Peter Gerhard Roeser

Cologne Workers' Association Marxism 1814–1865 ○ Natural causes

Cigar worker who led the Cologne Workers' Association and was sentenced to six years at the Cologne Communist Trial of 1852

Born in 1814 at Mülheim am Rhein, the son of a master silk weaver, he trained in tobacco factories, set up as a cigar maker in 1842 and lost the business to the crisis of 1846 by 1849. He joined the Cologne Workers' Association after Joseph Moll became its president in July 1848, and when the state of siege of September scattered its leaders he led it provisionally. In October Marx was confirmed as president and Roeser as vice-president, and he published the association's paper Freiheit, Brüderlichkeit, Arbeit. He joined the Communist League early in 1849 and, after Marx and Schapper were expelled, became president at the end of May. Arrested in May 1851 after Peter Nothjung was caught, he defended the Communist Manifesto at the Cologne Communist Trial of 1852 and received six years in a fortress. After his release he went to Lassalle and was an early member of the ADAV. He died in 1865.

Also known as: Peter Gerhard Röser