Alwin Gerisch

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Alwin Gerisch, 1903

Karl Alwin Gerisch (born March 14, 1857 in Rautenkranz ; † August 8, 1922 in Berlin ) was a German politician of the SPD , from 1890 to 1892 together with Paul Singer its chairman, and from 1894 to 1898 and from 1903 to 1906 a member of the Reichstag .

Alwin Gerisch's baptism entry from 1857

Life

Alwin Gerisch's birthplace
SPD party executive in 1909. Back row: Luise Zietz , Friedrich Ebert , Hermann Müller , Robert Wengels . Front row: Alwin Gerisch, Paul Singer , August Bebel , Wilhelm Pfannkuch , Hermann Molkenbuhr
SPD member of the Reichstag from Saxony from 1903. Gerisch bottom row on the left.

Alwin Gerisch was the son of a forest worker. He was born in Rautenkranz / Vogtland, Ziegengasse No. 45 (today Alwin-Gerisch-Straße 1). After attending primary school in Rautenkranz, he completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter in Auerbach / Vogtl from 1871 to 1874 .

At the beginning of the 1880s, Gerisch came to Berlin, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. During his apprenticeship he had first contacts with the trade union and labor movement . From 1885 to 1892 he was a board member and treasurer of the Association of Workers in the Metal Industry for the Berlin area. Since August 1, 1890, he was co-owner of the printing and bookshop "Volkswacht" A. Gerisch & Co. in Bielefeld.

Already a committed social democrat at the time of the Socialist Law , he became party chairman together with Paul Singer after the founding of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1890 and held this post until 1892. Even after 1892 he remained on the SPD executive committee (from 1892 to 1912 as cashier and from 1912 to 1917 as secretary in the party executive committee). His prudent financial policy earned him great prestige in the party. In 1917 he resigned from the board due to illness.

At the Berlin party congress from November 14th to 21st, 1892, Gerisch was the rapporteur on the agenda item “The May Day Celebrations 1893” and at the Gotha Party Congress from October 11th to 16th, 1896 for The May Day Celebrations 1897 . He was also a reporter at the Dresden party congress from September 13 to 20, 1903 on the subject of the "Poland question".

In 1914, Gerisch supported the resolution of the SPD parliamentary group to approve the war loans , which is considered to be the main reason for the split in the German labor movement.

In a by-election to the Reichstag, of the 20,585 votes cast, 9,919 votes were cast for Gerisch, 6,000 votes for Wilhelm Uebel ( cartel candidate ), 2,667 for Max Schubert ( German conservative ) and Arnold v. Black ( Liberal People's Party ) cast 1,999 votes on June 1, 1894 . Gerisch was from 1894 to 1898 ("Wahlkreis Sachsen 23 - Plauen ") and again from 1903 to 1906 ("Wahlkreis Sachsen 23 - Plauen") a member of the SPD parliamentary group in the Reichstag . Then he was from 1906 to 1918 member of the community council of the rural community Treptow . He lived in Berlin-Baumschulenweg until his death .

Works (excerpt)

Under the pseudonym A. Ger , Gerisch published political stories and novels in the magazine Die neue Welt. Illustrated entertainment paper for the people , which dealt with the misery of the often large working-class families and their backwardness, which was shaped by poverty and living conditions, as well as the beginnings of the workers' movement in the Ore Mountains .

Inside title of the novel "The Blasphemer"
  • In the iron hammer (1899)
  • Mary & Joseph (1906)
  • The Husterhütte (1908)
  • To get a certificate (1915)
  • The basic evil (1916)
  • His island (1916)
  • Spawning area No. 8 (1917)
  • Awakened. A novel from the life of the proletariat . Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1911
  • The blasphemer. Novel from the life of the Erzgebirge forest workers . Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1913
  • The basic evil . Dortmund 1916 (from: Dortmunder "Arbeiter-Zeitung" July 1916)
  • Erzgebirgisches Volk .Bookshop des Vorwärts, Berlin 1918. In the narrow book subtitled "Memories", which the Vogtland SPD reissued in 2008, Alwin Gerisch describes not only his childhood in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, his apprenticeship in Auerbach / Vogtland and his First rebellion against the exploitation of the workers, but also the extremely difficult living conditions of the working class families, their primitive, extremely cramped and unsanitary living conditions, the great efforts to get their daily food and heating material, but also the exploitation in the factories and the forest workers for longer periods Working hours and the lowest wages, the repression by the representatives of the state and the detachment of the churches from the problems of the masses of residents in the Ore Mountains and in the Saxon Vogtland.
  • The Nazi and his friend. On the death of Agnes Auer. In: Vorwärts of February 23, 1922, supplement Heimwelt , no.7.

Honors

On November 9, 1926, the street 83 in his old place of residence Berlin-Baumschulenweg was renamed Alwin-Gerisch-Strasse in his honor . After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the street was in on April 4, 1934 Heidekampweg incorporated. Alwin-Gerisch-Strasse is named after him in his birthplace .

literature

  • G. Adler: Gerisch, Karl Alwin. In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, p. 153.
  • Manuel Köppen: Social Democratic Fiction Before the First World War. An investigation into the connection between literary structure, reality view and political practice using the example of the literary works of the social democratic author and politician Karl Alwin Gerisch. Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7609-5096-5 Bibliography, pp. 396-411 .
  • Erhard Böhm: The ones in front of us ... Commemorative text for the 100th birthday of the locksmith, social democratic labor leader and writer Alwin Gerisch from Rautenkranz / Vogtl. Published by the Deutscher Kulturbund, Kreisleitung Klingenthal / Vogtl. 1957.
  • SPD local association forest area Vogtland (ed.): Alwin Gerisch: Erzgebirgisch people. New edition of the first edition from 1918 on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Alwin Gerisch. The new edition is supplemented with a foreword by SPD chairman Kurt Beck , a short Gerisch biography, an outline of the history of the SPD in Saxony and references to the Vogtland SPD during and after the political upheaval in the GDR / German reunification in 1989/1990. Hammerbrücke 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024279-3 .

Web links

Commons : Alwin Gerisch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Address book of the German book trade. Exchange Association of German Booksellers , 1920, p. 75.
  2. ^ Dieter Fricke: The German labor movement 1869-1914. A manual about their organization and activity in the class struggle . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1976, pp. 275-277.
  3. ↑ Schulthess' European History Calendar , 1895, p. 122.
  4. ↑ Alwin-Gerisch-Strasse . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
personal data
SURNAME Gerisch, Alwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerisch, Karl Alwin (full name); A. Ger (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR3
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Rautenkranz , Vogtland
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1922
Place of death Berlin