Berthold Grosse

Berthold Grosse

Berthold Grosse (born June 2, 1863 in Welsleben ; † October 7, 1927 in Hamburg ) was a carpenter, trade unionist, President of the Hamburg Parliament (1919-1921) and Senator in the Hamburg Senate .

Life

After attending elementary school , Grosse began an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Schönebeck (Elbe) in 1877 . Grosse traveled a lot as a carpenter and joined the woodworkers' union in 1883. In 1888, Grosse became chairman of the Hannover Carpenter's Association, and in 1890 a member of the Hamburg Carpenters' Association, in the same year he also became a delegate in the Hamburg trade union cartel , a kind of umbrella organization of the socialist unions. Around 1900 he became a major employee of the local health insurance fund in Altona . A delegate until 1906, in that year he was elected chairman of the trade union cartel for Hamburg and the surrounding area, an office he held until 1911. In 1907 he was elected to the Hamburg parliament, to which he belonged until 1927.

Grosse had been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) since 1884 and, alongside Otto Stolten, was one of the key figures in Hamburg's social democracy . It is also thanks to him that the November Revolution in Hamburg was largely peaceful. In November 1918, Grosse was sent to the workers 'and soldiers' council for Hamburg on behalf of the unions . He was elected deputy to the “ Red Dictator ” Heinrich Laufenberg in the council. In January there was tension in the Council over policy. In the course of this, revolutionary shipyard workers protested against the policies of the SPD and occupied the trade union building in Hamburg on January 9, 1919. On the same day Laufenberg had the union offices occupied and their coffers confiscated. In the days that followed, workers close to the SPD demonstrated and pushed through new elections for the workers 'and soldiers' council. On January 20, Laufenberg had to resign and Grosse became chairman of the workers 'and soldiers' council together with Karl Hense . This cleared the way towards parliamentary democracy and a new election of the citizens was scheduled. After the new election in March 1919, Grosse became the first president of the freely elected citizens. On September 7, 1921, Grosse became a member of the Hamburg Senate for the late Senator Max Hegemann . Until his resignation due to illness on March 9, 1925, he mainly represented the youth department.

Honors

Street sign to Berthold Grosse in Hamburg-Horn

• In Hamburg-Horn has been Big path named after him.

literature

• Ursula Büttner : Hamburg at the time of the Weimar Republic, six essays. State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 1996.
• Rainer Fuhrmann: Distribution of offices in the Senate 1860–1945. Typescript, Hamburg State Archives.
• Wilhelm Heinz Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1867-1933. Biographies, chronicles, election documentation. A handbook (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 7). Droste, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-7700-5192-0 (can also be found in abbreviated form on the Internet as the biography of Berthold Große . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP) ) .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ursula Büttner: Hamburg at the time of the Weimar Republic, six essays. State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 1996, p. 59.