Willi Budich

– engineer and Communist politician; affiliated with the DMV (German Metal Workers’ Union) and SPD in 1910; one of the leading organisers of the Spartacus Group alongside Leo Jogiches, leader of the “Red Soldiers’ League” (Roter Soldatenbund) from 15 December 1918; lost an arm after being wounded in the attack on the December 6 demonstration; impaired mobility after being injured during a violent disturbance in the Reichstag; additionally, serious vision and hearing impairment after being tortured by the SA in 1933; emigrated to the USSR in August of 1933 thanks to an international campaign (carried by, among others, Jelena Stassowa, Fritz Heckert, Louis Aragon, and Romain Rolland); murdered during the Stalinist purge.