Alexander Dehms

Alexander Dehms (born December 15, 1904 in Karolinenhof near Berlin , † September 20, 1979 in Berlin ) was a resistance fighter against National Socialism and a politician of the SPD .

Life

In 1919 Dehms became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association . In 1923 he joined the SPD. Two years later he was excluded again because of his work with the International Youth Association (IJB). From 1924 to 1927 he was a pupil in the Walkemühle Landerziehungsheim founded by Leonard Nelson and Minna Specht and in 1926 became a member of the International Socialist Fighting League (ISK), which was also the bearer of the Walkemnühle . After the " seizure of power " Dehms in 1934 in custody taken because of "suspicion of treason." The People's Court sentenced him in 1938 to ten years in prison .

After the Second World War , Dehms worked in the district offices of Treptow , Köpenick and Kreuzberg in Berlin. Dehms was responsible in the district offices for the reconstruction and development of the public libraries at the district level. The political division of the city and the increased doctrinal influence on the library system in the Eastern sector caused some library workers to move from the Eastern sector to the Western sectors. So did Dehms, who headed the library office for the Kreuzberg district from 1949 to 1969. As head of the library office, Dehms was also in charge of the district library network known as the Kreuzberg city library.

From 1951 to 1967 he was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives . After years of campaigning, Dehms won a majority of the MPs who passed the Berlin Library Act on March 31, 1955 , which provided for the expansion, higher financial allocations and better technical equipment for public libraries. This law made it possible to move some libraries into a new building, including the 1st Volksbücherei , the oldest municipal library founded in 1850, which on the occasion of Friedrich von Raumer , who initiated the Berlin public libraries in 1846, was moved to the Friedrich von Raumer Library was renamed. At the beginning of the 1960s, the library law was already obsolete because its not yet started specifications were made subject to financing.

After the development plan for public libraries initially drawn up in accordance with the Library Act expired without replacement in 1965, the level of funding for public libraries in terms of budget share and purchasing power did not return to the level it had when the law came into force. Dehms followed Alfred Kalisch (* 1925), who had headed the Friedrich von Raumer Library (1st public library) from 1953 , as head of the Kreuzberg city library .

Honorary grave of Alexander Dehms in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

In 1975 Dehms was honored as the city ​​elder of Berlin .

Alexander Dehms died in Berlin in September 1979 at the age of 74. His grave is in the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend . The final resting place of Alexander Dehms (grave location: II-Ur 3-186) is dedicated to the State of Berlin as an honorary grave .

literature

• Werner Breunig, Siegfried Heimann , Andreas Herbst : Biographical Handbook of Berlin City Councilors and Members of Parliament 1946–1963 (=  series of publications by the Berlin State Archives . Volume 14 ). Landesarchiv Berlin , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9803303-4-3 , p. 83 (331 pages).

Web links

• Friedrich Ebert Foundation - biography

Individual evidence

1. ^ Students, teachers and helpers of the fulling mill
2. ↑ ^{a b} Petra Hätscher, "The Berlin Public Library System from 1961 to 1989", in: Library: Research and Practice , Vol. 19 (1995), No. 2, pp. 155–188, here p. 158.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen, 150 years: From the Berlin People's Libraries to the Kreuzberg City Library; a chronicle , District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Library Office, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Art Office Kreuzberg, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Kreuzberg Museum and Association for Research and Presentation of the History of Kreuzberg (Ed.), Berlin: District Office Kreuzberg von Berlin / Library Office, 2000, P. 29. No ISBN.
4. ↑ Worked, unionized, lived: 75 years of the Association of German Book Printers by Max Taut , Lothar Uebel (ed.) On behalf of the Media, Print and Paper, Journalism and Art Industrial Union , Berlin: Media, Print and Paper, Journalism and Art Industrial Union , 2000, p. 85. No ISBN.
5. ↑ Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen, 150 years old: From the Berlin People's Libraries to the Kreuzberg City Library; a chronicle , District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Library Office, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Art Office Kreuzberg, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Kreuzberg Museum and Association for Research and Presentation of the History of Kreuzberg (Ed.), Berlin: District Office Kreuzberg von Berlin / Library Office, 2000, P. 30. No ISBN.
6. ↑ Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen, 150 years old: From the Berlin People's Libraries to the Kreuzberg City Library; a chronicle , District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Library Office, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Art Office Kreuzberg, District Office Kreuzberg of Berlin / Kreuzberg Museum and Association for Research and Presentation of the History of Kreuzberg (Ed.), Berlin: District Office Kreuzberg von Berlin / Library Office, 2000, P. 32. No ISBN.
7. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 485.
8. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 15. Accessed on November 25, 2019.