Alwin Brandes

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Alwin Brandes (1912)

Alwin Brandes (born June 12, 1866 in Großschönau , † November 6, 1949 in East Berlin ) was a German politician ( SPD ) and union leader . He was one of the most important trade union resistance fighters against National Socialism.

Life

Alwin Brandes was the son of the locksmith Heinrich August Brandes , who had owned a small machine factory in Großschönau since 1860. The mother Emilie Amalie Brandes , nee Fischer, was the daughter of a businessman and oilcloth manufacturer. Alwin Brandes grew up in a middle-class environment.

When the German War broke out in the summer of 1866, Alwin Brandes' parents lost their existence. Since Alwin Brandes' father had to change jobs, the family moved several times in the Harz region in the years to come. Alwin Brandes attended the community school in Quedlinburg and later in Magdeburg since the beginning of the 1870s . Here he was prepared for a craft or commercial profession. From the beginning of the 1880s Brandes learned the locksmith trade. After completing the journeyman's examination, he worked in machine factories in Magdeburg, Leipzig and Halle . In addition, Brandes soon trained as a mechanical engineer. After the wandering he did his military service from 1886 to 1889. Brandes left the army as a non-commissioned officer. His wife Martha Minna Bennemann , known as Minna, had met Alwin Brandes at a song festival during his stay in Halle in connection with his wanderings after his apprenticeship. After completing their military service in 1889, the two married.

Following his discharge from military service, Alwin Brandes took a job at “Gruson-Werk AG” in Magdeburg. In 1890 Brandes joined the SPD and in 1894 the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). For the DMV he initially worked as a shop steward in the Magdeburg metal industry. He quickly gained recognition and he was promoted in the Magdeburg trade union movement. In 1900 Brandes became managing director of the DMV in Magdeburg. From 1901 to 1918 he sat in the Magdeburg city council. In 1912 he was elected to the Reichstag for the first time as a member of the constituency administrative district Magdeburg 8 ( Halberstadt - Wernigerode ) . At the end of 1917 Brandes joined the USPD as an opponent of the war . When the war credits were approved in 1915, he abstained. Within the DMV he opposed the war support policy of the main board, at the same time he took on a mediating role between the various wings within the metal union.

During the November Revolution of 1918 Brandes was one of the chairmen of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council in Magdeburg. On April 6, 1919, at the instigation of the Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske, he was arrested for allegedly preparing for a military coup and brought to Berlin. Brandes was charged with “high treason” and a number of other crimes. Due to public pressure and because the allegations could not be proven, the then popular union official and social politician had to be released a week later.

From the end of 1917 to 1922 Brandes held a leading position in the USPD, for which he entered the Reichstag in 1920. At the general assembly of the DMV in October 1919, the old main board was voted out. Brandes was elected one of the three new (equal) chairmen (alongside Robert Dißmann and Georg Reichel ). From then on he stood for the position in the DMV leadership, which mediated between the right and left wings of the association. As a result, he received considerable recognition in the DMV over the years. After Robert Dißmann's death in 1926 and his previous post not being filled, Brandes was the undisputed leading functionary of the German metalworking movement.

Brandes is an important social and economic politician in the Reichstag, who campaigned intensively for the introduction of state unemployment insurance. With the minority remaining in the party after the split in the USPD, Brandes had already returned to the SPD in 1922. For the party he was re-elected to the Reichstag in 1928, 1932 and 1933. He was also very critical of the politics of the NSDAP and the KPD . As a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , to which he belonged from 1924 to 1933, Brandes saw himself as a strict opponent of both the National Socialists and the Communists. For the supporters of both parties, he was a special enemy because of his strong position in the free trade union movement.

The DMV was smashed on May 2, 1933. Brandes was briefly detained. Together with Heinrich Schliestedt and other union officials, Brandes was able to save typewriters and copiers from the Nazis. With their help and by raising considerable financial resources, he built a broad network of resistance. According to recent research, Brandes is counted among the most important union resistance fighters against the Nazi regime. He was the head of an illegal network, which at times included hundreds of metal trade unionists in the German Reich.

Alwin Brandes was targeted by the Gestapo because of his resistance activities. In 1935 he was imprisoned in Sachsenburg concentration camp . Released in the meantime, Brandes was arrested again in 1936, but acquitted by the People's Court for lack of evidence. However, he remained in " protective custody " until 1937 . Even after his release, he continued to have contacts with other union officials such as Max Urich and Wilhelm Leuschner . He participated in a number of illegal activities. From the inner circle of the resistance group of July 20, 1944 , with whom he was temporarily in direct contact, Brandes was designated as honorary chairman for the "German trade union" planned after the overthrow. He also avoided arrest because of his advanced age.

After the end of the war, Alwin Brandes was active in the SPD- Köpenick ( East Berlin ). In 1946 he was elected chairman of the district assembly in Berlin-Köpenick. In the spin-off of the Independent Trade Union Opposition (UGO), which emerged from the FDGB , he worked for a metalworkers 'organization , the Metalworkers' Association of Greater Berlin (UGO) , which sees itself as democratic and anti-communist . He demarcated himself sharply from the SED, which he accused of controlling and directing the FDGB.

Honors

  • In 1946 the city of Magdeburg named a street ( Alwin-Brandes-Straße ) after Alwin Brandes.
  • In 1971, Brandesstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg was named after Alwin Brandes in the immediate vicinity of the Berlin IG Metall headquarters.
  • In 2013, IG Metall named the large assembly hall of the former DMV building in Berlin's Alte Jakobstrasse after Alwin Brandes ("Alwin-Brandes-Saal").

literature

  • Willy Buschak : “Work in the smallest circle”. Trade unions in the resistance against the National Socialist dictatorship. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1206-9 , pp. 200–227.
  • Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 2: Social politicians in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism 1919 to 1945. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7376-0474-1 , p. 18 f. ( Online , PDF; 3.9 MB)
  • Stefan Heinz , Siegfried Mielke : Alwin Brandes. Revolutionary - Reformer - Resistance Fighter, in: Revolt. 100 Years of the November Revolution, ed. from the board of IG Metall and IG Metall district management Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen, Berlin 2018, pp. 12–29, also on the Internet: IG Metall website
  • Joachim Hoffmann: Brandes, Alwin. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1
  • Georg Kotowski:  Brandes, Alwin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 520 ( digitized version ).
  • Siegfried Mielke, Stefan Heinz: Alwin Brandes (1866-1949). Opposition - reformer - resistance fighter . With a foreword by Jörg Hofmann (= trade unionist under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration, Vol. 9). Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-486-6
  • Arne Pannen: Alwin Brandes (1866–1949) , In: 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 Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-059-2 , pp. 53-73
  • Michael Ruck : Brandes, Alwin (1866–1949), In: Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders , ed. A. Thomas Lane u. a., Vol. 1, Westport, Ct./London 1995, pp. 129-130. ISBN 0-313-29899-8
  • 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 .
  • Paul Ufermann (Ed.): Alwin Brandes. Life and work of a German trade union leader. Berlin 1949
  • Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For details cf. Siegfried Mielke, Stefan Heinz: Alwin Brandes (1866-1949). Oppositionist - Reformer - Resistance Fighter , Berlin 2019, p. 34 ff.
  2. ↑ For details of Alwin Brandes' youth, cf. ibid, pp. 34-45.
  3. ↑ Imperial Statistical Office (Ed.): The Reichstag elections of 1912 . Booklet 2. Berlin: Verlag von Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht (Statistics of the German Reich, Vol. 250), 1913, p. 89.
  4. ↑ For details cf. Siegfried Mielke, Stefan Heinz: Alwin Brandes (1866-1949). Opposition - Reformer - Resistance Fighters , Berlin 2019, pp. 46–84.
  5. ^ Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz : Alwin Brandes. Revolutionary - Reformer - Resistance Fighter, in: Revolt. 100 Years of the November Revolution, ed. from the board of IG Metall and IG Metall district management Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony, Berlin 2018, pp. 12–29, here pp. 21 ff., on the Internet
  6. ↑ See ibid. for details of life and work during and after the November Revolution 1918/19 cf. Siegfried Mielke, Stefan Heinz: Alwin Brandes (1866-1949). Opposition - Reformer - Resistance Fighter, Berlin 2019, pp. 85–148.
  7. ↑ For details of the work as DMV chairman cf. Siegfried Mielke, Stefan Heinz: Alwin Brandes (1866-1949). Opposition - Reformer - Resistance Fighter, Berlin 2019, pp. 149-258.
  8. ↑ For details cf. ibid, pp. 169-215.
  9. ↑ For details cf. ibid, pp. 338-466.
  10. ↑ For details cf. ibid, p. 454 ff.
  11. ↑ For details of life and work after 1945 cf. ibid, pp. 467-492.
personal data
SURNAME Brandes, Alwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brandes, Heinrich Alwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR and union leader
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Großschönau
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1949
Place of death East Berlin