Carl Hillmann

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Carl Hillmann (born October 29, 1841 ; † June 9, 1897 ) was a German social democratic journalist and author . Among other things, he wrote theoretical papers on the role of the trade unions .

Life

Hillmann came from the Kingdom of Saxony and was a trained typesetter . In Hamburg he was secretary of the Hamburg-Altonaer Buchdruckerverein. He joined the political labor movement and was first a member of the ADAV and then the SDAP . He published numerous articles in the Correspondent magazine, particularly on the subject of productive cooperatives . He became a supporter of Karl Marx and was also active in the International Workers' Association . In 1871 he published a brief history of the IAA. Three years later he published a book entitled Practical Emancipation Winks. In it he rejected the subordination of the trade unions to the political movement. Experience shows that the oppressed would first shake the immediate fetters. For the workers, the struggle against inhuman factory regulations or for higher wages would be the beginning. This would be the preschool of the proletariat. Against this background, he advocated equal rights for trade unions and the party. This work appeared in four episodes in the magazine Der Volksstaat . According to Wilhelm Blos, however, the contribution has been heavily revised so that he must be considered the actual author. In 1874 he became editor of the Süddeutsche Volkszeitung. He was arrested the same year and a year later for press violations. In the prison in Rottenburg he completed his theoretical work The Organization of the Masses . Because of his emphasis on the role of the trade unions at least as equal to the party, he was later claimed as a forerunner of syndicalism . Eduard Bernstein remarked in retrospect that he and his interpretation of the iron law of wages to Ferdinand Lassalle would have shaken even to Karl Marx, but he certifies essentially Marxist, to be had though of Hamburg-Harburg Couleur.

Along with Theodor York, Hillmann was one of the earliest original theorists of the trade union movement. From an organizational point of view, Hillmann envisaged a merger of local associations to form national associations.

After his release from prison he moved to Hamburg. In a by-election to the Reichstag in 1875, he ran in vain. In Hamburg he was an editor at the social democratic Hamburg-Altonaer Volksblatt and after the ban on the court newspaper. After the newspaper was banned, Hillmann and others were expelled from Hamburg in 1881. At first he lived in Harburg and tried in vain to maintain the court newspaper. After that he lived in Lübeck . As a result, he turned away from socialism, but continued to work as a journalist. He worked for the Nordic Press and the Generalanzeiger. In retrospect, other social democratic expellees such as Hermann Molkenbuhr or Wilhelm Blos looked down on him with contempt, probably because of this political turnaround.

Fonts

  • The International Workers' Association 1864-1871 , 1871
  • Practical emancipation angles , 1873
  • Organization of the masses , 1875

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels, works, articles, drafts. September 1867 to March 1871. Berlin, 2009 p. 2337
  2. ^ Hermann Müller: History of the German trade unions up to the year 1878 Berlin, 1918 p. 208
  3. ^ Correspondence sheet of the General Commission of the Trade Unions 41/1906 p. 714
  4. ↑ The emergence of syndicalism in the German labor movement
  5. ^ Eduard Bernstein: History of the trade union question. July 1900
  6. ↑ Hans O. Hemmer: Politics without perspective? On the programmatic discussion in the early phase of the German trade union movement , in: Trade Union Monthly Issues 11/1976, pp. 641–656, here p. 645.
personal data
SURNAME Hillmann, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social democratic journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1841
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1897