Alfred Henke

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Alfred Henke in the 1920s

Alfred Henke (born March 1, 1868 in Altona , † February 24, 1946 in Wannefeld ) was a social democratic German politician and belonged to both the SPD and, in the meantime, the USPD . He played a decisive role in the establishment of the Bremen Soviet Republic in November 1918. His work as a representative of the people spanned a period of 25 years (1907 to 1932).

Education, work and family

Alfred Henke before 1910

After attending elementary school in Bremen , Henke completed an apprenticeship as a cigar worker with his father. In 1887 he went to Altona for work. From 1888 to 1891 he did his military service with the Grenadier Regiment "Graf Kleist von Nollendorf" (1st West Prussian) No. 6 in Posen . Then he was back in the profession he had learned. He was a member of the tobacco workers union and was a delegate to their congresses. From 1900 to 1917 he was editor of the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung . From 1919 to 1922 he worked for the Bremer Arbeiter-Zeitung .

From 1922 to 1933 Henke was a full-time city councilor and second mayor of Berlin-Reinickendorf . After the " seizure of power " by the Nazis, he was forced into retirement in 1933. He lived seriously ill in Berlin during the Nazi era until 1944. He was refused pension payments for political reasons. Henke was married twice and had five children. After his house was destroyed by aerial bombs, he and his wife were evacuated to the Altmark village of Wannefeld near Gardelegen.

Political commitment

Since the mid-1890s, Henke was active as a speaker and reporter in the SPD and the trade union. Through self-study he acquired a very good education and a knowledge of Marxism. At first he was district chairman in Altona . From 1900 he worked as an editor at the social democratic Bremer Bürger-Zeitung , from 1906 to 1916 as editor-in-chief. His newspaper was a left wing combat paper in the SPD. Regular employees were Franz Mehring , Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Radek , Anton Pannekoek , Paul Frölich and Henriette Roland Holst . Henke took part in many social democratic party congresses and international socialist congresses. At the SPD party congress in Jena in 1913, he voted in favor of Rosa Luxemburg's mass strike resolution.

At the beginning of the First World War, Henke and the minority of the Reichstag parliamentary group opposed the approval of war credits . Excluded from the Social Democratic parliamentary group in March 1916, together with the refusers, Henke belonged to the Social Democratic Working Group . The party executive committee of the SPD excluded the entire Social Democratic Association of Bremen from the SPD. Using its financial stake in the Bremen party newspaper company, the party executive seized the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung . Editor-in-chief Henke was replaced, but remained a member of the editorial team for a few months. In 1917 he was one of the founders of the USPD, whose advisory board he was a member until 1920 and at whose party conventions in 1919 and 1920 he was represented.

After the SPD split up in 1917, Henke became a member of the USPD and was a member of the advisory council of the minority USPD until 1922, took part in their party conventions and became a member of the SPD again in the same year when the SPD and USPD merged.

Long-term MP

From 1907 to 1922 Alfred Henke was a member of the Bremen citizenship .

From 1912 to 1918 he represented the constituency of Bremen in the Reichstag of the German Empire .

In 1919/20 he was a member of the Weimar National Assembly for the USPD .

From 1920 to 1922 for the USPD and from 1922 to 1932 for the SPD he was a. a. member of the Reichstag for constituencies 16 and 14 ( Weser-Ems ) .

Co-founder of the Bremen Council Republic

Leading role in the establishment of the Bremen Council Republic

Proclamation of the Bremen Soviet Republic on November 15, 1918

In the November Revolution of 1918, Henke was one of the chairmen of the Bremen Workers 'and Soldiers' Council . On November 14, 1918, in the convent hall of the stock exchange, he announced the takeover of power in Bremen by the workers 'and soldiers' council; the next day he proclaimed the Bremen council republic from the balcony of the Bremen town hall. In his address he emphasized that what now had to be completed was what, in contrast to other places of the revolution in Bremen, had luckily succeeded in bloodless fashion: the replacement of those who had previously ruled politically. Under bravo calls, Henke expressed confidence in relation to the temporary involvement of the old administrative and legislative officers under the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council as the future "engine driver".

“Democracy has won and should continue to win. That is the purpose of this new facility, which all in all can of course only be a temporary solution. What our fellow combatants have achieved in field gray skirts and work blouses, we supplement with fresh strength. If they have given us an example of courage and determination, we should not fail to imitate them. The red flag is hoisted on this house so that it can be known which spirit is in charge. "

Henke went on to explain that this flag is the symbol of human love. Not new bloodshed, but the coming peace is their message. To stand united and united in this spirit is the next task. He invoked the renewal of the proletarian, socialist international and saw in it a "bulwark of lasting democratic peace":

“Only socialism can heal the wounds that a disastrous war has inflicted and which, in large part, have been caused by those who have preferred to turn their backs on the fatherland. The International, socialism, let them live! Long live the proletarian international! "

In the Weimar National Assembly

Group photography at the end of 1919 with members of the USPD party executive and other Independent Social Democrats, including: Arthur Crispien , Wilhelm Dittmann , Richard Lipinski , Wilhelm Bock , Curt Geyer , Fritz Zubeil , Hugo Haase , Fritz Kunert , Georg Ledebour , Arthur Stadthagen , Emanuel Wurm , Alfred Henke, 1st row on the far right

In January / February 1919 Henke was chairman of the Council of People's Representatives of the Bremen Soviet Republic . When troops loyal to the government attacked the Bremen Council Republic, Henke went to the constituent session of the National Assembly in Weimar. The Soviet republic was militarily smashed.

Henke returned to Bremen, wrote for the Bremer Arbeiter-Zeitung and devoted himself entirely to his work as a member of the National Assembly . Henke rejected the union of the USPD with the KPD . On July 10, 1919, he spoke in the National Assembly for the USPD's motion to establish people's courts. He justified the demand by stating that class justice could only be overcome by judges elected by the people from among them. However, the request was rejected by the other political groups. After Hugo Haase was murdered , he and Curt Geyer became chairman of the USPD faction in the National Assembly on November 25, 1919 .

Letters

In his estate in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung there are letters from u. a. Karl Radek , Franz Mehring , Anton Pannekoek , Philipp Scheidemann , Karl Kautsky , Clara Zetkin , Paul Frölich as well as manuscripts, records, collections on the division of the SPD in World War I and on the revolution in Bremen 1918-1919.

Honors

Memorial stone in Wannefeld
  • The Alfred Henke Street in Bremen, district Obervieland , district Kattenesch, was named after him.
  • In the Wannefeld cemetery (part of Gardelegen / Saxony-Anhalt) a memorial stone has been commemorating Alfred Henke since 2003.

literature

  • Erhard Lucas : The social democracy in Bremen during the First World War . Schünemann, Bremen 1969.
  • Gerhard Engel : Radical, moderate, forgotten: Alfred Henke (1868–1946). First part (1868–1918) in: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement, Issue II / 2015, pp. 67–85; Second part (1918–1946), in: Ibid., Heft III / 2015, pp. 78–97.
  • Jürgen Schlimper: Letters from Franz Mehring to Alfred Henke (1914-1916) . In: Discourse: Leipziger Hefte for communication research and journalism / Journalism section of the Karl Marx University Leipzig . 1, Leipzig 1990, 1, pp. 49-52.
  • 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

Commons : Alfred Henke  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Frölich: In the radical camp - Political Autobiography 1890-1921, Basis-Druck, Berlin 2013, p. 100
  2. Imperial Statistical Office (Ed.): The Reichstag elections of 1912. Issue 2. Verlag von Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, Berlin 1913, p. 102 (Statistics of the German Reich, Vol. 250).
  3. Quoted from Wilhelm Breves (ed.): Bremen in the German Revolution from November 1918 to March 1919 . Bremen 1919, p. 20f.
  4. Table of contents  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / bvbr.bib-bvb.de