August Willich (1810-1878). Former Prussian artillery officer. As a convinced republican he retired from the army in 1846. Member of the Communist League. He took an active part in the Revolution of 1848-1849. After the suppression of the rising he emigrated to London. With Schapper he was the leader of the “Left” fraction of the Communist League. In 1849, was leader of a Free Corps in the Baden-Palatinate uprising . In 1850, when the League of Communists split, he (together with Schapper) was leader of the anti-Marx grouping. Became a carpenter, first working in this role in America in 1853. In 1858 he became a journalist. During the Civil War of North against South (1861-1865) he fought on the side of the Northerners, distinguished himself and was made a general. After the war he went into the government service and occupied high positions in Cincinnati. In 1870 he went for a time to Germany. He died in the United States.

In his concluding Note to the Revelations concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne Marx writes: “In the Civil War in North America, Willich showed that he is more than a visionary.”

Source

• Encyclopedia of Marxism available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.[1]

See also

• Frederick Engels.
• Forty-Eighters

External links

• The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution, an account of the Baden-Palatinate uprising by Frederick Engels.
• Heroes of the Exile, unpublished critique of Willich’s (and his associates) conduct after the revolution by Karl Marx.