The Nazi seizure of power put an end to free trade union activity in Germany until 1945. On May 2, 1933, the trade union centres were occupied by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the unions were brought into line. Their assets were transferred to the German Labour Front (DAF), the unified workers' and employers' organisation set up by the Nazis. The "Law on the Order of National Labour" of January 20, 1934 finally abolished any form of worker co-determination in commercial enterprises. Many trade union leaders, including those who had been active in resistance to the Nazis (those in the underground trade unions, for example) were persecuted, tortured or murdered by the Nazis, and some were imprisoned in concentration camps.

Today, a memorial stone at the site of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp commemorates the trade unionists who were tortured and murdered there. The memorial stone, donated by the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), was inaugurated on May 1, 2008, the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the trade unions. Trade unionists imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp included Lothar Erdmann (1888-1939), Erich Flatau (1879-1946), Gottfried Könzgen (1886-1945), Rudolf Lentzsch (1900-1945) and Carl Vollmerhaus (1883-1979).

Monuments to the labour movement were erected in Germany after the Second World War only in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where they served to situate the socialist state in German history. The Monument to the History of the German Labour Movement, unveiled on the 100th anniversary of Karl Marx's death on March 14, 1983, commemorates the founding of the first German Labour Party in Eisenach in 1969 and highlights the contribution of ordinary people to the construction of socialism. The four stone slabs, joined together to form a massive cube, show the party's roots in the German people through striking figures such as a poor worker's wife and a shackled worker, a resistance fighter and a "Trümmerfrau" (rubble woman), one of the women who helped clear and rebuild bombed-out German cities after the Second World War. After the fall of the GDR, the monument was preserved as a "testimony to the GDR state ideology", which used the socialist labour movement and its memory to legitimise its own existence. Today, the memorial is no longer maintained, a sign that the Federal Republic of Germany has distanced itself from the state ideology of the GDR and its misuse of the history of memory.

The 1920 general strike did not stop at Herne and Wanne-Eikel (Link zu Generalstreik 1920 “Collective Actions and strike”). In March 1920, the industrial plants here also came to a standstill. After the general strike was successful and the putschists defeated, some of the striking workers were not satisfied and workers' councils were organized, which took control of the administration and police. As in the rest of the Ruhr region, the aim was to achieve the socialization of the economy. The ensuing military conflict between the Red Ruhr Army, the Freikorps and the Reichswehr also led to brutal fighting in Herne. In Herne, the Reichswehr and the Freikorps took revenge on the fighting workers and reactionary terror spread through the workers' quarters.

Herne is a center of the culture of remembrance around the Red Ruhr Army and the resistance against the Kapp Putsch.

Every year, the trade unions in Herne and various social movements commemorate the general strike against the Kapp Putsch. Among the many victims of the terror in the Ruhr area, four workers from Herne are known by name and are buried in Herne's southern cemetery. As early as 1921, the trade unions in Herne set up a memorial for the victims among workers and the population. This was destroyed by the National Socialists in 1933 and rebuilt in 1997. In 2008, the memorial was supplemented by a bronze plaque donated by the DGB district association. Today, this place is a memorial to the workers' movement in Herne. Members of the various trade unions in Herne come together here every year to hold a commemorative event. The focus of these events is always on the aspect that the general strike defended democracy and the preservation of democratic values.

The events in Herne follow a recurring motif, the developments of 1920, the successful political strike against the reaction are seen as an excellent example of political activism against right-wing developments.

Contributed by Jan England (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

(read more about General Strike 1920 and Red Ruhr Army: https://www.sfu.ca/union-memory/issues-themes/collective-action-and-strikes/germany.html)