Weydemeyer, Joseph

Born in Münster, Prussia 1818, died in St. Louis, USA 1866; lieutenant of the Prussian artillery 1839-1845, influenced by Rhenish democracy and Westphalian true socialism; member of the Kommunistische Korrespondenzkomitee, Brussels 1846, cooperated with Marx and Engels; founded similar organizations in Germany; contributed to the Westphälische Dampfboot (O. Lüning); organized workers' societies during the 1848/49 Revolution in Westphalen; edited with Lüning from July 1848 the Neue Deutsche Zeitung; organizer of the Bund der Kommunisten in Germany; emigrated in 1851 to Switzerland and soon after to New York; published Die Revolution; instrumental in the foundation of the American Workers' Union in 1853, editor of its organ Reform; moved to Chicago in 1860; fought against the South during the Civil War.