Johannes Becker (politician)

Johannes Becker

Johannes Becker (born February 8, 1875 in Elspe ; † May 12, 1955 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein ) was a German politician of the Center Party .

Life and work

Becker was born in 1875 as the son of a master tailor and after attending elementary school he was a factory worker in Lüdenscheid (plumber) from 1889 to 1902 . From 1902 to 1905 he was the workers' secretary of the Volksverein for Catholic Germany in Hagen . In 1906/1907 he was editor of the Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung (organ of the Volksverein) in Mönchengladbach . From 1908 to 1912 he was a freelance writer in Berlin. From 1913 to 1919 Becker was managing director of the General Association of German Health Insurance Companies and editor of the magazine Die Krankenversicherung. Between 1919 and 1925 he sat on the advisory board of the Reich Labor Ministry . From 1926 to 1933 (?) He was an executive member of the presidency of the General Association of German Health Insurance Funds based in Essen .

MP

Becker represented the Sauerland constituency of Arnsberg-Meschede-Olpe (Arnsberg 2) in the Reichstag during the German Empire from 1907 to 1918. Since 1917 he was a member of the intergroup committee . After the revolution of 1918 Becker became a member of the Weimar National Assembly (1919/20) and was deputy parliamentary group leader of the center during this time. From 1920 to 1924 he represented constituency 20 Westphalia South and from 1924 to 1933 constituency 18 Westphalia South (both essentially corresponded to the pre-war area) in the Reichstag. Becker was also deputy parliamentary group leader in the Reichstag until 1926.

Political party

Since 1908 Becker was a member of the Provincial Committee of the Westphalian Center Party and the Reich Committee of the German Center Party .

Historical meaning

Becker was firmly rooted in the modern socio-political association system within the Catholic milieu that was developing at the end of the 19th century . For their representatives, in view of secular tendencies, the belief or memory of the Kulturkampf was not enough to retain the growing number of workers. For Becker, too, the concrete representation of interests and social policy through the Volksverein for Catholic Germany, the Christian trade unions and the establishment of health insurances should take place. Admittedly, this was accompanied by strict demarcation from social democracy . The general association of health insurance companies co-founded by Becker was supported by the Catholic workers' associations, Christian and liberal trade unions in order to create a counterweight to the expanding social democracy. His work in the health insurance system made Becker a socio-political expert who played a key role in the Reichsversicherungsordnung.

Politically, Becker belonged to the workers' wing within the Center Party. In contrast to leading Christian trade unionists, he stood for increased democratization of the empire before the war. In his constituency in the Sauerland , he continued as the successor of the MP Johannes Fusangel his "left" course. Both as a workers' representative and as an advocate of democratic reforms, he always remained in a minority position in his group. Nonetheless, he exerted a considerable influence. Towards the end of the war he was a member of the intergroup committee and in 1917 supported Matthias Erzberger's peace resolution . Immediately after the revolution he was one of those center politicians who helped to persuade the leading mostly monarchist-minded Christian trade unionists to at least tolerate the republic. Like others, he pleaded in vain during the revolution for the abandonment of the Catholic character of the Center Party in favor of a cross-denominational, Christian and republican people's party.

Sources and literature

• City archive Arnsberg. NL Severin No. 8, 10
• Rudolf Morsey : The German Center Party 1917–1923 . Düsseldorf 1966, p. 99.
• Bernd Haunfelder : Member of the Reichstag of the German Center Party 1871–1933. Biographical handbook and historical photographs (= photo documents on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 4). Droste, Düsseldorf 1999, ISBN 3-7700-5223-4 , p. 127.
• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 11 f. ( Online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
• Karin Jaspers / Wilfried Reinighaus: Westphalian-Lippian candidates for the January elections in 1919. A biographical documentation , Münster: Aschendorff 2020 (publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia - New Series; 52), ISBN 9783402151365 , p. 35.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Becker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Becker (Arnsberg), Johannes in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Johannes Becker's biography . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Imperial Statistical Office (ed.): Statistics of the Reichstag elections of 1907. Verlag von Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, Berlin 1907, p. 86 (special publication on the quarterly books on the statistics of the German Reich) - Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: Die Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1907. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives . 2nd edition supplemented by an appendix. Addendum. The Reichstag election of 1907 (12th legislative period) . Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1908, p. 39.