Albert Störmer

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Albert Störmer (born February 9, 1847 in Wolgast ; † October 31, 1922 there ) was a German captain, trade unionist and chairman of the Association of Sailors of Hamburg and the surrounding area .

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Albert Störmer was born in Western Pomerania as the fifth child of a ship's captain. From the age of 14 he worked as a cabin boy and sailor . He then completed an apprenticeship as a captain and received a patent with distinction. After going to sea until 1878, he tried to find a job as a navigation instructor in Hamburg, but then worked near Stralsund . In 1884 he took over a position as an inspector in a private insane asylum near Berlin and in 1887 moved to the vicinity of Hamburg. During his interim activities as a tally man in the port of Hamburg , he got to know the socialist workers and free thinkers movement, for which he took part in the International Workers' Congress in Paris in 1889 .

Störmer, who had been a member of the local organization of the Sailors' Association in Hamburg and the surrounding area since December 1890 , took over the office of secretary in the summer of 1891 and chaired the association in November of the same year. As an active member of the association's executive board, he worked out the first versions of a new seaman's code, which was discussed in the Reichstag in 1893 on the initiative of the SPD parliamentary group. He also took part in the establishment of a relief fund to help shipwrecked members. Störmer, who had been shaped by a liberal cooperative early on, also received criticism in Hamburg. For a long time he refused to become a member of the SPD and represented independent and unorthodox positions in relation to the party newspaper Hamburger Echo . He tried to set up his own socialist association of sailors in Hamburg to compete with the SPD, but failed at an early stage.

In addition to his activities in the trade union, Störmer became involved in the Hamburg freethinkers movement and in 1890 took over the chairmanship of the Hamburg Freethinkers Society. Because he mixed up questions about religion and class society in the classroom for the members' children, conflicts arose and he was excluded from society. In 1892 he took part as a delegate at the first congress of the trade unions in Germany, which took place in Halberstadt after the Socialist Act was repealed . Störmer voted against the principle of industrial organizations, which from his point of view was misperceived. He also voted against the merger of the shipyard and transport workers' associations. During the cholera epidemic of 1892 , Störmer became infected and became seriously ill. As a result of the epidemic, the number of members of the sailors' association also fell sharply.

At the beginning of 1893, Störmer suggested that the sailors' association be renamed Seemans-Verein zu Hamburg . In the same year he attended the International Socialist Workers' Congress that was held in Zurich . Since he became seriously ill during his stay, he resigned from the chairmanship of the association in early 1894 and from then on acted as deputy chairman. He now worked for a small fee as an "office worker". In March 1896, Störmer first wrote the wake-up call and warning call to seafarers , in which he presented the most important issues from the point of view of the trade unions. This included a changed seaman's order, stricter accident prevention regulations, a renunciation of the system of sleeping and hay beds, which was perceived as exploitative, improved care for widows and orphans and an optimized rescue service.

As a participant in the second congress of the trade unions in Germany, Störmer tried to find supporters in Berlin in 1896 for his demand that paid job placement represent usury and should be forbidden by law. However, the seafarers only became more involved in trade unions after the dockers' strikes in 1896/97 . At the start of the strike only 21 of the 2540 seafarers involved in the strike were union members, but their number in the port cities grew to over 2000 after the lost strike Weeks achieved an important position in trade union advocacy. Störmer, who lived for some time in the house of chairman Georg Kellermann , kept in close contact with the port workers, but consistently opposed the seamen joining the Association of German Port Workers as a section.

In March 1897, Störmer participated as a delegate of the board of the Hamburg seamen in a commission of the Hamburg Senate , which was supposed to review the working conditions in the Hamburg harbor. Störmer criticized the exploitation of seafarers by sleeping and haybaths. Together with Paul Müller , he developed a wake-up call and reminder call for seafarers of all batches from Hamburg and the surrounding area from the minutes of the meeting . The generally understandable agitation pamphlet appeared in 1899. From 1897, seafarers were allowed to transport their personal belongings themselves - an improvement in the social situation that Störmer had advocated since 1891.

In the spring of 1897, Störmer traveled through numerous northern German coastal cities, where he wanted to recruit supporters for a merger of the German trade unions. From November of the same year Der Seemann appeared. Organ for the interests of seafaring workers . Störmer took over printing and publishing for the national newspaper. In February 1898, seafarers came together at Sankt Pauli for the first German seaman's congress. They founded the sailors' association in Germany and elected Störmer as its first chairman. Störmer continued to edit Der Seemann , which served as an association body. After being re-elected in 1899, Störmer remained in office until the end of January 1900, when he resigned for health reasons. He then acted as secretary.

Due to his expertise in socio-political aspects, Störmer represented Section III of the Seeberufsgenossenschaft as an assessor in the arbitration tribunal from the spring of 1898 and from the end of 1900 as an elected assessor in the Hamburg arbitration tribunal for workers' insurance. After he resigned from the national leadership of the seafarers' union, Störmer worked extensively in the Hamburg union's membership. He made money by giving lectures on life reform topics. From 1897 to 1903 he was a member of the trade union cartel as a delegate of the Hamburg seamen. The cartel elected auditor in 1902.

Störmer was also active at the international level of the labor movement. At the International Workers and Trade Union Congress in London in 1896 , he called for an international conference of sailors. Together with the Swede Charles Lindley , he initiated the founding of the ITF in 1898 and was a member of its central council from 1900, in which he later represented Austrian members.

In the early summer of 1903, Störmer, whose health deteriorated considerably, resigned from all union offices. He lived with his wife in Kummerfeld , later in Wiesbaden and from the end of 1905 in Berlin, where he worked as a freelance journalist on the verge of subsistence. During this time he worked in the local cooperative movement and in the German Workers' Abstinents Association . After his wife died and Störmer became penniless, in 1919 he moved to a "infirmary" in his hometown, where he died in 1922. Albert Störmers grave is in Greifswald .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Störmer, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German captain, trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Wolgast
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1922
Place of death Wolgast