in 2008.
Activities and affiliations
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1925–1931
Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN)Main
Social movements and organizing