General German Association of Officials

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The General German Beamtenbund (ADB) was an umbrella organization of civil servants' unions and professional associations founded in 1922. It essentially emerged as a spin-off from the German Association of Officials (DBB) and, alongside the ADGB and AfA-Bund, formed the third pillar of the free trade union movement during the Weimar Republic . In April 1933, the organization dissolved itself.

Emergence

The history of the organization included internal conflicts in the DBB about the attitude towards the railway officials 'strike of 1922. After the majority of the officials' union had spoken out against the strike by officials, more left-wing organizations such as the Reichsgewerkschaft deutscher Eisenbahnbeamter, which organized the strike of 1922, left. the German Association of Officials.

These associations founded the General German Civil Service Association on June 8, 1922. In 1923 he signed an organizational agreement with the ADGB and the AfA-Bund. However, that has SPD , given the fact that there was still social democrats in the DBB, only in 1930 recognized the ADB as the sole official representative of the SPD.

Self-image

In terms of content, the ADB represented the thesis of the united front of workers, employees and civil servants. The officials saw the organization as a special form of workers and claimed comparable rights. The organization refused to restrict civil servants' rights. At the same time, however, the ADB demanded the maintenance of the professional civil service and thus lifelong employment and pension entitlement. At the same time, the federal government calls for the application of general labor law in a number of questions such as working time regulations, the guarantee of the right to form associations and the arbitration system.

With regard to the right to strike, the ADB basically adhered to its claims, but limited it with reference to the current legal situation in practice: “The civil servant has the full right of association, including freedom to strike, like all other employees. Since, according to the current legal situation, he cannot make use of the power to strike without violating his official duty and thus triggering the counteraction (disciplinary proceedings and dismissal), the legal regulation of collective economic struggle is particularly urgent for him. It must define the conditions for all employment relationships under which orders by the union release the individual from personal obligations. ”Indeed, the demand for participation remained an important aspect of union work. As recently as 1927, the ADB demanded a legal regulation of civil service councils.

In particular, the staff reduction ordinance of 1923, but also the deeply rooted classism even among lower and technical officials, led to the ADB becoming less attractive at the expense of the DBB. In the first years of the republic he had also committed to working with other groups of workers, but was increasingly distancing himself from them.

Membership development

This was noticeable in the membership development. In 1922 the ADB had about 350,000 members. The DBB had 744,000 members. In the further course, the membership of the ADB sank significantly to 171,000 by 1932. In contrast, the DBB came to 993,000, mainly through mergers with other organizations.

Consequences of the failure of the free civil service movement

The decline of the free trade union civil servant movement meant that the impulses for the republicanization and democratization of the administration and state-owned companies, which could have come from the ADB, could not take effect. At the same time, the factual failure of a free trade union civil servants' movement increased the tendency in the SPD to turn away from the development towards a people 's party evoked in the Görlitz program and to concentrate on the workers.

The ADB in the final phase of the republic

The chairman of the ADB Albert Falkenberg saw in this failure as early as 1930 the danger that the officials would either turn to the NSDAP, or "with their hands on the seams, the dictator would be received at the office door." The ADB was already before the seizure of power Fought in the Reich by the NSDAP. In 1930, the Thuringian Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, classified the organization as a political association and prohibited the state's police officers from membership. Since 1931, the ADB, like the ADGB and AfA-Bund, has been involved in the formation of so-called "hammer clubs" to ward off the National Socialists in the factories. After various sub-organizations left the ADB after the beginning of the National Socialist era , the federal government dissolved itself on April 6th.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy June 18, 1922
  2. ↑ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy 12./14. Sept. 1927
  3. ↑ Kunz p. 82
  4. ^ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy 18./20. Sept 1930
  5. ^ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy December 23, 1931
  6. ^ Chronicle of the German Social Democracy April 6, 1933

literature

  • Andreas Kunz: Stand versus class. Civil servants and trade unions in the conflict over downsizing 1923/24 In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft, issue 1, year 1982, pp. 55–86.
  • Bernd Wunder: History of the bureaucracy in Germany . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-518-11281-3 , ( Edition Suhrkamp - New historical library 1281 = NF 281), pp. 124–127.