Admission free
Munich communist, in the resistance in 1934, in exile and returned in 1944
Ludwig Ficker, 3. v.l., undatiert | Archiv der VVN
Ludwig Ficker, a streetcar worker, was initially involved in the Free Trade Unions and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1929. After a brief period of ‘protective custody’ in 1933, he lived illegally in Munich. As an employee of the ‘Military Policy Department‘, the secret intelligence apparatus of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), he compiled addresses of police officers and SS men in order to supply them with information leaflets. To this end, he took part in the production of pamphlets cautioning against the preparations for war and the consequent reduction in wages. In January and March 1934, the pamphlets were scattered over the fence of the Leopold Barracks in Winzererstraße and on the drill ground at Oberwiesenfeld, among other places.
Ficker was able to escape the arrests of his employees soon afterwards and fled to Switzerland. From there, he facilitated the clandestine operations in Southern Germany. In 1942, he was arrested in Basel and interned in the Gordola and Bassecourt Camps. He managed to escape in 1944 and returned illegally to Munich in September, where he endeavored to build up a ‘Free Germany Movement‘, which was to unite the resistance across party lines in line with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)’s Popular Front policy in order to end the war from within as quickly as possible. To this end, he established contacts with resistance groups in armaments factories such as BMW and the Steinheil optical works and, from spring 1945, also with military circles of the ‘Freedom Action Bavaria (FAB)‘.
After the liberation, Ficker played a leading role in the reconstruction of the KPD in Bavaria. He was also a signatory to the action program of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Munich on August 8,1945, a member of the Bavarian Constituent Assembly and state chairman of the KPD in 1947. In the first cabinet of State Premier Wilhelm Hoegner, he held the office of State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior from October 1945 to December 1946.
On December 9, 1947, Ludwig Ficker was found dead in the garage of his residence; the exact circumstances of his death could not be ascertained.
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Staatskanzlei MA 104990.
Diem, Veronika: Die Freiheitsaktion Bayern. Ein Aufstand in der Endphase des NS-Regimes, Kallmünz 2013.
Mehringer, Hartmut: Die KPD in Bayern 1919-1945, in: Broszat, Martin/Mehringer, Helmut (Hg.): Bayern in der NS-Zeit. Die Parteien KPD, SPD, BVP in Verfolgung und Widerstand, S. 1-286.
