August Reitz

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August Reitz (born April 7, 1885 in Cannstatt ; died February 21, 1969 in Berlin ) was a German trade unionist.

Life

August Reitz was the son of a vinegar and spirits manufacturer and a seamstress. He attended primary school and from 1900 to 1904 completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter at Werner & Pfleiderer - kneading and mixing machine factory . In his learned profession he worked at Daimler AG in Untertürkheim (1905/1906). From 1907 to 1914 he was privately employed as a driver. Since February 1, 1909, he was a member of the "German Motor Vehicle Driver Association". On April 1, 1910, he became a member of the SPD. In 1910 and 1914 he was elected cashier of his professional organization. As early as 1911 he advocated the transformation of his professional organization into a trade union. The organizational basis of the professional association was withdrawn by the recruitment of all members for the First World War . Reitz also became a soldier. From 1914 to 1917 he was a driver in the military and served as a non-commissioned officer in France and Turkey . In 1917 he worked again at Daimler's engine works and passed his master craftsman examination in 1919. In September 1918 he became a member of the workers' committee in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim, which successfully called a mass strike on November 4, 1918 . Reitz was an active participant in the 1918 state coup in the Württemberg capital. The chairman of the workers' council was Fritz Rück.

From 1919 to 1920 August Reitz was second chairman of the works council. After the end of the war, the chauffeur clubs were reorganized in the "German Motor Vehicle Driver Association". From 1918 to 1920 Reitz exercised the function of an honorary district manager of his professional organization for Württemberg and Baden. His attempt to get his organization recognized as an independent trade union by the general commission of the trade unions in Germany failed because of the veto of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). His negotiations with the DMV were also unsuccessful, as the metalworkers' free trade unions classified the drivers as transport workers. On October 1, 1919, his professional organization became an independent Reich section of the German Transport Workers' Association (DTV). At the 4th DTV Conference of Motor Vehicle Drivers in Germany from January 17 to 19, 1920 in Berlin, Reitz received all votes in the election as Reich Department Head. At the next conferences until 1933 he was confirmed in office. In December 1925 he was elected as an assessor of the administrative committee of the voluntary legal protection and liability insurance of the association ( faculty ). From November 1921 he was a member of the Provisional Reich Economic Council as a representative of the "passenger and trucking trade including aviation and motor vehicles". In this capacity he was a delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva in 1930. At the same time he was a member of the Reich Advisory Board for Motor Vehicles in the Reich Ministry of Transport .

In October 1929 he was at the founding congress of the "General Association of Workers in Public Enterprises and the Movement of People and Goods" from October 7th to 10th, 1929 as Reich Department Head (trade, transport, motor, air traffic and various enterprises) in elected the board. He was also Reichsfachgruppe leader of the "Reich Association of Professional Drivers and Aviation Personnel". He was elected to the board of directors in December 1930 on the day of the air sports association "Sturmvogel - Flight Association of Working People". In October 1932 he was elected 2nd chairman. Reitz was a participant at the congress of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) in Hamburg in 1924. There he spoke about “National and international legislation for motor traffic”. He was also a delegate at the ITF Congress in Paris in 1926 , in London in 1930 and in Prague in 1932 . Elected to the ITF's Motorists' Council in June 1927 in support of the Secretariat, Executive Committee and General Council. During the crisis year of 1932, he tried to plan the amalgamation of the Reich departments, which should give the general association room for maneuver despite the crisis in financial development. The meeting of the association advisory council in November 1932 required personnel decisions. The association cashiers Richard Nürnberg and Adam Ruppert had invested part of the association's assets on their own initiative and had to give up their office. August Reitz was appointed the new cashier, who barely had time to redesign the contribution system, because shortly afterwards the National Socialist seizure of power took place.

In the next time he tried to explore the possibility of his union with the majority of the executive committee. He was arrested in May 1933. He then suffered interrogations, house searches and surveillance by the Gestapo . He was unemployed for a while. Reitz acquired a cigar shop in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district , which he was able to keep until 1937. Member of the German Labor Front from 1934 until the end of the war , without having had any function there. From 1937 he was employed by Daimler-Benz in Berlin-Marienfelde . In connection with the group "Orlopp" and operated "company propaganda".

At the end of the war he became a member of the SPD in Greater Berlin again . Within the Berlin Social Democrats he advocated joining forces with the communists . He joined the SED in 1946 . From October 1, 1945 to August 1, 1946 district council in Berlin-Tempelhof . On June 17, 1945, he took part in the founding congress of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB).

In 1946 the FDGB federal executive elected him first head of the federal finance department. He immediately ran a uniform cash register there. In October 1946 he became a partner in the asset management of the FDGB. He was a co-founder of the Faculty in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany . He was a delegate at the 2nd FDGB Congress in Berlin in 1947 and received the second highest number of votes there. Until 1963 he was elected to the FDGB board. In 1948 he was a co-initiator and partner of the short-lived East German book guild Gutenberg (until 1950). In 1952 Reitz gave up the management of the finance department of the federal board of the FDGB. From 1952 to 1958 he was chairman or deputy chairman of the Central Revision Commission of the FDGB. From 1958 to 1963 chairman of the Central Working Group of Merited Union Veterans and until 1964 member of the Central Committee of the Faculty. From 1958 to 1964 he was chairman of the central working group of merited union veterans on the federal board of the FDGB.

He was buried in the Berlin-Friedrichsfelde cemetery. His wife Berta Reitz , b. Braun (1885 - May 5, 1965) is also buried there.

Honors

Publications

Archival material

  • Foundation Archive and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives. Personnel file August Reitz .
  • Federal Archives. FDGB signature DY 34 / 24590. Functional support for colleagues Emil Hartung, August Reitz and Friedrich Mosch (S 880/63)
  • Federal archive signature DY 34/26913. "6. Meeting of the federal executive committee from May 21 to 22, 1969. Agenda: 1. Report on the work of the trade unions on the way to the 20th anniversary of the GDR (Alfred Wilke), 2. Presentation: The contribution of the trade unions to the intellectual life in socialism ( Wolfgang Beyreuther ) "(Also contains:" Obituary for the union veteran August Reitz and the member of the FDGB federal executive committee Paul Cotterba ")

literature

Biographical

  • Emil Dittmer: Rietz, August . In: International Concise Dictionary of Trade Unions . Edited by Ludwig Heyde . Volume 2. Verlag Werk und Wirtschaft, Berlin 1931, p. 1323.
  • August Reitz 65 years . In: Neues Deutschland from April 7, 1950, p. 2. [With photography]
  • Comrade August Reitz . [Obituary of the Central Committee of the SED]. In: Neues Deutschland from February 25, 1969, p. 2.
  • Roland Tittel: August Reitz. The federal cashier . In: Heinz Germany , Ernst Egon Lange (Hrsg.): Wegbereiter. 32 portrait sketches . Verlag Tribüne, Berlin 1988. ISBN 3-7303-0169-1 , pp. 335-346. contents
  • FDGB lexicon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990) . Edited by Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke , arr. by Michael Kubina. Berlin 2009. ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 . August Reitz accessed online March 13, 2016
  • Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p 954. Digitalisat

General

  • German Transport Workers Association: 25 years of trade union work . “Courier” publishing house, Berlin 1922. Table of contents
  • Gerhard Haas : The FDGB 1954 . Federal Ministry for All-German Issues, Bonn 1954.
  • History of the Free German Trade Union Federation . Published by the federal executive committee of the FDGB. Verlag Tribüne, Berlin 1982.

source

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustrated History of the November Revolution 1918/19 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1978, p. 88.
  2. ↑ General Association of Employees in Public Enterprises and in the Movement of People and Goods. Founders were: 1. Deutscher Verkehrsbund , 2. Association of community and state workers; 3. Association of gardeners and horticultural workers and 4. Association of German professional fire fighters.
  3. ^ Rüdiger Zimmermann: Biographical Lexicon of the ÖTV and its predecessor organizations . Part 135
  4. ^ Rüdiger Zimmermann: Biographical Lexicon of the ÖTV and its predecessor organizations . Part 156.
  5. ^ Jacques Schwarz: 50 years of ÖTV Berlin. A halfway round story . United service union ÖTV, Berlin district, Berlin 2001, p. 19.
  6. ^ Joachim Hoffmann : Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. A German national cemetery. Cultural history guide . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, pp. 193 and 246.
  7. ^ Notification of the death of August Reitz for his wife Berta Reitz. In: Berliner Zeitung of May 8, 1965, p. 14.
  8. ↑ "The Federal Treasurer of the Free German Trade Union Federation, August Reitz, is 65 years old today. At the age of 24, the machine fitter from Cannstatt near Stuttgart found his way to the union in 1909. In 1910 he joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1920, Reitz was elected chief cashier of the General Association of Public Enterprises, and took part in many international congresses for transport workers. During the period of illegality from 1933 to 1945, Kolloge Reitz kept in touch with his political friends. Immediately after the collapse in 1945, he made himself available again for political and trade union work. August Reitz called on the trust of his colleagues to the federal executive committee of the FDGB, where he was entrusted with the administration of the federal finances. In this role he still works today with great care, experience and vitality. "
  9. ^ "Obituary of the Central Committee. On February 21st, our comrade August Reitz died at the age of 83. We mourn a comrade who has been closely associated with the labor movement since his early youth and who devoted all his energies to building socialism in the German Democratic Republic. Comrade August Reitz had been unionized since 1909 and politically organized since 1910. Since that time August Reitz fought tirelessly for the interests of the German working class. "Even before the First World War, he was at the forefront of numerous struggles directed against the capitalist exploitation and oppression of the working people. He was an active participant in the November Revolution. During the Weimar Republic, Comrade August Reitz held responsible positions within the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and especially in the General German Trade Union Federation. He also proved his loyalty to the cause of the working class during the time of the fascist terror regime. Despite persecution and harassment by the Gestapo, August Reitz remained loyal to the cause of the working class. In building the Free German Trade Union Federation in 1945 he was one of the first activists and contributed to the creation of both party and trade union unity of the working class.From 1947 to 1963 he was a member of the federal executive committee of the FDGB the cause of the working class, f Worked for peace and socialism, for the strengthening and consolidation of our workers-and-peasants state. […] In Comrade August Reitz, our party is losing a loyal, restless fighter. We will always keep his memory in honor."
personal data
SURNAME Reitz, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Cannstatt
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1969
Place of death Berlin