Background
Crispien was born in Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad, Russia) to August and Franziska Crispien.
Crispien was born in Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad, Russia) to August and Franziska Crispien.
He worked as a house and stage painter in Königsberg and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in 1894. He worked for a Health insurance fund and became the editor of the Königsberger Volkszeitung (1904–1906), the Danzig Volkswacht (1906–1912) and the Schwäbische Tagwacht in Stuttgart (1912–1914). In 1906 to 1912 Crispien was the regional Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in West Prussia.
At the outbreak of World War I he opposed the Burgfriedenpolicy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany concerning the German War credits and was dismissed from the Schwäbische Tagwacht.
He illegally published the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat (The Social Democrat) and was imprisoned for 6 months. He subsequently rejoined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1922 and became its co-Chairman.
In 1920 he led a delegation of the USPD to the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International but refused to accept Lenin"s conditions for participation in the Communist International. Following the Reichstag fire in 1933 Crispien went into exile to Austria and later Switzerland, representing the Social Democratic Party in Exile.
He was a delegate at the refugee conference of 1945 at Montreux.
Crispien died in Bern.
From 1921 Crispien was a member of the executive board of the International Working Union of Socialist Parties and since 1923 a delegate to the Labour and Socialist International.
He was conscripted in the German Army in 1916, joined the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) in 1917 and became its co-chairman and member of the Executive Committee. The Weimar era saw him elected a Member of the Reichstag in 1920. Crispien supported political and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and became a member of the Swiss Socialist Party.