Edgar Josef André, or Etkar Josef André (17 January 1894 – 4 November 1936) was a politician in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and an antifascist.
Born in Aachen, André was a manual labourer's son. By the time he was five, he had already lost his father, and his mother, who was ill, found it quite hard to look after her three children. Belgian relatives brought them to Liège where for a while, Edgar found himself living at an orphanage. Aft...
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Edgar Josef André, or Etkar Josef André (17 January 1894 – 4 November 1936) was a politician in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and an antifascist.
Born in Aachen, André was a manual labourer's son. By the time he was five, he had already lost his father, and his mother, who was ill, found it quite hard to look after her three children. Belgian relatives brought them to Liège where for a while, Edgar found himself living at an orphanage. After leaving school, he took up an apprenticeship at a bookshop, where he came into contact with political literature.
In 1911, he became a member of the Socialist Party of Belgium, and in only two years' time, he had become the Secretary of the Socialist Worker Youth in Brussels. In 1914, he took part in the Party Congress of the Socialist Party of Belgium. In the First World War, he volunteered for service in the Rhineland and in late 1918 wound up a prisoner of the French. After coming back to Germany, he went first to Koblenz, where he...
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