Camille Huysmans

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Camille Huysmans (1966)

Camille Huysmans (born May 26, 1871 in Bilzen / Limburg , † February 25, 1968 in Antwerp ) was a socialist Belgian politician and Prime Minister.

Origin, studies and professional activities

Huysmans was born Camiel Hansen and studied German at the University of Liège . From 1893 to 1897 he worked as a teacher before returning to the University of Liège to obtain a doctorate in philosophy .

As a student he made contact with the Workers' Party (BWP), which later became the Socialist Party (PSB) . He worked as a journalist for several socialist news magazines and took up a job in the trade union federation in 1904.

Political career

Secretary of the Socialist International

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Huysmans was secretary of the Second Socialist International from 1905 to 1922 . In this role he came into contact with Sun Yat-sen and other leading socialist thought leaders such as Keir Hardie , Jean Jaurès , Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg . Furthermore, between 1905 and 1914 he conducted extensive correspondence with Lenin , whose personal friend he became. One of the main tasks of Huysmans until 1914 was to keep the different streams of opinion together. To this end, the Socialist International organized several conferences such as 1907 in Stuttgart , 1910 in Copenhagen , 1912 in Basel and 1917 in Stockholm . During his tenure he endeavored to pursue an active international peace policy and at the International Conference in Stockholm in 1917 he argued against a continuation of the First World War . From 1939 to 1944 he was again secretary and president of the Socialist International.

Local politician in Brussels and Antwerp

Huysmans began his political career as a member of the Brussels Municipal Council from 1908 to 1921.

Between 1921 and 1933 he was head of the school department in Antwerp . He was then mayor of Antwerp until 1940. After the Wehrmacht invaded Belgium in 1940, he went into exile in London . During the period of exile he was deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee. After the liberation of Belgium by the Allied Forces , he also returned to Belgium in 1944 and resumed his office as Mayor of Antwerp until 1946. From 1946 until his death he remained a member of the Antwerp City Council.

Member of Parliament and Speaker of Parliament

Huysmans was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1910 and represented the BSP there until 1965. He was one of the few MPs who could look back on more than 50 years of parliamentary activity. His 50th parliamentary anniversary in 1960 was celebrated with a ceremony. However, the BSP refused to include him in their list of candidates for parliamentary elections in 1965. Huysmans then founded his own electoral list with De Socialist , but was not re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies because of the poor performance of the list, despite his personal high share of 14,937 votes.

Huysmans was President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1936 to 1939 and again from 1954 to 1958.

Minister and Prime Minister

In the governments of Prosper Poullet and Henri Jaspar , Huysmans was Minister of Fine Arts and Education from 1925 to 1927. In this function as well as in his office as head of school in Antwerp, he was a pioneer of the Flemish movement and advocated the introduction of Dutch at Ghent University .

On September 3, 1945 he was awarded the royal honorary title of "Minister of State".

On August 3, 1946, he (then 75 years old) was elected Prime Minister and formed a government with representatives of the socialists, communists and liberals. This government had a majority of only one vote; Huysmans resigned on March 20, 1947 after just over seven months in office.

His successor Paul-Henri Spaak formed a grand coalition. Huysmans was again Minister for Public Education in the Spaak cabinet until August 11, 1949.

Huysmans was very popular with the population all his life. The Belgian Post issued a special stamp to mark his 75th birthday . The public ceremony on his 80th birthday was a major event with over 100,000 participants. In a poll he was ranked 69th on the list of the 111 largest Belgians.

In 1908 he was in the Masonic lodge Les Zélés Philanthropes in the Brussels Freemasonry added. From 1914 to 1918 he was a member of the Albert de Belgique Lodge in London .

Huysmans is buried in the Schoonselhof cemetery in Antwerp.

See also

Biographical sources

Publications and background literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Time Magazine, June 29, 1925
  2. ↑ Der Spiegel 12/1947: A democrat should take the throne .
  3. ↑ http://www.philagodu.be/GENERALCULTUREL/CELEBRITES/Camille_Huysmans.html
  4. ↑ Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurer Lexikon . 5th edition 2006, Herbig Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7766-2478-6 , p. 408
personal data
SURNAME Huysmans, Camille
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hansen, Camiel (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian politician and prime minister
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Bilzen
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1968
Place of death Antwerp