General German trade union federation

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The General German Trade Union Federation ( ADGB ) was the umbrella organization of the free trade unions in Germany from July 1919 to May 1933 . The ADGB was the world's largest national trade union umbrella organization until it was broken up by the National Socialists.

Emergence

The General German Trade Union Federation was founded at the first post-war congress of the free trade unions on July 5, 1919 in Nuremberg as the new umbrella organization and organizational successor to the General Commission of German Trade Unions . The delegates elected Carl Legien , the previous chairman of the general commission, as the first chairman of the new organization. After the death of Carl Legien in 1921, Theodor Leipart became chairman of the organization. The highest body of the ADGB was the federal congress, which meets every three years. Local ADGB committees existed at the local level.

Structure, development and alignment

The ADGB was an amalgamation of 52 German trade unions and was linked by cooperation agreements with the General Free Employees' Association (AfA-Bund) and the General German Civil Service Association (ADB) . It got its name with the addition of "general" because in March 1919 the Christian and liberal trade unions had already occupied the name of the German Trade Union Federation with the establishment of their own umbrella organization . Shortly after its establishment, the policy of the ADGB was characterized by sharp disputes between supporters of the SPD on the one hand and the USPD and KPD on the other. The conflicts were about questions about the future course of the free trade unions. The majority decided to approve a so-called “working group” with the entrepreneurs, but this was abandoned after a few years.

The free trade unions were not politically neutral as directional trade unions, but saw themselves as the economic arm of the socialist labor movement . In addition to the free trade unions there were the Christian trade unions and the Hirsch-Duncker trade unions close to the employers , both of which, however, never reached the membership figures of the free trade unions. The unions of the ADGB reached a high of over 8 million members in 1920. Due to the high unemployment, this number fell significantly: at the end of 1932 the number of members is estimated at 3.5 million.

As an influential mass organization, the ADGB, chaired by Carl Legien, called for a general strike in March 1920 that collapsed the right-wing Kapp Putsch after a few days. Only a few weeks earlier, in January 1920, the Reichstag had passed the Works Council Act on the initiative of the ADGB and the SPD - against protests from the USPD, KPD and right-wing parties. Through the Works Council Act, the council movement, which had previously appeared in general politics, was limited in its work to the operational area. It was now mandatory for every company to elect shop stewards for more than five employees and works councils for more than 20 employees to protect the interests of the employees. The works councils now had certain rights - their main task was to bring about social improvements for the employees (receiving complaints, helping to improve working methods, cooperating with entrepreneurs, helping to eliminate accident and health hazards in the company).

Despite the split in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the First World War , the free trade unions remained closely linked to the largest workers' party. The SPD and ADGB fought unanimously for the introduction of unemployment insurance and the legally regulated eight-hour day, which had been massively riddled with holes by the 1923 Working Hours Ordinance. Together they founded the Iron Front at the end of 1931 against the growing NSDAP . At the end of the Weimar Republic in particular, the ADGB trade unions lost numerous members - under the conditions of the global economic crisis and high unemployment. At that time the ADGB behaved much more defensively than at the beginning of the Weimar period.

Political disputes in the final phase of the Weimar Republic

The ADGB unions were initially also open to members of other workers' parties, including the KPD . That changed only with the decision of the KPD, at the urging of the Soviet Union in 1929, to generally run works council elections with competing lists. The Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) developed into a communist special union, which led to the exclusion of numerous communists from ADGB unions. For example, in the elections for the main works council at the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1929, the ADGB union EdED achieved a share of the vote of 68.53%, the RGO only 6.46%. Since 1930 the RGO was propagated as a “red class union” in opposition to the ADGB. From November 1930 onwards, several “red associations” emerged and several campaigns were initiated for transfer, which, however - with a few local exceptions (particularly in Berlin, the Ruhr area, Hamburg) - never achieved greater success. The maximum number of members of the entire RGO was given in 1932 with 322,000 people, whereby this number is assessed as excessive in the more recent literature. Numbers between 225,000 and 270,000 are more realistic. The RGO deepened the split in the workers' and trade union movements, which promoted the rise of National Socialism.

Adjustment policy, break-up, resistance and persecution during the Nazi regime

Memorial plaque on the house, Wallstrasse 65, in Berlin-Mitte

After Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933 and the result of the Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 , the ADGB leadership offered on March 21, 1933 to “serve the new state”. According to the Enabling Act co-passed by the bourgeois parties and the Center Party on March 24, chairman Theodor Leipart distanced himself from the SPD on March 29 and declared the ADGB to be politically neutral. Nevertheless, on April 1, 1933, the trade union building in Hanover was the first to be attacked and occupied in Germany. The government's move to make May 1, 1933 a public holiday , forced the ADGB federal executive board to call for participation in the “national labor holiday”. This did not prevent the breakdown of the free trade unions on May 2, 1933. The trade union houses of the free trade unions were instantly occupied by the SA and the NSBO , the union assets were confiscated and numerous trade unionists were arrested and mistreated. Recent research shows that many trade unionists who supported the adjustment policy to the Nazi regime in the spring of 1933 soon afterwards became active in the resistance. It is assumed (as of 2011) that the intensity, scope and scope of trade union resistance activities against the Nazi regime in all organizational areas of the ADGB have so far been significantly underestimated. Numerous trade unionists were arrested; quite a few died in concentration camps or were deliberately murdered.

Publication organ (s)

The organ of the ADGB was the union newspaper . As a theoretically oriented journal, Die Arbeit appeared from 1924 .

Public Service Enterprises

The ADGB owned a number of public service companies, such as the Bank of Workers, Employees and Civil Servants, founded in 1924 .

On July 29, 1928, the foundation stone for the federal school of the General German Trade Union Federation was laid in Bernau ( Brandenburg ) . The complex has been used by the Berlin Chamber of Crafts as a seminar and course hotel since January 2008 .

Literature (selection)

  • Sources on the history of the German trade union movement in the 20th century, vol. 4: The trade unions in the final phase of the republic 1930-1933 , welcomed by Erich Matthias , ed. by Hermann Weber , Klaus Schönhoven and Klaus Tenfelde , arr. by Peter Jahn . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-7663-0904-8
  • Sources on the history of the German trade union movement in the 20th century, vol. 5: Trade unions in the resistance and in emigration , founded by Erich Matthias , ed. by Siegfried Mielke and Hermann Weber , arr. by Matthias Frese and Siegfried Mielke. Bund-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1999, ISBN 3-7663-0905-6
  • Gerard Braunthal: The General German Trade Union Federation. On the politics of the labor movement in the Weimar Republic , Frankfurt am Main 1981.
  • Detlev Brunner: Bureaucracy and politics of the general German trade union federation. 1918/19 to 1933 (series of publications by the Otto Brenner Foundation 55), Cologne 1992.
  • Hans-Joachim Buss: Three times zero hour: Union on the rail line; Ascent u. Changes, 1897 - 1972 , Frankfurt am Main 1973.
  • Heinz Germany : The library of the federal school of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) in Bernau (1930–1933). History, existence, whereabouts, tradition. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue II / 2003, pp. 84–100.
  • Stefan Heinz : Moscow's mercenaries? The “Unified Association of Metal Workers in Berlin”: Development and failure of a communist union. VSA-Verlag , Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89965-406-6
  • Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (eds.) With the assistance of Marion Goers: Functionaries of the German Metalworkers' Association in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 1). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-059-2 .
  • Siegfried Mielke : Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration , Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1
  • Siegfried Mielke : Trade unionist in the Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Biographisches Handbuch , Vol. 1–4, Berlin 2002–2013, ISBN 3-89468-268-X (Vol. 1), ISBN 3-89468-275-2 (Vol. 2), ISBN 3-89468-280-9 (Vol. 3), ISBN 978-3-86331-148-3 (Vol. 4) [Vol. 2 and 3 ed. in connection with Günter Morsch , Vol. 4 ed. with Stefan Heinz in collaboration with Julia Pietsch]
  • Werner Müller: wage war, mass strike, Soviet power. Aims and limits of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) in Germany 1928 to 1933. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-7663-3063-2
  • Heinrich Potthoff: Free Trade Unions 1918–1933. The General German Trade Union Federation in the Weimar Republic , Düsseldorf 1987.
  • Kurt Schilde : "That was the end". Trade unionists murdered in Berlin by the National Socialist terror in 1933 , In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2013.
  • Michael Schneider: A short history of the trade unions. Your development in Germany from the beginning until today, Bonn 1989.

Full text offers on the Internet

Web links

Commons : General German Trade Union Confederation  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deutsches Historisches Museum: 1919 , queried on July 4, 2009
  2. ↑ Union of German Railway Workers: Yearbook 1929 , 1930, pp. 79–84
  3. ↑ For details of the development of the RGO and its “red associations” cf. Stefan Heinz : Moscow's mercenaries? The “Union of Metal Workers in Berlin”: Development and failure of a communist union, Hamburg 2010, passim, here p. 32 ff.
  4. ↑ a b c Hans-Joachim Buss (1973): three times zero hour. Union on the Rail Track; Rise and Change 1897-1972 . Verlag Hauptvorstand der GdED, pp. 144–156
  5. ↑ Helmut Knocke , Hugo Thielen : Goseriede 4 , In: Hannover Art and Culture Lexicon , p. 135
  6. ^ Adaptation policy of the trade union leadership - from: Herbert Borghoff (2002): "The burden of man is touchable - 200 years of history of the German workers and trade union movement"
  7. ^ Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (eds.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers: Functionaries of the German Metal Workers' Association in the Nazi State. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 1). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-059-2 , p. 11 ff.
  8. ↑ Märkische Oderzeitung. Brandenburger Blätter , April 25, 2008, page 3