Aleksi Aaltonen
Aleksius "Aleksi" Aaltonen (born July 5, 1892 in Somero , † February 22, 1956 in Helsinki ) was a Finnish politician of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP), who was a member of the Reichstag between 1929 and 1936 and general secretary from 1936 to 1944 the SDP and was a minister several times.
Life
Aaltonen, son of the small farmer Fredrik Aaltonen and his wife Ida Lovisa Fenander, attended elementary school and worked as a tailor until 1916 after training. Subsequently, he was a functionary of the textile workers union for a short time and then between 1916 and 1917 District Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue) in the Turku- South district. Thereupon he took up a job as an editor at the social democratic newspaper Sosialisti in 1918 and worked for it until 1922 after attending the SDP party school. After working from 1922 to 1926 as an editor at the Tampere newspaper Kansan Lehti , he was secretary of the SDP and then between 1927 and 1928 a functionary of the trade union. He was also the editor of the newspapers Raittiin Kansan and Liiketyöläisen and between 1928 and 1934 editor-in-chief of Sosialisti , before he was editor-in-chief of the Viipuri newspaper Kansan Työn between 1934 and 1935 . He was then from 1935 to 1936 editor of the social democratic party newspaper.
In the 1929 elections he was elected as a candidate of the SDP for the first time as a member of the Reichstag and represented the constituency of Turku South from August 1, 1929 to August 31, 1936 . During this time he was a member of the committees for transport and infrastructure, constitutional law and trade as well as the main committee. In 1936 Aaltonen replaced Karl H. Wiik as General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Finland and held this position for eight years until he was replaced by Unto Varjonen in 1944. He was also editor-in-chief of Järjestötyön between 1927 and 1944 .
On December 17, 1943, Aaltonen took over a ministerial office in the cabinet of Prime Minister Edwin Linkomies for the first time and served as Minister of Social Affairs (Sosiaaliministeri) until August 8, 1944 . From August 8 to September 21, 1944, he also held the office of Minister of Social Affairs in the subsequent cabinet of Prime Minister Antti Hackzell . In 1945 he became director of the social security institution (Kansaneläkelaitoksen päätoimitalo) and remained in this position until 1954. On July 29, 1948, he took over the post of minister without portfolio in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Karl-August Fagerholm, initially for one day until July 30, 1948 (Salkuton ministeri) . At the same time, he was Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (Ministeri valtioneuvoston kansliassa) between July 29, 1948 and March 18, 1949 and Deputy Minister of Finance (Ministeri valtiovarainministeriössä) from July 30, 1948 to March 18, 1949 . He then became Minister of Social Affairs again as part of a cabinet reshuffle on March 18, 1949 as the successor to Tyyne Leivo-Larsson and held this ministerial office until the end of Fagerholm's term on March 17, 1950.
Aaltonen had been married to Elli Ilona Lehtonen since 1913.
Web links
- Entry on Parliament's homepage
- Entry on the government homepage
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Aaltonen, Aleksi |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Aaltonen, Aleksius (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish social democratic politician, member of the Reichstag |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 5, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Somero |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 22, 1956 |
| Place of death | Helsinki |