1. August Merges was a member of various communist and syndicalist organisations; becoming one of the leaders of the German Revolution in Braunschweig, and subsequently a member of the Weimar National Assembly, convened in 1919 to draw up a constitution for the new German republic.
August Ernst Reinhold Merges was born into a Protestant family in 1870 at Malstatt-Burbach, just outside Saarbrucken.
August Merges was born just six months before the Battle of Sedan which opened the way for the rapid political unification of Germany, formally in January 1871.
August Merges was keen to progress to secondary education, but there was not enough money for that: instead, in 1884, his father sent him away to Bremen to undertake an apprenticeship in tailoring.
In 1899 he relocated to Delligsen, a small country town between Hanover and Gottingen, where he continued to work at tailoring and where, that same year, August Merges married Minna Hermes.
In 1910 or 1911 August Merges relocated with his family to the city of Braunschweig, an important commercial and administrative centre for the region.
August Merges was among many left-wing members of the party who from the outset campaigned energetically against the "capitulation of social democracy" in 1914.
August Merges's friendship with Thalheimer gave him a direct link to the movement's central leadership in Berlin: Thalheimer was a regular contributor to "Spartakusbriefe", the movement's newspaper, from 1916.
August Merges was among the first to sign the letter of protest organised by Rosa Luxemburg and addressed by the Spartacus Leagues "International Group" to the SPD party executive on 9 June 1915 in which they demanded an end to party support for the war.
Towards the end of 1916 August Merges found himself detained in "protective custody" because of his "anti-military activities against the war".
August Merges was in practice already a member of the Spartacus League and during 1918 became actively engaged in the emerging International Communists of Germany, a short-lived anti-war group that had originated in Bremen, and which a few months later joined with other organisations at a three day congress held in Berlin between 30 December 1918 and 1 January 1919, to form the Soviet inspired Communist Party.
August Merges referred to a quasi-judicial party decision taken in April 1917, following the party split whereby, he recalled, the "Volksfreund" was promised to the breakaway party: the Braunschweig labour movement were simply taking back property that had been stolen from them.
On 23 November 1918 August Merges became a participant in the "Rat der Volksbeauftragten", which was fulfilling some of the functions that would have been the responsibility of the German government, if there had been one in the aftermath of the resignation of Chancellor Max von Baden.
On 25 January 1919 August Merges was elected chairman of the Braunschweig region USPD.
On 15 March 1920 August Merges addressed a political rally at Schoningen, a small town to the east of Braunschweig, and along the main road towards Magdeburg.
August Merges was characteristically unimpressed by what he saw during his visit to Moscow in 1920 to attend the Comintern Second World Congress:.
In July 1920 it turned out that August Merges might have set aside his misgivings about the Comintern sufficiently to travel to Moscow so as to attend the organisation's Second World Congress.
Ruhle was expelled from the party in October 1920: it is possible that August Merges was expelled at the same time.
Nevertheless, August Merges was present at the party conference at Gotha in February 1921, making a powerfully supportive intervention on behalf of Ruhle.
In October 1921 August Merges was involved in setting up the unified "anti-parliamentarian anti-authoritarian" General Labour Union, a radical communist which, it was reported, combined the political and economic aspirations of communist workers in a single organisation.
Sources differ as to whether August Merges was one of those arrested in April, or whether he was arrested only a few weeks later, on 27 May 1935.
August Merges faced trial, with others, at the district high court in Braunschweig early in October 1935.
In 1943 or 1944 his wife and son Alfred managed to have August Merges relocated to the hut on the family allotment.