Adolph von Elm

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Adolph von Elm at a young age
Adolph von Elm
Adolph von Elm
former factory of the tobacco workers' cooperative in Hamburg Paulinenallee 32. From 1891 von Elm was managing director
Mural in Hamburg-Ottensen - Founders of the consumer, construction and savings association Production 1899: Helma Steinbach, Adolph von Elm and Raphael Ernst May

Adolph Johann von Elm (other spelling: Adolf von Elm ) (born September 24, 1857 in Wandsbek near Hamburg ; † September 18, 1916 in Hamburg ) was a German tobacco worker, member of the cooperative , trade unionist , social democrat and a founder of the trade union-cooperative insurance Aktiengesellschaft Volksfürsorge and the “Pro” ( consumer, building and savings association “Production” ) eGmbH, Hamburg.

Life

The burly hamburger was a cigar maker by nature. He went to America in 1878 during the police persecution under the Socialist Act . There he was u. a. Member of the Trade Council in New York and member of the executive branch of the Socialist Workers' Party in Detroit ; In 1882 he returned to Hamburg because of a serious illness in his mother.

On July 10, 1885, the support association of German cigar sorters was founded. Adolph von Elm was elected managing director. In 1891 von Elm founded a productive cooperative, the Tobacco Workers Cooperative (TAG), of which he was the managing director and which had a factory at Paulinenallee 32. With the 1909 annual financial statements, TAG 1910 was merged into the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine mbH.

In 1894 he was elected to the 6th Schleswig-Holstein constituency ( Elmshorn - Pinneberg ) as the successor to Hermann Molkenbuhr in the German Reichstag as a member of the SPD. He was a member of the Reichstag until its premature dissolution and new election in 1907 .

In 1898, Adolph von Elm was the initiator of founding the consumer, building and savings association “Produktion” eGmbH, Hamburg, in 1899.

In 1905, at the 5th trade union congress in Cologne, von Elm was the first to attempt to put the two movements, consumer cooperatives and trade unions, as the two major socio-economic and socio-political important mass organizations on a foundation. After von Elm's speech, Congress recommended that union members join the consumer cooperatives. A recommendation regarding the SPD was not given in this context, as the consumer cooperative principles provided for a party-political neutrality. But practically with this decision the three-pillar cartel of the SPD, socialist unions and the consumer cooperative movement of the Hamburg direction was finally sealed.

Von Elm was a founder of the trade union-cooperative insurance company Volksfürsorge , whose first board member he became with Friedrich Lesche . Volksfürsorge started its business operations on July 1, 1913. Adolph von Elm died at his desk in 1916.

He spent his whole life improving the condition of the workers. A milestone was the establishment of the "Volksfürsorge", the first cooperative insurance company. The methods of the industry were a scandal until then - because the life insurance expired as soon as someone fell behind with the premiums. The companies simply withdrew the capital that had been painstakingly saved up in small installments. In 1909 alone, insurance policies worth 148 million marks expired - today that would be billions. The business was correspondingly lucrative, which explains the bitter resistance to public welfare. When the "Imperial Supervisory Office for Private Insurance" approved the establishment of the new insurance company in 1912, the lobbyist Wolfgang von Kapp (who initiated a right-wing coup attempt against the Weimar Republic in 1920) challenged the authority's president to a duel! What he deliberately ignored ...

The founder of the production , Adolph von Elm, wanted to overcome capitalism through cooperatives. "The goal can only be achieved by uniting all those who suffer from the yoke of capitalism in a unified consumer organization! Those who want to fight capitalism economically are not allowed to rest or rest; the rage of agitators in Hamburg against production proves this." that it is on the right path, The production has given the workers of Hamburg more than words can say: the belief in their strength!

For over 30 years he was politically connected and friends with the cooperative and trade unionist Helma Steinbach , with whom he lived in a civil partnership.

A lively characterization of the Steinbach - von Elm couple can be found in the biography of Paul Frölich , the later communist who also came from the Hamburg Social Democrats. "Adolph von Elm instilled great respect. (...) He was a reformist, but he had a combative spirit and was completely integrated with the working class , a strong, cohesive personality. Every word he said was thoughtful, free of every phrase, and yet let the passion behind it be felt. He was a great organizer. The Hamburg consumer cooperative 'Produktion' is above all his work. A strange contrast to him was his wife, Helma Steinbach. She made a cranky impression, was exalted and as aggressive as a suffragette . She advocated the cooperative system not with the sober utilitarianism of the ordinary propagandist, but passionately as the ideal of a renewal of humanity. Gustav Stengele pursued her with poisonous hatred and poured out in his weekly chats (in the SPD newspaper ' Hamburger Echo ') often all his gall on her, which initially meant that she was 'finished' for me On these occasions I then noticed that the eccentric old woman, who so often challenged laughter, was a real fighter, deeply devoted to the cause and her own utopias , that she had a high intellectual culture and artistic sensitivity. I deeply regretted that age and political beliefs prevented close personal relationships with this magnificent couple. "

Honors

Adolf-von-Elm-Hof in Barmbek
Adolf-von-Elm-Hof in Hamburg-Harburg
Street sign von-Elm-Weg in Hamburg-Horn
Adolph von Elm-Büste stood in front of the main administration of the Volksfürsorge in Hamburg - now in the Hamburg cooperative museum
  • In Hamburg-Horn , the Von-Elm-Weg was named after him on July 16, 1929 (renamed on October 25, 1945), the Elmtwiete street on October 25, 1945 , and also the Von-Elm-Stieg . The Elmtwiete has not existed since 2018. The houses were demolished and the Washingtonallee (Saga) courtyards were built on them.
  • The Adolf-von-Elm-Hof is the name of a residential complex that was built in 1926/27; The architect was Friedrich Richard Ostermeyer . It is located in the Hamburg-Nord district on Fuhlsbüttler Strasse
  • In Hamburg-Harburg - Eißendorf there has been the street Adolf-von-Elm-Hof in the residential complex of a building cooperative since 1928 .
  • In Oranienburg - Eden there is the Adolph von Elm Institute for Cooperative History e. V.

Notes / individual evidence

  1. ↑ The part of the name “von” is not a predicate of nobility.
  2. ↑ Dieter Schuster: Chronology of the German trade union movement from the beginnings to 1918. Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn 1999. Accessed October 30, 2007 (online)
  3. ↑ Stadtmuseum Pinneberg: Workers' Movement (time table) 1894 ( Memento from May 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed October 30, 2007
  4. ↑ Sven Kummereincke on the 100th anniversary of his death: Adolf von Elm Hamburg's uncrowned king , Hamburger Abendblatt from September 17, 2016
  5. ↑ Wertevolle social work, lecture by A. von Elm, held on 20 October 1919 Gewerkschaftshaus Hamburg , in: The social side of the cooperatives, the Central Association of German consumer cooperatives eV Hamburg of 2005.
  6. ^ Paul Frölich: In the radical camp, Political Autobiography 1890–1921, Berlin 2013, p. 88, ISBN 978-3-86163-147-7
  7. ^ "Von-Elm-Stieg" and "Von-Elm-Weg" in the HamburgStadtwiki ( memento of October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved April 13, 2008
  8. ↑ Pictures Adolph-von-Elm-Hof Hamburg-Nord Retrieved April 22, 2008
  9. ↑ http://www.hamburgwiki.de/wiki/Adolf-von-Elm-Hof ( Memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) in HamburgStadtwiki, retrieved April 13, 2008

Fonts

  • Adolph von Elm: The socio-political course and the Reichstag election. In: Socialist monthly books . Volume 11 = 13, 1907, Issue 1, pp. 9-15; Accessed April 22, 2008 (online)
  • Adolph von Elm: Cooperative movement and social democracy. In: Socialist monthly books. No. 15, July 28, 1910, pp. 930-940; Accessed June 14, 2008 (online)
  • Adolph von Elm: Red national insurance . In: Socialist monthly books. 15 = 17, 1911, issue 18/20, pp. 1177-1180; Accessed April 22, 2008 (online)
  • Valuable social work! A. von Elm, Hamburg 1910, reprint in "The social side of the cooperative", 2005, published by the Central Association of German Consumer Cooperatives. V. Hamburg
  • Adolph von Elm: History of the tobacco workers' cooperative - a didactic piece , reprint, published by the Heinrich Kaufmann Foundation, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-2301-5

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolf von Elm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Elm, Adolph von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elm, Adolph Johann von; Elm, Adolf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cooperative member, founder and politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Wandsbek
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1916
Place of death Hamburg