Albert Schulz (politician)

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A. Schulz 1932

Albert Schulz (born October 11, 1895 in Rostock , † July 26, 1974 in Hamburg ) was a German Social Democrat and Lord Mayor of Rostock from 1946 to 1949 .

Life

Albert Schulz attended elementary school until 1910 and then began a four-year apprenticeship at the Rostock Neptun shipyard . During this time he became a member of the "Free Youth", the youth organization of the SPD in Rostock, as well as the German Metalworkers Association . His father Berthold, who worked as a moulder at the Neptun shipyard, had already joined this union in the 1890s and was a member of the SPD. In this way, the young Albert Schulz could occasionally follow meetings and discussions on political issues in his home environment. He also read the newspapers and magazines related to the labor movement to which his father subscribed, not least the Mecklenburgische Volks-Zeitung . Albert Schulz was a co-founder of the “Free Word” discussion group, in which he got to know the writings of Marx , Engels , Bebel and Kautsky and discussed them with other young people. On October 11, 1913, he joined the SPD .

After his apprenticeship, he did a short wandering as a mechanical engineer via Hamburg , Lübeck , Bremen and Emden , where he always sought contact with the party and trade union offices and recognized the advantage of a permanent organization for the struggle for workers' rights. During a brief activity in a company for agricultural machinery in Bad Bevensen , Schulz gained his first experience as a negotiator for wage increases that ended with a compromise. After the company was closed, Schulz found work in a shipyard in Kiel in 1914. In November 1915 he was drafted as a soldier and was a field artilleryman on the Western Front until 1918, most recently as a non-commissioned officer. In 1918 he became a member of a soldiers' council. After the First World War, Schulz was active as an agitator in the youth workers, after the elections in 1918 he was an advisory member for the youth in the party executive of the SPD in Rostock. Schulz was often unemployed and got by with auxiliary and odd jobs. In 1919, through the intercession of a social democrat friend, he got a job with the general local health insurance fund in Rostock. In 1920 he was elected deputy chairman of the SPD local association in Rostock and in 1921 a member of the SPD in the state parliament of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ; it remained so until 1933. In 1928 Schulz switched from the local health insurance fund to the Mecklenburgische Volkszeitung , where he had previously worked as a part-time editor.

Schulz was since 1924 "Gauführer" of the Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold in Mecklenburg and Lübeck. In July 1932 he was elected to the Reichstag for Mecklenburg-Schwerin . After the party was banned in 1933, the SPD functionaries were persecuted, Schulz became unemployed, arrested several times by the National Socialists and released again. He found it difficult to support his family. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , it became life-threatening for Schulz in Germany: He was arrested by the Gestapo because of his knowledge , locked up in Güstrow and interrogated. The Gestapo did not succeed in uncovering the relationship that Schulz had through Willy Jesse and Julius Leber , who was later murdered by the Nazi regime. After his happy release, Schulz survived the few months until the end of the war thanks to relationships as an employee of the Air Force in Boltenhagen .

After the end of the Second World War, he helped rebuild the SPD in the Soviet occupation zone . Despite some concerns of the communists against Schulz because of his rejection of the compulsory unification of the KPD and SPD , he was appointed mayor of Rostock by the Soviet military administration in 1946. In 1947 Schulz was arrested by the NKVD without giving any reason , treated inhumanly and sentenced to ten years of forced labor after a political sham trial in which Schulz was to be branded a fascist. After four months, again without a reason, dismissed and put back into service as Lord Mayor, Albert Schulz quietly protested against this procedure by walking through the city without his head shaved. Later investigations have shown that Wilhelm Pieck arranged for the dismissal at the NKVD because workers' unrest was feared.

In the summer of 1949 Schulz resigned as mayor, despite great popular support, as he was not prepared to implement instructions from East Berlin that ran counter to the interests of the city. He was expelled from the SED and was supposed to write the "self-criticism" customary at the time. He and his family fled to the West before the deadline. In Hamburg , on the initiative of Herbert Wehner , Schulz was appointed electoral district employee for several Hamburg SPD members of the Bundestag. From 1953 to 1962 he was the chief district secretary of the SPD in Schleswig-Holstein .

Albert Schulz had two children, his son Peter Schulz was first mayor of Hamburg from 1971 to 1974 .

Honors

In 1974 Schulz was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Rostock a street was named after Albert Schulz. On October 11, 2007, a bust of Albert Schulz, created in 2002 by Jo Jastram , was placed in the upper foyer of the Rostock town hall .

Albert Schulz Prize

The Albert-Schulz-Stiftung awards since 2004, endowed with 5,000 euros Albert Schulz Prize in people, their services come close to the ideals and maxims of Schulz in a special way. In 2006, the award went to the former head of the Rostock University Children's and Youth Clinic and co-founder of the SPD after 1989, Ingo Richter . In 2009 the Endstation Rechts initiative was awarded the prize, in 2013 Harald Ringstorff .

literature

  • Albert Schulz: Memories of a Social Democrat. Library and information system of the Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg 2000. (Series of publications by the Fritz Küster Archive). ISBN 3-8142-0758-0 ( PDF ).
  • Meik Woyke: Albert Schulz (1895–1974). A social democratic regional politician. JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-8012-41661 .
  • Klaus Schwabe : Albert Schulz: A life for social justice and freedom 1945-1949. Essay, edition in the series History Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 1995.
  • Peter Schulz: Rostock, Hamburg, Shanghai, memories of a Hamburg mayor. Edition Temmen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8378-2001-0 .
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Press release at www.lifepr.de
  2. ↑ Interior Minister Caffier recognizes commitment against right-wing extremism . Press release of the Ministry of the Interior of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, February 26, 2009, accessed on December 21, 2015.
  3. ↑ Harald Ringstorff receives Albert Schulz Prize . In: Die Welt , March 22, 2013, accessed December 21, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Schulz, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD, SED), MdR, MdL, Lord Mayor of Rostock
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Rostock
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1974
Place of death Hamburg