Adolf Ehlers

Adolf Ehlers (born February 21, 1898 in Bremen , † May 20, 1978 in Bremen) was a German politician ( KPD , SAPD , SPD ), Bremen senator and mayor.

biography

Family, education and work

Ehlers was the 18th child of a worker and later a haulage contractor and grew up in Bremen-Walle . After attending primary school (Elsflether Strasse), he completed a commercial apprenticeship and served as a soldier in World War I shortly before the end of the war .

Soon after his return to Bremen, he took up a job as a welder at AG Weser . He was chairman of the works council at AG Weser from 1921 to 1933.

He was married to Ella Ehlers born in 1928 . Schimpf, who, like him, was a member of the KPD and whom he had met in 1926 as the secretary of the Red Aid .

politics

He joined the KPD and the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). In 1921 he became chairman of the KJVD in Bremen and was a member of the state boards of the DMV and the ADGB . Elected to the citizenry in 1923 , he was one of the supporters of the "right" wing of the KPD around August Thalheimer and Heinrich Brandler and was therefore temporarily excluded from the party in 1925 by the "left" party leadership around Ruth Fischer . Not re-elected to the state parliament in 1927, Ehlers worked full-time as a propaganda leader for the Red Aid until 1929 . He was also responsible for the children's home in Barkenhoff in Worpswede , donated by the painter Heinrich Vogeler , which was run by his wife (1928) Ella Ehlers.

In 1929, Ehlers, together with his brother-in-law and political companion Wilhelm Deisen, was again excluded from the KPD as a “right wing” and joined the KPO . He left this in 1932 as part of the minority around Paul Frölich and Jacob Walcher for the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD), whose Northwest district he headed. After 1933, Ehlers continued to work illegally in the resistance for the SAPD.

After 1945

Senate Kaisen II from 1946: Sitting: Wilhelm Kaisen , Theodor Spitta , Käthe Popall . Standing from left: Hermann Mester , Hermann Apelt , Christian Paulmann , Willy Ewert , Adolf Ehlers, Wilhelm Nolting-Hauff , Alexander Lifschütz , Emil Theil

After the war ended in 1945, Ehlers first rejoined the KPD and on August 1, 1945, became Senator for Welfare in Wilhelm Kaisen's First Senate . He joined the SPD in May 1946. From 1947 he became a Senator for Health and Welfare for Käthe Popall (KPD) and was Interior Senator from February 2, 1948 to 1963. In 1948/49 he was the only representative of Bremen's citizenship to be a member of the Parliamentary Council . There he came forward primarily for specific concerns of Bremen, of which the Bremen clause found its way into the Basic Law as Article 141 . From 1949 Ehlers was Bremen's representative in the Federal Council .

From 1959 to 1963 he also served as Bremen mayor and thus Deputy President of the Senate. He was discussed in 1962 as the successor to Wilhelm Kaisen. From 1962 to 1964 he was a member of the SPD federal executive committee.

Honors

• In 1963 he received the Bremen Medal of Honor in gold .
• In Bremen-Gröpelingen , the mayor-Ehlers-Platz was named after him.

See also

• List of Bremen Mayors , List of Bremen Senators , List of Interior Senators of Bremen , List of Social Senators of Bremen
• Senate Kaisen I , Senate Kaisen II , Senate Kaisen III , Senate Kaisen IV , Senate Kaisen V , Senate Kaisen VI

literature

• Horst Adamietz : Freedom and commitment: Adolf Ehlers. Bremen 1978 ISBN 3-920699-21-1 .
• Ehlers, Adolf . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Erhard HM Lange: Adolf Ehlers (SPD). In: bpb.de . September 1, 2008, accessed June 15, 2019 .