Background
The second youngest of five children, Westmeyer was born in Osnabrück in 1873.
The second youngest of five children, Westmeyer was born in Osnabrück in 1873.
Westmeyer"s father, a bricklayer, died during his childhood. Westmeyer began working for the Social Democratic Party of Germany press in Nuremberg in 1896. He was arrested for his work on the Volkswill and received a three-month prison sentence for blasphemy in 1905.
He ran as a candidate for the Reichstag in 1907, was elected to lead the Social Democratic Association in Stuttgart in 1908-1914, and edited the Schwäbische Tagwacht.
Westmeyer joined Zetkin, August Thalheimer, and others of the so-called "left-wing" of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in taking an anti-war line during World War I and opposed the Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership"s support of the Kaiser"s war. Arrested by the authorities along with other significant Württemberg Social Democratic Party of Germany radicals, Westmeyer was forcibly mobilized into imperial Germany"s wartime army and sent to carry out his service on the Western Front despite his age and opposition to the war.
He died at a military hospital near the front in Rethel, France, in 1917.
He relocated to Hannover to work for the Volkswill in 1902, and attended the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam in 1904. Westmeyer"s radicalism during the war led to his expulsion from the Social Democratic faction of Württemberg"s Landtag in 1915, and he joined Franz Engelhardt and Ferdinand Hoschka in establishing the Sozialistische Vereinigung, a rival legislative faction.
He stands out as one of the more radical members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in imperial Germany. Educated at Osnabrück schools, Westmeyer worked as a chimney sweep and became a trade unionist and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in the 1890s. Westmeyer spent the subsequent years as an activist and organizer in Stuttgart, where he became a close ally of Clara Zetkin, an influential Marxist who would become a leading member of the Spartacist League, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) after the collapse of the German Empire in the First World War.
He was elected to serve as a member of the Württemberg Landtag in 1912-1917.