What Happened Later?

In September 1949 Adenauer became German Chancellor. One year later remilitarization was a done deal. Any resistance to it was fought by the authorities. As early as in 1951 the federal government filed the application to declare the anti-constitutionality of the KPD. During this period, Willi Dickhut fi rst worked in the cadre department of the KPD North Rhine-Westphalia, and later in the KPD's central cadre department. It becomes clear how close the collaboration with the cadre department "West" of the SED was. Bureaucratic mistakes in the treatment of cadres occurred already then. From mid-1952 the author worked as First County Secretary in Solingen. Efforts to regain lost ground for the KPD in the factories and enter into a unity of action with the SPD at the local level there were successful. On 17 August 1956 the KPD was banned. The work in illegality impeded the necessary internal discussion in the party – that in a situation in which the KPD unhesitatingly adopted the revisionist line of the CPSU promulgated by Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956. Willi Dickhut shared the view of the Communist Party of China that socialism had been betrayed there. This led to his expulsion from the party in 1966. To Willi Dickhut it was clear: the degeneration of the KPD and DKP made the building of a new Marxist-Leninist party a necessity. He promoted this task with all his energy.