7/8” black and red depicting leader of Germany’s Communist Party beginning in 1925. He twice ran for president of Germany. In 1933 he was arrested by the Gestapo. In 1936, the Thaelmann Battalion of the International Brigades, during the Spanish Civil War, was named in his honor. That is when this button dates from and it reads “Fight Fascism/Red Front/Ernst Thaelman” (spelling on the button is missing an “n” from his last name). After spending 11 years in solitary confinement, he was executed at the Buchenwald death camp in 1944 on Hitler’s orders. A superb example in essentially Mint condition and only the third example we’ve seen, none have had a backpaper. Also see Communist handbills from Cleveland, one of which references Thaelmann, item #180. From the Morry Greener Collection.