Papers of Josef Schneider

Born on 31 October 1900 in Drahovice, Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but from 1919 part of the Czechoslovakian Republic. Later lived in Chomutov (German: Komotau), where he was a member of the Deutscher Sozialistischer Arbeiterpartei (DSAP) [of Czechoslovakia] and General Secretary of the Internationaler Metallarbeiterverband der CSR (International Metalworkers' Union of the Czechoslovakian Republic) until 1938. After the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 he emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he lived first at Brook Lodge , Albury Heath, Surrey, and in the summer of 1940 he got a job in a glass factory and moved to Mirfield, Yorkshire. He joined the Treugemeinschaft sudetendeutscher Sozialdemokraten (TG) established by DSAP leader Wenzel Jaksch (WJ) in London as a successor organisation to the DSAP. He was a member of and signatory to the founding declaration of the Auslandsgruppe der DSAP of 18 October 1940, which broke away from (TG) in protest at the political direction the TG was being taken in by WJ. Was elected as a member of the Sudetendeutscher Ausschuss, Vertretung der demokratischen Deutschen aus der CSR (Sudeten German Committee, Delegation of the Democratic Germans from the Czechoslovakian Republic) at the Landeskonferenz der deutschen Antifaschisten aus der Tschekoslowakischen Republic in October 1943. Remained in the UK after the Second World War. His daughter, Theresie, married Herbert Löwit. Was living in Woodford Green in Essex in 1977. See the 'Biographisches Handbuch der deutschen Emigration nach 1933', ed. by Herbert A. Strauss and Werner Röder (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1980).

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The papers were accumulated by Josef Schneider in the course of his duties as Vertrauensmann (representative) of the Sudeten German metalworkers in exile in the UK. He was often sent copies of material not directly addressed to him or relating to his duties by Josef Ladig, in exile in Sweden, with whom he corresponded closely. It is likely that JS passed the material on directly to Hebert Löwit, who was his son-in-law.