Andreas Ehrholdt

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Andreas Ehrholdt (born September 19, 1961 in Genthin ) is a German activist . He is the initiator of the Monday demonstrations against social cuts ("Hartz IV demonstrations"), which took place nationwide in 2004.

Life

Andreas Ehrholdt grew up in the GDR and attended a polytechnic high school . In 1978 he finished his school education and then let himself be recruited as a future professional soldier by the NVA . In connection with this, he first began training as an electrical machine builder , which he broke off in 1979 due to his changed political attitudes. From 1979 to 1989 he worked as a transport worker for the Deutsche Reichsbahn . When he wanted to leave the GDR for the West and applied for an exit visa , he was subject to reprisals and was expelled from the SED , among other things . After several attempts to escape, he finally managed to escape to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1989 via the embassy in Budapest . However, Ehrholdt returned to his East German homeland just two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall , where he also witnessed the reunification of Germany . Ehrholdt had to end a later participation in a job creation scheme when he had an accident in his spare time. After he could no longer do physically heavy work for other health reasons, he retrained as an office clerk , which he completed in the mid-1990s. Despite numerous efforts, Ehrholdt was unable to find a job and remained unemployed for years . He tried several times to start a self-employed business, for example in 2001 in the financial services sector and in 2004 as a freelance journalist; however, it did not have lasting success.

Ehrholdt was a member of the CDU for two years and ran unsuccessfully in 1998 on the list of the middle class party for the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt .

Anti-Hartz IV demonstration (here in October 2004 in Munich)

In 2004 Ehrholdt, who was still living with his parents together with his sister in the then still independent community of Woltersdorf , near Magdeburg , decided to launch a public protest against the labor market reforms brought about by the Hartz concept . With the help of self-made posters he called in July 2004 in Magdeburg under the motto "End Hartz IV, because today we and tomorrow you" for Monday demonstrations against social cuts . The choice of the day of the week and the corresponding designation were based on earlier “Monday actions” against increasing unemployment and the reduction in public welfare benefits, although the analogy to the Monday demonstrations in 1989 and the peaceful revolution in the GDR later met with criticism. About 600 citizens came to the first Monday demonstration in Magdeburg on July 26, 2004; a week later there were already 6,000 participants and the highest number of participants in Magdeburg was around 15,000. The protest quickly expanded and spread to numerous cities across Germany. Ehrholdt came into the focus of reporting in the mass media and thus became a symbol of resistance in public .

Ehrholdt founded the Free Citizens for Social Justice (FBSG) party in Magdeburg in October 2004 , and became its chairman. However, the FBSG achieved no significance; the party never ran for an election and has since been dissolved. Ehrholdt became a member of the Left in the late 2000s . He remained active in the Magdeburg Monday demonstrations until the end of the 2000s and was also involved in other protests against social cuts.

In 2011 Ehrholdt, who is now receiving a pension due to health-related disability, published an autobiographical book with the Austrian Book on Demand publishing house Novum entitled You betrayed yourself .

Public perception and reception

In the course of the expansion of the Magdeburg protests he initiated to all of Germany, the “Monday demonstration founder” Ehrholdt became the “hero of Magdeburg”, “the spearhead of the Hartz protests” and “a symbol of political discontent”. Numerous television stations , radio stations and newspaper editors from home and abroad reported on him, especially in 2004, but also in the following years up to the present (2011). Corresponding - and mostly repeated - reports appeared in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD), the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS), the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the Italian weekly Panorama , the Rheinische Post (RP), the Süddeutsche, among others Newspaper (SZ), the Tageszeitung (taz) and the British weekly newspaper The Economist ; in Handelsblatt and in Spiegel ; as well as on FAZ.NET , on Spiegel Online and on stern.de .

The American historian and professor Jerry Harris from DeVry University in Chicago sat down in his leading article published in 2005 in the English-language Internet magazine cyRev entitled Globalization and Class Struggle in Germany (German: "Globalization and class struggle in Germany") and. a. also dealt with the causes and effects of the Monday demonstrations in Germany in 2004 and quoted Ehrholdt: “We do not need charity, we need work” (German: “We don't need alms, we need work”).

The filmmaker Martin Keßler portrayed in his documentary film Neue Wut I - Isolated Protest or New Social Movement? u. a. also in several individual contributions to the “Monday demonstration initiators” Andreas Ehrholdt. (See section film )

The political scientist Roland Roth and the sociologist Dieter Rucht dealt in their introduction to the non-fiction book The Social Movements in Germany since 1945 , which they edited and published in 2008 by the Frankfurt Campus Verlag . a. also with Andreas Ehrholdt - as an exemplary example of "individual 'movement entrepreneurs' who can trigger protests with personal commitment if the appropriate windows of opportunity are open and the general mood is favorable".

Publications

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Robert Baumgarten: The hero of Magdeburg. Eight years unemployed . In: Friday of August 13, 2004. Retrieved on April 18, 2012.
  2. ↑ Christine Böhringer: He knows what the people want ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Sächsische Zeitung of August 11, 2004. Retrieved on April 18, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sz-online.de
  3. ^ A b Dorothée Junkers: Anti-Hartz-Demos. After the summer of protest the self-tearing . On: Spiegel Online November 19, 2004. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  4. ^ Action agency closing (ed.): Black Book Hartz IV. Social attack and resistance - an interim balance. Association A, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-935936-51-6 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Barbara Bollwahn: book of a protest citizen. Herr Ehrholdt is indignant . In: taz of April 1, 2011. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  6. ↑ Agenda 2010. Again and again on Mondays against Hartz IV ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Financial Times Deutschland, January 16, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  7. ^ Steffen Reichert: Monday demonstrations in Magdeburg. Lonely in the cold night . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of April 11, 2005. Accessed April 21, 2012.
  8. ↑ Steffen Könau: Monday demos. The brave citizen . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of July 8, 2011. Accessed April 21, 2012.
  9. ↑ a b Interview with the founder of the Monday demo. “We march on” . On: Spiegel Online, September 29, 2004. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  10. ↑ See "hit list" in the FTD archive: 2 hits , i. H. 2 different reports in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) from 2004 and 2010 ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). In: FTD.de . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  11. ↑ See report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) from August 2007 ( Memento from November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). On: FAZ.NET . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  12. ↑ http://nzz.gbi.de/webcgi?WID=12942-7130022-71161_3 (link not available)
  13. ↑ See Good-bye Schröder ( Memento from July 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). On: Panorama website . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  14. ↑ http://www.rp-online.de/app/suche/?cx=001211179140715477304:zc8ctdh2zni&client=pub-3772128004620730&q=Andreas+Ehrholdt&sa.x=30&sa.y=7 (link not available)
  15. ↑ http://archiv.sueddeutsche.de/sueddz/index.php (link not available)
  16. ↑ See "hit list" in the taz archive: 21 hits , d. H. 21 different reports from 2004, 2005 and 2011 . On: taz Online . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  17. ↑ See report in The Economist from August 2004 . On: The Economist website . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  18. ↑ See "hit list" in the Handelsblatt archive: 6 hits , d. H. 6 different reports in the Handelsblatt from 2004 . On: Handelsblatt.com . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  19. ↑ See "hit list" in the Spiegel archive: 3 hits , d. H. 3 different reports in the Spiegel from 2004 . On: Spiegel Online . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  20. ↑ See report on FAZ.NET from August 2004 . On: FAZ.NET . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  21. ↑ See "hit list" in the Spiegel archive: 5 hits , d. H. 5 different reports on Spiegel Online from 2004 . On: Spiegel Online . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  22. ↑ See "hit list" in the stern.de archive: 2 hits , d. H. 2 different reports on stern.de from 2004 . On: stern.de . Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  23. ↑ Jerry Harris: Globalization and Class Struggle in Germany . In: cyRev - A Journal of Cybernetic Revolution, Sustainable Socialism, and Radical Democracy . English, accessed April 20, 2012.
  24. ^ Roland Roth , Dieter Rucht (ed.): The social movements in Germany since 1945. A manual. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38372-9 , p. 26 ( limited preview in Google Book Search ).
  25. ↑ Isolated protest or new social movement? Documentary by Martin Keßler (2005, 90 minutes) ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). On: website for the film, www.neuewut.de. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Ehrholdt, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German activist
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Genthin