Emil Kloth

Emil Kloth (born October 23, 1864 in Klütz ; † May 4, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German social democrat and union leader who, as a Marxist, went through an ultra-nationalist catharsis during the First World War and found a new home in right-wing parties after the November Revolution. In 1932 he joined the NSDAP .

Youth and education

Kloth was born in Mecklenburg as the son of a tailor. After attending primary school, he learned the trade of a bookbinder in Rostock . After completing his apprenticeship, he went on a hike. At the beginning of 1884 he landed in Leipzig . In the radical Leipzig workers' milieu, the nationally minded Kloth mutated into a radical socialist. His entry into the trade union (and probably also his entry into the illegally operating Social Democrats ) dates back to the summer of 1884. In 1885, Kloth went on a journey again, which took him to Sicily . In September 1886 Kloth returned to Leipzig via Munich , where he was heavily involved in trade unions and politics.

Leipzig years

In 1888 a court sentenced the 23-year-old bookbinder to four and a half months in prison for distributing illegal Social Democratic leaflets, which cemented his reputation as a militant socialist. In Leipzig , the national bookbinding union founded in 1885 (since 1889: support association of the associations of workers employed in bookbinding and related branches of business ) and a local trade association competed in trade unions . Both organizations tried to recruit the 2,400 people employed in bookbinders in Leipzig. Kloth played a prominent role in both groups and held various offices. The union of both currents was largely thanks to the young Kloth. In 1884 Kloth ended his job as a wage-dependent bookbinder and started his own stationery business in Leipzig . The economically independent position gave him the opportunity to appear increasingly radical on union issues. Local union successes, in which Kloth appeared as a negotiating functionary, increased his reputation. In 1902 he was elected to the Leipzig city council on the SPD list. Internally, his criticism was directed against the Stuttgart-based board of the bookbinders' union and its union chairman Adam Dietrich (name of the association since 1900: Deutscher Buchbinderverband ). Kloth accused the association's board of operating too carefully during labor disputes. Kloth demanded that the association's headquarters be relocated to the more radical north in order to isolate the union leadership from the moderate southern German union milieu. On the 9th Association Day in Dresden in July 1904 , Emil Kloth prevailed with his ideas and was elected union chairman in a vote against Eugen Brückner . At the same time, the delegates moved the association headquarters to Berlin . In October 1904, Kloth took up his mandate as the full-time paid chairman of the free-trade union book printer organization in the Reich capital.

Union chairman

In Berlin, Kloth initially tried to push “right-wing” members of the board and the editor of the bookbinder newspaper Georg Schmidt out of office; this partially succeeded. In 1906, a Berlin resolution supported by Kloth on the consistent rest of the work of women and men employed in bookbinders resulted in an empire-wide lockout lasting several months on May 1st . The now well-organized entrepreneurs used the seasonal economic downturn to force a labor dispute on the union that completely ruined it economically. Massive criticism from within the trade unions sparked massive criticism of Kloth's unfortunate strategic labor campaign. In 1907 he narrowly escaped a vote defeat on the union day in the election of the chairman. The disastrous strike defeat of the unionized bookbinders led to a strategic realignment of the association. Kloth moved clearly to the “right” and now also propagated long-term collective labor relationships with associated arbitration courts . In 1907 national bookbinding unions merged to form a trade union international ( International Bookbinder Secretariat ). The delegates elected the German chairman, representative of the world's largest bookbinding union, as their chairman and confirmed this election until 1914. Kloth delegated his union to the 1907 International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart , the 1910 Congress in Copenhagen and the 1912 Extraordinary Congress in Basel . All of the peace policy resolutions at the congresses met with Kloth's approval. From 1899 to 1919 Kloth received (except for the year 1902) a mandate for the national congresses of the free trade unions . His diverse speeches at the congresses ranged from the mass strike debate to the May Day movement to the trade union press. He rejected the proposal of a delegate to run for the highest office in the General Commission of the German Trade Unions in 1914 . In the board conference of the German trade unions since 1904 he was one of the most opinionated speakers. His influence increased with every election as chairman of the printing congresses. In March 1909 he succeeded in entering the city council on the SPD list of the then still independent municipality of Rixdorf (since 1912: Neukölln). As deputy editor of the union bookbinder newspaper , Kloth took part in all important union discussions. Kloth knew all of the German-language Marxist literature of his time. Since 1907 he was one of the regular employees of the social democratic theoretical body " Die Neue Zeit ". Kloth was politically close to his editor Karl Kautsky . From 1910 to 1913, the union chairman produced two opulent volumes on the history of the union bookbinding movement, which were received extremely favorably by contemporary reviewers of the labor movement. With 35,000 members, shortly before the outbreak of war in 1914, the bookbinding association was better organized than ever before.

On the way to the original disaster

After the outbreak of war, Kloth supported - like the entire top of the free German trade union movement - the German Reich leadership in their war efforts (Burgfriede) . Russian tsarism was seen as a common enemy and threatened the achievement of the German labor movement . However, Kloth quickly set nationalist accents. As early as 1915, after winning the war, he also demanded colonies for Germany. Politically, the Buchbinder chairman was close to the Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group , whose members no longer saw tsarist Russia , but England as their main opponent. After the chief editor of the Buchbinder-Zeitung had been called up, Kloth also edited the trade union paper and made it into a propaganda sheet for the Supreme Army Command . The union chairman of the Buchbinder flatly rejected the peace-political initiatives of the Social Democrats in 1917. Only a Siegfriede of Germany with extensive colonial acquisitions - so his argumentation - would guarantee the adequate existence of the German working class , which would otherwise become the object of exploitation of foreign capital interests. Towards the end of the war, the “Vorwärts” , the central organ of the German social democracy, refused to publish Kloth's analyzes; instead, Kloth now published in nationalist bourgeois papers such as the “Daily Rundschau” . His “trademark”: the justification of German war aims with quotations from the socialist classics ( Marx , Engels , Lassalle , Bebel ). Nonetheless, his war-political demands differed only gradually from the “Pan-German Association” . Unmistakable: During the war, the union chairman maintained contact with pan-German and nationalist circles in various war emergency committees, which had a decisive influence on him. Kloth's theses did not go unchallenged within the union. In Leipzig and Berlin from 1916 socialist anti-war opponents gained the upper hand in the bookbinding association, who no longer wanted to support the war-glorifying course of the chairman (and the majority of the board). Above all women, who made up the majority in the union during the war, could no longer be outnumbered in the two most important book metropolises Leipzig and Berlin.

Detachment from the socialist labor movement

On the 11th Association Day in Würzburg from July 28 to August 4, 1919 , a strong left-wing opposition in the German Bookbinder Association, which was politically close to the USPD and the KPD , called for the chairman to be voted out. He had started in 1919 to provide his opinion with anti-Semitic vocabulary. A moderate social democratic group presented a personal alternative in the form of the respected association cashier Eugen Haueisen . In view of the threat of being voted out of office, Kloth decided not to run again as chairman and left the union at the end of August 1919. At the same time the union reached its highest level with 76,000 members. The SPD excluded Kloth in the summer of 1919 because he had ridden violent anti-Semitic attacks against the Vorwärts in a publication of the Pan-German Association .

Nationalist metamorphosis

In January 1920, Kloth joined the German People's Party (DVP) . A little later he got a job as general secretary at the Berlin Reich office. However, general secretary was a commonplace title held by many local and regional party officials. His new function: to “watch” the trade unions and the SPD and to win over new workers electors for the conservative People's Party. In fact, all of his articles in the DVP press revolved around the war, the guilt for the outbreak of war, the course of the war, the defeat, the conclusion of peace and the reparation payments imposed . He blamed the leaders of the Social Democrats for the defeat for which - in his words - the working class now had to atone. In the DVP , Kloth was on the far right wing. In the Essen DVP newspaper The Free Word , he let his anti-Semitism run free. The former union leader was dismissed in January 1923 because the devaluation of the currency caused the DVP great difficulties and had to downsize its cadre of officials. After an intermezzo as a manager in a large Berlin bookbindery, Kloth reported in 1924 as editor of the newspaper Der Deutsche Vorwärts . Weekly paper for business and work. Organ for nationally minded workers leaders back into politics. In March 1924 he joined the German National People's Party (DNVP) , which used him as a “draft horse” in the elections for the district assembly in the workers' district of Berlin-Neukölln. When he joined the party, Kloth was given a full-time position as an editor at the Berlin DNVP newspaper. Kloth gained nationwide attention in the so-called "Magdeburg Trial". In May 1924 the court found President Friedrich Ebert guilty of treason. As a witness, Kloth contributed significantly to this judgment. In the process he waited with details from the board conference of the trade unions, where Ebert's entry into the strike leadership of the ammunition workers strike in Berlin in January 1918 was at issue. Conflicts with the trade union wing of the DNVP , which was integrated into the Christian trade union movement , resulted in Kloth losing his full-time position in the DNVP in 1925 . Kloth accused the German national trade unionists of leaning too closely on social democracy . In the future, the dismissed person earned his living as a freelance writer and moved further and further to the right in the nationalist camp. In August 1932 he joined the NSDAP .

Nazi functionary

Kloth benefited directly from the fact that the unions were brought into line after the National Socialist seizure of power . On June 8th and 9th, 1933, the National Socialist occupiers launched the " German Workers' Association of the Graphic Arts " in the traditional house of German book printers in Berlin-Kreuzberg . In July 1933, the Reichsfachleitung der Buchbinder moved into the old free trade union book printer house and in July 1933 the National Socialist association manager appointed Emil Kloth head of the bookbinders department. Kloth published in the future in the "Correspondent". The traditional paper of the Association of German Book Printers was continued by the National Socialist Workers' Association with the old year census. He resigned from his position as student council leader at the end of 1935. The reasons remain unclear. There are some arguments in favor of a “dishonorable” departure. He had to give in several times in conflicts with entrepreneurs. After 1935, however, he continued to work intensively on the “Correspondent”. Historical fields of work offered Kloth new opportunities. On a fee basis, he worked at two research institutes at the same time. These were the Ergonomic Institute (AWI ) founded in 1935 by the German Labor Front (DAF) and the “ Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany ” founded in 1933 . In his "research work" the former union chairman sought to prove the treasonous role of the union leadership in the world war. In the autumn of 1937, however, after reorganization measures, Kloth had to leave the Institute of Ergonomics. The DAF also honored his 75th birthday - shortly after the outbreak of a new world war. Kloth responded with a laudation to Adolf Hitler and the newly created national community. Emil Kloth died of heart failure on May 4, 1942 in Berlin-Neukölln .

Works (selection)

• Workers and Social Democrats. State Political Publishing House, Berlin 1920
• Contemplation. Reflections by a social democratic trade unionist on the politics of German social democracy. Deutscher Volks-Verlag, Munich 1920
• History of the German bookbinder association. Deutscher Buchbinderverband, Berlin 1910-1913. 2 volumes
• Parties and unions. Brunnen Verlag, Munich 1928
• Social Democracy and Judaism. Deutscher Volks-Verlag, Munich 1920

Secondary literature

• Festschrift for the 25th year. Existence of the professional association in bookbinding and related. Occupations employed workers from Leipzig and the surrounding area. A contribution to the development of the bookbinding organization Leipzig . Leipzig 1909
• Karl Heinz Roth : Intelligence and Social Policy in the "Third Reich". A methodological-historical study using the example of the Ergonomic Institute of the German Labor Front , Munich [u. a.]: Saur 1993, ISBN 3-11-199988-2 .
• Rüdiger Zimmermann : Emil Kloth (1864-1943). From Marxist union leader to avowed Nazi . Beb.ra, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95410-050-7

Web links

• Literature by and about Emil Kloth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Buchbinder newspaper 1885-1933. Accessed December 31, 2014 .