{{Short description|German politician (1887–1937)}} {{More citations needed|find=search keyword(s)|date=January 2026}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Willy Leow | honorific_suffix = | image = Willy Leow 1930.jpg | caption = Leow {{circa}} 1930 | office1 = Second Chairman of the<br />''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' | 1blankname1 = Chairman | 1namedata1 = {{ubl|Ernst Thälmann}} | term_start1 = 1 February 1925 | term_end1 = 14 May 1929 | predecessor1 = ''Position established'' | successor1 = ''Position abolished'' | office2 = Member of the Reichstag<br />for East Prussia | term_start2 = 13 June 1928 | term_end2 = 28 February 1933 | predecessor2 = ''Multi-member district'' | successor2 = ''Constituency abolished'' | birth_date = {{birth date|1887|01|25|df=y}} | birth_place = Brandenburg an der Havel, Province of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|1937|10|03|1887|01|25|df=y}} | death_cause = Firing squad | death_place = Soviet Union | party = SPD {{small|(1904–1916)}}<br />USPD {{small|(1917–1919)}}<br />KPD {{small|(after 1919)}} | spouse = | children = | alma_mater = | occupation = {{hlist|Woodworker|Politician|Activist}} | module2 = {{collapsible list | title = Central institution membership | bullets = on | 1929–1935: Full member,<br />KPD Central Committee | 1927–1929: Candidate member,<br />KPD Central Committee }} }}
'''Willy Leow''' (25 January 1887 – 3 October 1937) was a German communist politician and activist. He was the ''de facto'' leader of the ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'', the paramilitary of the Communist Party of Germany, from 1925 to 1929. He also served in the Reichstag from 1928 to 1933.
==Life== Willy Leow attended elementary school in Brandenburg an der Havel. He learned carpentry and was taught at the Workers' Educational School in Berlin. In January 1904, Leow became a member of the German Wood Workers' Union. In the same year Leow joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which he belonged to until 1916. In 1917, Leow participated in the foundation of the Spartacus League and briefly belonged to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. He was arrested in April 1918 along with Leo Jogiches, Willi Budich, and others, and was not freed until the German Revolution that November. He became a founding member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1919.<ref name=bundes>{{cite web |title=Leow, Willy |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/willy-leow?ID=4707 |website=bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |publisher=Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung |access-date=2 March 2026}}</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z0127-305, Berlin 1927, Reichstreffen RFB, Thälmann, Leow.jpg|thumb|left|300px|RFB leaders Ernst Thälmann (left) and Willy Leow (right) in Berlin, June 1927]]
In the early 1920s, Leow was secretary of the party's Berlin-Northwest district and subsequently doorman at the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus, the party headquarters. In February 1925, Leow was elected Second Chairman of the ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' (RFB), a KPD paramilitary and defense organization. After Ernst Thälmann, the RFB's First Chairman, became leader of the KPD that September, Leow effectively took over as head of the RFB. He was often seen marching alongside Thälmann and other prominent KPD and RFB activists. In 1928, Leow was elected to the Reichstag, where he served until 1933.<ref name=bundes/>
After the Nazi seizure of power Leow fled abroad, living in the Soviet Union by 1935. He worked as an editor and head of the German state publishing house in the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1936, he was arrested during the Stalinist purges and sentenced to death on 3 October 1937 for "organizing a Trotskyist-terrorist group" by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. He was executed by firing squad.<ref>Ulla Plener, Natalia Mussienko (Hrsg): ''Verurteilt zur Höchststrafe: Tod durch Erschießen. Todesopfer aus Deutschland und deutscher Nationalität im Großen Terror in der Sowjetunion 1937/1938''. Reihe: Texte/Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Bd. 27. Dietz, Berlin. 2006. S. 58</ref>
==Legacy== In the German Democratic Republic, Leow was initially subjected to ''damnatio memoriae''. Traces of his existence were systematically removed from published documents and photographic reproductions. Leow was airbrushed out of a widely reproduced photograph showing him alongside Ernst Thälmann during a RFB rally in the 1920s. The reason for this practice was that the arrest and execution of a German communist and refugee from fascism like Leow in the Soviet Union was incompatible with the GDR's historical narrative, and therefore he could not be mentioned in any publication.<ref>Walter Hütter: ''Bilder die Lügen. Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung der Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland'', Bonn 2000.</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{commons-inline}} * [https://archive.org/details/ernst-thalmann-1986/page/116/mode/1up "Ernst Thälmann among the participants of the first Reich Leadership School of the Red Youth Front in Berlin, 1926" in Ernst Thälmann (1986)] (Leow is not named but appears to be on Thälmann's left) * [https://archive.org/details/ernst-thalmann-eine-biographie/Ernst%20Th%C3%A4lmann%20-%20Eine%20Biographie/page/n161/mode/1up "Albert Schreiner, Ernst Thälmann, and Willy Leow (from left to right) during the 3rd National Rally of the RFB in Schiller Park, Berlin-Wedding, on 5 June 1927" in Ernst Thälmann: Eine Biographie (1980)] * "Ernst Thälmann following the 10th Plenum of the ECCI on 27 July 1929, in Leningrad (to the left of Ernst Thälmann: Willy Leow and Hermann Remmele)" in [https://archive.org/details/ernst-thalmann-eine-biographie/Ernst%20Th%C3%A4lmann%20-%20Eine%20Biographie/page/n233/mode/1up Ernst Thälmann: Eine Biographie (1980)] and [https://archive.org/details/ernst-thalmann-1986/page/187/mode/1up Ernst Thälmann (1986)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leow, Willy}} Category:1887 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Brandenburg an der Havel Category:People from the Province of Brandenburg Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Category:Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Category:Communist Party of Germany politicians Category:Members of the Reichstag 1928–1930 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1930–1932 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1932 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1932–1933 Category:Rotfrontkämpferbund members Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany Category:Great Purge victims from Germany Category:Soviet rehabilitations