August Siemsen

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August Siemsen (born July 5, 1884 in the village of Mark , today Hamm ; † March 25, 1958 in Berlin ) was a socialist politician, educator, journalist and publicist.

Election poster of the SPD, Wilhelm Bock , Kurt Rosenfeld , August Frölich , Mathilde Wurm , Georg Dietrich , Karl Hermann , August Siemsen, Elsa Niviera, Erich Mäder

Life

Born in 1884 in the village of Mark near Hamm in Westphalia, August Siemsen grew up in a Protestant pastor's family with the siblings Paula (1880–1965; married to the doctor and author Karl Eskuchen since 1911 ), Anna (1882–1951; educator, politician , Author), Karl (1887–1968; lawyer, politician) and Hans (1891–1969; journalist, writer). After studying German and history in Göttingen , Munich and Tübingen and completing his doctorate in Göttingen in 1909, he worked as a teacher at a grammar school in Essen from 1912 to 1922 . There he first joined the left-liberal Progressive People's Party, where he temporarily served as local chairman, then switched to the SPD in 1915 and joined the USPD in 1917 , which he represented in the Essen city parliament from 1919. In Essen, Siemsen also headed the joint education committee of the USPD, SPD, KPD and trade unions and the free adult education center . In 1922 he returned to the SPD, where he was part of the left pacifist wing.

Siemsen moved for the years 1922 and 1923 as a teacher at a grammar school in Berlin-Neukölln. In 1923, as part of the Greil school reform , he took over the management of the Thuringian workers' high school graduate courses.

"It was no coincidence that the teacher Dr. who was appointed to lead the Thuringian high-school graduate courses on October 1, 1923, was appointed to Weimar. August Siemsen previously worked as a teacher in Berlin Neukölln, where he worked in conjunction with Dr. Löwenstein stood. One can assume that the generous Thuringian plan with Dr. Löwenstein was voted on and taken over by Neukölln. "

The attempt to establish worker high school graduate courses in Thuringia was thwarted by the new election to the state parliament in February 1924. The state government previously led by Social Democrats was replaced by a conservative majority, which immediately abandoned the project. In the same year Siemsen was put on hold for political reasons. He became increasingly active as a journalist and wrote a number of political and educational publications and was editor-in-chief of the journals Socialist Education and Socialist Culture and member of the board of the Working Group of Social Democratic Teachers in Germany , the Children's Friends and the Association of Free School Societies .

August Siemsen was a member of the Reichstag for the SPD in the Weimar Republic from 1930 . From 1931 to 1933 he belonged to the left socialist SAPD , where he belonged to the “right” left social democratic-pacifist wing of the party and was a member of the Thuringian district leadership. After he and his sister Anna Siemsen had signed the renewed urgent appeal of the International Socialist Combat League (ISK) from Leonard Nelson in early 1933 , he emigrated via Switzerland in 1933, where he worked as a journalist for various socialist newspapers, to Argentina in 1936. There he worked as a teacher at the Pestalozzi School in Buenos Aires and edited the magazine Das Andere Deutschland .

After the Second World War and his retirement, August Siemsen first returned to the Federal Republic in 1952, then moved to the GDR in November 1955 at the request of his son Pieter Siemsen . There he joined the SED and was "shown" there as a former SPD member, but in fact soon "switched off". None of his works, even if he had provided them with a linguistically adapted, new preface, could be reprinted.

He wrote a biography of his sister Anna Siemsen in 1951. His son Pieter Siemsen lived as an emigrant in Argentina until 1952, and from 1954 in the GDR.

Works

  • Prussia. The danger of Europe. Legacy manuscript edited by Anna Siemsen. Paris 1937.
  • German poems from Goethe to Brecht. Buenos Aires no year (approx. 1944).
  • The tragedy of Germany and the future of the world. Essays and speeches. Hamburg 1947.
  • Anna Siemsen. Life and work. Hamburg and Frankfurt 1951.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Christine Mayer:  Siemsen, Anna Marie Emma Henni, married Vollenweider. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 381-383 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Werner Korthaase : The Neukölln worker high school graduate courses , in: Gerd Radde, Werner Korthaase, Rudolf Rogler, Udo Gößwald (eds.): School reform, continuities and breaks: the experimental field Berlin-Neukölln , Leske and Budrich, Opladen, 1993, ISBN 3-8100-1129-0 , p. 170.
  3. ↑ Werner Korthaase: The Neukölln worker high school graduate courses , p. 162
  4. ↑ The Other Germany was not just a magazine, but an aid committee founded by emigrants in Buenos Aires. Compare also: The Other Germany - Antifascist Struggle in Latin America

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Siemsen, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD, USPD, SAPD, SED), MdR and educator
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH mark
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1958
Place of death Berlin