Carl Kostka

This article deals with the Sudeten German politician Carl Kostka . For the German mathematician of the same name, see Carl Kostka (mathematician) .

Carl Kostka , also Karl Kostka, (* May 5, 1870 in Niemes , Austria-Hungary ; † July 23, 1957 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak politician of Sudeten German origin, as an economist chairman of the Association of Artificial Flower Manufacturers , a leading member of the German Democratic Freedom Party , the German Working and Economic Community (DAWG) and co-founder of the Sudeten German Electoral Bloc (SdWB) . He represented these parties and interest groups as a member of parliament and later as a senator. From 1929 to 1938 he was mayor of Liberec (Reichenberg) in northern Bohemia .

Life

His father, originally from Zahrádka in the Ledeč district in the Vysočina region, was the director of the local school in Niemes, his mother, born Baumann, came from Dolní Krupá u Mnichova Hradiště (Nieder Krupai).

After completing the German grammar school in Bohemian Leipa , Carl Kostka studied at the law faculty of the German University in Prague . After his first professional experience as a recipient at the commercial district court, in 1896 he switched to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Reichenberg as Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce , which he was to shape in later years as First Secretary. Among other things, he dealt with the labor question in northern Bohemia. Various production cooperatives for homeworkers in the manufacture of artificial flowers went back to his initiative. In 1897 he married Luisa Würth Edle v. Hartmühl in Bohemian Leipa. The marriage resulted in two children: in 1898 the daughter Hedwig Kostka and in 1906 the son Friedrich Carl Kostka

Start of political activity

At the age of 50, Carl Kostka turned to politics. With the lawyer and politician Bruno Kafka (1881-1931), cousin of Franz Kafka and Ludwig Spiegel , he was one of the founders of the German Democratic Freedom Party (DDFP) after the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1920 . In 1922 Kostka was elected to the House of Representatives, where he remained until 1925. The aim of the DDFP's party program of 1920 was to strengthen the German minority position in Czechoslovakia , it supported social reforms and a moderate land reform of large estates. The party, which had many Jewish members, clearly opposed anti-Jewish tendencies. Kostka was one in 1928, during the Great Depression and the inflation of the Currency of the founding members of the German Labor and Economic Community (DAWG).

Kostka as Senator and Mayor of Reichenberg

As a representative of the DAWG, Kostka was elected to the Senate of Czechoslovakia in 1929. Since 1929 Kostka was mayor of the city of Reichenberg ( Liberec ), tried to modernize the city and to better cooperation between the democratic Czech and German forces during the collapse of the traditional sales markets for Reichenberg industrial products. In 1935, after Alfred Rosche switched to the Sudeten German Party , Carl Kostka took over the management of the already weakened DAWG. In 1935 he was the only representative of the activist “Sudeten German election bloc” to be re-elected to the Senate. Carl Kostka's speeches in the Senate testify to good economic knowledge; they often refer to the problems of the region of Northern Bohemia, which has been severely affected by the economic crisis, with a high number of unemployed.

Kostka as a supporter of Czechoslovakia

In 1936 Kostka managed to invite the President of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš to Northern Bohemia. The internationally recognized visit was intended to bring the difficult economic situation directly to Beneš's eyes and to strengthen the confidence of the German population in the Czechoslovak state. Kostka was particularly close to the city's Jewish residents. Until his resignation as mayor, he supported the Reichenberger Theater, which was under Jewish management. Kostka had to take a lot of criticism in the press for his policy, which was in contradiction to National Socialism , which increased to open hostility from supporters of the Sudeten German Party.

In 1937 a small international group of politicians tried again to stand up to the National Socialist tendencies within the German minorities in Eastern Europe. Along with the Baltic German Paul Schiemann and the Upper Silesian Eduard Pant , Carl Kostka was one of the signatories in 1937 of the appeal to found the "German Association for National Pacification of Europe". In the summer of 1938 Kostka and other Nazi opponents informed Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford , an international mediator for the settlement of the Sudeten crisis in Prague and Paris, that there were supporters of the state founded in 1918 in Czechoslovakia among the Sudeten German population . In September 1938 Kostka was one of the co-founders of the "National Council of all Sudeten Germans willing to make peace, disregarding all personal and party special interests".

Resignation as Mayor of Reichenberg in April 1938

Kostka, worn down by the campaigns against him and his family, resigned as mayor of Reichenberg ( Liberec ) in mid-April 1938 "for health reasons" and moved to Prague with his wife . A month earlier he had given a fiery speech in the Senate for solidarity with Czechoslovakia . When German troops marched into Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, following the Munich Agreement , the fate of Carl Kostka and his family took their course. His pension payments were initially discontinued and later reduced by 60 percent. This was followed by interrogations by the Gestapo ( Secret State Police ). Proceedings were brought against him in Berlin and Reichenberg. His children Hedwig, a rhythm teacher, and Friedrich, an employee of the Concordia insurance company in Reichenberg, lost their jobs for political reasons. The family relied on financial support from the British embassy and a Jewish friend.

After the war ended in 1945

After the end of the Second World War, during the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia , the family was arrested and handed over to the Czechoslovak National Committee . On the way there, Kostka's wife Luisa was gunned down by a stranger. Thanks to the intervention of President Edvard Beneš's office, Kostka and the rest of the family were able to return to their Prague apartment on May 20, 1945. Because of Kostka's loyalty to Czechoslovakia, despite his German-Bohemian ethnicity, they were given provisional Czechoslovak citizenship. But it was not until 1947 that the family finally got their citizenship back. Carl Kostka lived in Prague until his death on July 23, 1957.

Publications

• Articles on trade and commerce in specialist journals. For the directory see Franz Hantschel

literature

• Susanne Keller-Giger: Karl Kostka a Německá Demokratieická svobodomyslná strana v Československu v době před 2. světovou válkou , Agentura Pankrác Praha 2018.
• Heribert Sturm : Biographical lexicon on the history of the Bohemian countries . Published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum (Institute) , Vol. II, R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 1984, ISBN 3-486-52551-4 , p. 262
• Franz Hantschel : Local history of the political district Böhmisch Leipa , 1911, p. 611
• Communications from the Sudeten German Archive 55, 1979, p. 34 f.
• Local history of the Reichenberg district 4, 1940, p. 236 f.
• Heads of politics, business, art and science (Czechoslovak Republic) 1936,
• Bohemia of May 1, 1930; May 18, 1929
• Randolf Gränzer: Reichenberg - town and country in the Neißetal. A home book . Published by Heimatkreis Reichenberg with the participation of many Heimatfreunde, Augsburg 1974, p. 277 ff. Corporations, institutions for promoting the economy.
• Matts Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest . Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeast Europe 1919–1945. Vol. 1. Copenhagen 1991.
• Roman Karpaš, Zdeněk Brunclík et al .: Kniha o Liberci . Liberec 1996.
• Susanne Keller-Giger: Carl Kostka (1870–1957) - Sudeten German democrat, economist and critical defender of Czechoslovakia . In: Niemeser Heimatbrief . March / April 2011, volume 2, pp. 11-13.