Arthur Crispien

Arthur Crispien

Wilhelm Dittmann and Arthur Crispien (right) (July 18, 1930)

Group photograph at the end of 1919 with members of the USPD party executive and other prominent representatives of the Independent Social Democrats. With Arthur Crispien (fourth from left in the first row) surrounded by Wilhelm Dittmann , Richard Lipinski , Wilhelm Bock , Alfred Henke , Curt Geyer , Fritz Zubeil , Hugo Haase , Fritz Kunert , Georg Ledebour , Arthur Stadthagen and Emanuel Wurm

Arthur Crispien (born November 4, 1875 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † November 29, 1946 in Bern ) was a German politician of the SPD and USPD .

Life

Arthur Crispien first learned to be a theater painter, at times attended an art school and then worked as an employee of the newly founded health insurance company in his hometown of Königsberg. In 1894 he became a member of the SPD and later worked as a journalist for several party papers, he was in 1904 editor at the Konigsberg Volkszeitung and was 1910 in Gdansk instrumental in the founding of the People's Guard involved. Before the First World War he was party secretary for West Prussia in Gdansk from 1906 to 1912 and from 1912 editor at the Swabian Tagwacht in Stuttgart, but was here in November 1914 because of his criticism of the truce policy of the party leadership together with his editorial colleagues Jacob Walcher and Edwin Hoernle von released from his functions. Subsequently, Crispien, who sympathized with the Spartacus group at this time and was imprisoned for a few months, published the left-opposition weekly newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat . He moved to the USPD in 1917 and was its chairman from 1919 to 1922.

After the revolution in the German Reich in 1918, Crispien became a member of the provisional Württemberg government as Vice President and was Minister of the Interior in the provisional state government under Wilhelm Blos until January 10, 1919 ; After a coup attempt by Spartacists approved by the USPD , he was dismissed from the government. On January 12, 1919, he was elected to the Württemberg state parliament , but resigned his mandate in April 1919 after he and Hugo Haase had been elected party chairman of the USPD at the beginning of March . In 1920 he became a member of the Reichstag and foreign policy spokesman for the USPD. In the summer Crispien took part in negotiations in Moscow about the party's accession to the Comintern and about a merger of the USPD with the KPD .

In the ensuing internal party disputes that led to the split in the USPD in the fall of 1920, Crispien belonged to a minority who rejected both rapprochement with the KPD and entry into the Comintern. After most of the remaining USPD and the MSPD reunited to form the SPD at the party congress in Nuremberg in 1922, he was a member of the Reichstag for the SPD from 1922 and at the same time one of two or three chairmen until 1933. In fact, however, he had little influence within the party. He was all the more active for it within the framework of the Socialist Workers International .

After the National Socialists came to power on January 30, 1933, Crispien fled into exile after the Reichstag fire via Austria to Switzerland , where he survived the Second World War. Unlike Hans Vogel and Otto Wels, he did not participate in the leadership of the exile SPD . Crispien died in Bern on November 29, 1946 at the age of 71.

Publications

• In the fight for our principles. Factual material on the violent coup by the state executive of the Social Democrats in Württemberg against the political editors of the Swabian Tagwacht. Hammer, Stuttgart 1914.
• A settlement with the right-wing socialists. Artur Crispien's speech delivered on June 29, 1919 at the general assembly of the Association of Independent Social Democratic Associations in Berlin and the surrounding area. Publishing cooperative "Freiheit", Berlin 1919.
• Program and tactics of the USPD in their historical development. Talk by Arthur Crispien go to d. Leipzig Party Congress of the USPD (November 30 to December 3, 1919). Linden-Dr. & Verlags-Ges., Berlin 1920.
• USPD in spite of all that! Speech by comrade Arthur Crispien at the party conference in Halle. Publishing cooperative "Freiheit", Berlin 1920.
• The international. From the League of Communists to the International of the World Revolution. 2nd ext. Ed., Publishing cooperative "Freiheit", Berlin 1920.
• Superfluous people. Basic remarks and practical suggestions on the question of population policy. Publishing cooperative "Freiheit", Berlin 1921.
• Glosses of a journeyman without a fatherland. Material for socialist confessions against bourgeois abuse. Volksstimme publishing company, Hagen 1922.
• Worker's blood must not be shed. Speech by Member of Parliament Crispien in the Reichstag on March 20, 1925. Singer, Berlin 1925.
• Marxist ABC. Compiled and explained by Arthur Crispien, Dietz, Berlin 1931.
• Social democracy and reparations. JHW Dietz, Berlin 1932.

literature

• Ansbert Baumann: Crispien, Art (h) ur. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume III. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-17-033572-1 , pp. 29–32.
• Erna Herbig: Crispien, Artur. In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 76-77.
• Paul Mayer:  Crispien, Arthur. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 416 ( digitized version ).
• Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 123 .
• Karl Radek : The masks have fallen. An answer to Crispien, Dittmann and Hilferding . Publishing house of the Communist International, Berlin 1920.
• 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 .

Web links

Commons : Arthur Crispien  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Arthur Crispien in the catalog of the German National Library
• Arthur Crispien in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ansbert Baumann: Crispien, Art (h) ur . P. 30.
2. ^ Ansbert Baumann: Crispien, Art (h) ur . P. 31.