Eduard Bernoth

Eduard Bernoth (born June 1, 1892 in Hochdünen / Lewobereschnoje (Kaliningrad) , † January 4, 1972 in West Berlin ) was a trade unionist and a Berlin CDU politician.

Life and work in the empire

Eduard Bernoth was born as the youngest son of a farm laborer in Hochdünen in the East Prussian district of Niederung , Catholic, married. His family was deeply anchored in the Warmia Catholic milieu of East Prussia . He lost his father when he was six. The mother then moved with her sons to Buer (now a district of Gelsenkirchen ). From 1899 to 1906 Bernoth attended a Catholic private school.

At the age of 14 he started working as a laborer in the printing works of the Buerschen Zeitung , which was related to the German Center Party. The editor-in-chief August Brust , founder and long-time chairman of the Christian miners' association promoted the unskilled laborer and encouraged him to write his own articles. The first contacts with the Kolping Family took place during the Buerian period ; at the age of 18 he also became a formal member of the "family". With the help of a scholarship from the Bielefeld Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bernoth learned the printing trade in Bad Driburg from 1910 to 1912 , and then attended the Typographia machine typesetting school in Berlin as a professional training facility .

In 1910 Bernoth joined the stenographers' association of the Association of German Book Printers without becoming a member of the free trade union association . Since from 1911 onwards only association members were allowed to belong to the educational institutions, Bernoth was excluded in 1912. The trained journeyman worked as a machine setter for the Westfälischer Volksblatt in Paderborn from 1913 . After Essen and Berlin, Paderborn was the third “stronghold” of the “Gutenberg Association” , which in 1906 had joined the “General Association of Christian Trade Unions in Germany” . In 1913, Bernoth joined the Gutenberg Association and the German Center Party.

Since 1913 he worked on a voluntary basis on the union journal of the Christian book printer Der Typograph . In February 1914 he was elected secretary in the Paderborn local association; at the same time election as deputy delegate for the local cartel of the Christian trade unions in Paderborn. Immediately drafted in December 1914, he took part in the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Verdun . As a soldier, the trained typesetter continued to work as a writer on the typographer and on the Westphalian Volksblatt . Especially his war poems caused a sensation. As a soldier in the German Asia Corps in Damascus , Bernoth again worked as a typesetter in 1918 for the army newspaper; He saw the end of the war in Constantinople in November 1918 as a non-commissioned officer.

During the Weimar Republic

In 1919 elected a member of the Münster General Soldiers Council (as the central institution of the VII Army Corps) . In this capacity, Bernoth attended the eleventh ordinary general assembly of the Gutenberg Association in Paderborn in July 1919. At this first post-war assembly of the Christian printing union, Joseph Treffert resigned from his position as a full-time editor. In August 1919, the main board decided on Eduard Bernoth as the new editor (took office on October 1, 1919). Bernoth decided at the same time to reject the election as antitrust secretary of the Christian trade unions in Düsseldorf.

In addition to his editorial office, Bernoth took on two other important tasks in the Gutenberg-Bund: Head of the apprenticeship department (1920) and head of internal union education. For the apprenticeship department he edited the supplement “Jung-Typographia. Bulletin of the apprenticeship department in the Gutenberg-Bund ”(1930: 1000 members). The general association of Christian trade unions in Germany appointed Bernoth to the newly founded "Youth Committee" after the Essen Trade Union Congress in 1921. For professional training, Bernoth had been in charge of the "Graphische Nachrichten" since 1920, which had to be discontinued during the inflationary period and only appeared in a new guise at the beginning of 1925.

At the end of 1919 the "Gutenberg-Bund" and the "Graphische Zentralverband" (Cologne), to which Christian bookbinders and lithographers belonged, agreed on the establishment of a working group under the name " Graphischer Industrieverband ". The joint agreement provided for the publication of the association organs of both organizations in Berlin. From 1924 to 1928, Bernoth also took over the editing of the "Graphische Voices" before the paper was again edited from Cologne. In the capacity of editor, Bernoth took part in the 7th general assembly of the "Graphisches Zentralverband" in July 1925 in Frankfurt am Main .

The chief editor made the design of the collective bargaining system in the graphic industry his central concern. With his chairman Paul Thränert , Bernoth took part in all collective bargaining. The "typographer" functioned as one of the official organs of the collective bargaining association in the printing trade. As an editor, Bernoth avoided sharp attacks on the free trade union competitor, the Association of German Book Printers . However, at times he edited the trade union paper like a Christian combat paper; there could be no community with socialist organizations that rejected belief in God and the hereafter.

In the final phase of the Weimar Republic , East Prussia increasingly used a robust national language to distinguish itself from the “overstretched international ideologies” of the workers' parties and the free trade unions. During the Weimar Republic he was a delegate at all congresses of the general association of Christian trade unions in Germany.

In addition to his trade union positions, the avowed Catholic, as a "center man", held important political offices in Berlin. Around 1920 he was elected deputy chairman of the German Center Party in Berlin and a district councilor in Tempelhof . In June 1933 election to the unpaid city council in the Tiergarten district . In his department, Bernoth was responsible for war invalids and the welfare of war relatives in his district. In July 1933 his party disbanded voluntarily.

The time of National Socialism

Dismissed in his capacity as district councilor in September 1935 because the NSDAP only tolerated former members of bourgeois parties in administrative offices for a certain period of time. From November 1935 to May 1945, after two years of unemployment, Bernoth worked as an employee of the Reich Office for Mineral Oil in Berlin. During this time he kept in close contact with a resistance group of Christian trade unionists around Jakob Kaiser and Heinrich Krone . He stayed away from all National Socialist activities and only worked as a member of the German Red Cross .

Political activities after 1945

Election rally of the Pankow district association of the CDU with reference to the speaker Bernoth

After the end of the war, Bernoth was one of the leading figures in building the CDU and the unified trade union . Signed the call to found the CDU in Berlin in June 1945 together with many other former Christian trade unionists. Bernoth was a member of the founding committee (also provisional central board until 1946) of the Berlin CDU.

Bernoth started his professional career in August 1945 as head of the Tempelhof District Food Department. At the end of July 1946, he gave up this position in the public service to work as a social officer for the CDU in the Soviet zone. Bullied by the Soviet military government in March 1948 after attacking FDGB policies .

From April 1949 to July 1950 the Christian Democrat worked as head of department at the Berlin daily newspaper “Der Tag” and from July 1950 to February 1951 as a full-time editor of the union's own “World of Work” in Berlin. 1946 election of the former Christian trade unionist as district councilor of the CDU in Tempelhof; from the spring of 1951 he acted as a full-time district councilor of the CDU for health care. In addition, Bernoth ran successfully on the CDU list for election to the Berlin House of Representatives in 1950 . In September 1950, a delegate conference of CDU employees elected him chairman of the “Working Group Company Groups”. In addition, the experienced social politician sat on the board of the State Insurance Institute Berlin.

Poster for a CDU meeting with speaker Bernoth

At the beginning of 1957, Willy Brandt appointed the almost sixty-five year old Senator for Labor and Social Affairs to succeed Heinrich Kreil, who was ill . In his new office he acted as a deputy member of the Federal Council and as a member of the Federal Council's committees for labor and refugee issues.

The implementation of the reduction in working hours in the public service and the increase in welfare rates fell within his term of office. In February 1959, Bernoth retired. After his retirement from 1959 to 1963 he again held an office as CDU district councilor in Tempelhof and at the same time held the office of deputy district councilor. From 1959 he also acted as chairman of the Catholic Committee for West Berlin.

Union political activities after 1945

Bernoth played an extremely important role in building up the trade union in the graphic arts sector in Berlin, which was particularly involved in the East-West system conflict. The former Christian trade union editor, who had always legitimized the special existence of Christian trade unions in the Weimar Republic, now, after the bitter experiences of war and fascism, emphasized the high value of the unified trade union regardless of questions of faith and political attitudes.

Immediately after the re-establishment of the trade unions in Berlin, the East Prussian joined the industrial union of the graphic trade and paper processing in the Free German Trade Union Federation. Since 1948, Bernoth was an active member of the intra-union Independent Trade Union Opposition (UGO) , which turned against the dominance and supremacy of the SED in trade union issues. Delegate at the founding congress of the Graphic Industry Association (Graphischer Bund) within the UGO on June 29, 1948. Bernoth was elected to the provisional board of the UGO trade union. As a board member he was responsible for internal union training and education issues.

In this capacity, the Christian Democrat was responsible for the publication of the "Graphische Nachrichten", the newsletter of the Graphisches Industrieverband Berlin (Graphischer Bund) founded in November 1948. The first day of the Graphic Industry Association in Berlin on March 27, 1949 confirmed Bernoth in his position as editor in charge (around 7,000 members of the organization).

Bernoth was one of the Berlin elected delegates at the first regular association day of the printing and paper industry union of the Federal Republic of Germany (including the Gaues Berlin) in Freiburg in September 1950 , which ended the consolidation process of the unified union in the graphic trade union area. Bernoth was elected to the “professional group advisory board” by the founding conference.

A trip by German trade unionists to the United States of America in the spring of 1949 , which he made with his colleagues at the invitation of the American government and which confirmed his fundamental world views (" Marx was completely wrong"), was very formative for the Christian Democratic trade unionist . By 1957, the delegates elected him with an overwhelming majority to the board of the industrial union for printing and paper, Gau Berlin. On the board of directors, the convinced unity union represented the concerns of the employees and editors. The more “left-wing” executive sent the CDU man from 1950 to 1957 to the executive board of the German Federation of Trade Unions in Berlin.

At the fourth Gau conference of IG Druck und Papier Berlin in March 1957, Bernoth resigned from all trade union offices after being elected senator in order to avoid conflicts of interest. At the time of his resignation, the Berlin organization had 12,126 members. In his active post-war period, Bernoth represented the type of trade unionist to whom socialist ideas of transformation were completely alien and who saw himself represented with his Christian values ​​in the unified union and the Christian people's party.

Others

Eduard Bernoth was involved in the Berlin Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation .

Honors

Honorary grave site Am Berg W 209 of Eduard and Maria Bernoth in the cemetery of the Sankt Matthias community in Berlin-Tempelhof

On October 1, 1963, Eduard Bernoth received the title of city ​​elder from the Berlin Senate . Bernoth died on January 14, 1972 in West Berlin. He received a grave of honor in the cemetery of the St. Matthias parish in Berlin-Tempelhof .

In the Marienfelde district of Berlin, a senior leisure center is named after him today.

Works

• Our educational work In: Gutenbergbund, local association Essen. Festschrift on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the local association, connected with the St. John's Festival, on Sunday, July 11th, 1926, in the domed hall of the municipal hall building. Essen 1926, pp. 25-29.
• 40 years of the federal magazine Der Typograph In: Der Typograph. Volume 42, No. 45, November 4, 1932.

literature

• 25 years of the Gutenberg Association. Historical review of the 25th anniversary of the Gutenberg Association. Gutenberg-Bund publishing house, Berlin 1919.
• A quarter of a century Graphischer Zentralverband. Verlag Graphischer Zentralverband, Cologne 1929.
• Today election of the new Senator for Social Affairs. In: Der Tagesspiegel. 17th February 1957.
• Senator for Labor and Social Affairs. In: world of work. February 15, 1957.
• Eduard Bernoth 65 years. In: world of work. May 31, 1957.
• Retired Senator Bernoth is 70 years old. In: The day. May 31, 1962.
• Retired Senator Bernoth became city elder. In: The world. 2nd October 1963.
• Rüdiger Zimmermann : The unified union in person: Eduard Bernoth (1892–1972). In: thought leaders and strategists. The trade union press in the graphic arts industry and its editors since 1863. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86331-302-9 , pp. 213-218.

Web links

Commons : Eduard Bernoth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Splitters, class traitors or unrecognized trade unionists? History and legacy of the Gutenberg Association 1893-1933. Retrieved July 13, 2010 . 

See also

• Senate Brandt I

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Members and friends of the GCJZ Berlin from 65 years with portrait, Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, accessed on September 13, 2017
2. ↑ Friedpark: St. Matthias-Friedhof - Gedächtnisstätte - Ehrengrab Eduard Bernoth , berlin.friedparks.de, accessed on September 11, 2017
3. ↑ Marienfelde district - Eduard Bernoth senior citizen leisure center , Tempelhof-Schöneberg district office, accessed on September 9, 2017