Erich Bührig

Erich Bührig (born January 20, 1896 in Braunschweig , † October 2, 1959 in Düsseldorf ) was a German trade union official, politician and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Life

Bührig attended elementary school in Braunschweig for eight years. From 1910 to 1914 he learned the building locksmith trade . In June 1913 Bührig became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV). At the beginning of February 1914 he joined the SPD . After completing his training, Bührig worked as a locksmith in various companies. He soon found a job at the "Imperial Shipyard" in Gdansk, where he took part in the January strike in 1918 and was then drafted into military service.

In the years from 1919 to 1921 Bührig took over an editorial position at the Memel Volksstimme, which is close to the SPD . From 1921 to 1923 he was the full-time secretary of the trade union cartel of the ADGB associations in the Memel region. From 1923 to 1925, Bührig held the position of first authorized representative and managing director in the DMV administrative office in Peine . From 1926 he worked in the same position for the DMV in Bochum . At times he was also a board member of the ADGB local committee and a member of various collective bargaining commissions. In addition, Bührig was a judge at the Dortmund Regional Labor Court for some time .

From 1929 Bührig took over the management of the "Labor Law and Works Council Issues Department" at DMV's main board in Berlin . In this function he worked closely with Ernst Fraenkel . Bührig was also a lecturer at the DMV business school in Bad Dürrenberg .

After the National Socialists came to power , Bührig became unemployed on May 2, 1933 in connection with the break-up of the ADGB associations. From the summer of 1933 he became involved in illegal circles of the former DMV in the resistance against the Nazi regime. In 1933/34 Bührig was a member of the "illegal Reichsleitung" of the trade unions. Among other things, he worked very closely with Alwin Brandes and Heinrich Schliestedt . Bührig was verifiably closely monitored by the Gestapo between 1934 and 1938 , which suspected him of being an active member of the illegal trade union resistance.

On July 4, 1939, Bührig was arrested by the Gestapo. He was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where he stayed for a month and a half. Then the Nazi persecutors transferred him to the remand prison in Berlin-Moabit . In 1940 he was charged with “preparing to commit high treason” for “illegal union work”. In contrast to the co-defendant Richard Barth, however, Bührig's allegations could not be proven. He was released from custody on October 4, 1940 and is said to have continued his resistance work in smaller circles of metal workers he knew well until the end of the war.

After the end of the Second World War, Bührig was involved in rebuilding the trade unions in Berlin. First he was a board member of the Association of Metal Workers of Greater Berlin . He also took part in the rebuilding of the SPD in Berlin. From June to November 1946 Bührig was a member of the SED . In February 1946 he was also a member of the executive board of the FDGB in Greater Berlin and in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ). But soon he moved on increasing distance from the SED and the FDGB. In August 1946, Bührig was a representative of the Berlin metal industry union, participating in the founding day of the Württemberg-Baden metal industry association in Stuttgart. There he established close contact with Walter Freitag , who motivated him to move to Hagen .

From the end of 1946 Bührig was a member of the IG Metall district management in Hagen. He rejoined the SPD . From the end of February 1947 Bührig was a member of the board of IG Metall in the British Occupation Zone (BBZ). At the founding congress of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) on October 14, 1949, Bührig became a board member of the DGB. Among other things, he then headed the labor law department of the trade union umbrella organization. In October 1952 he left the board. From May 1953 to 1959 Bührig worked as an employment lawyer for the Economic Institute of the Trade Unions in Cologne .

From 1956 until his death Bührig was chairman of the SPD sub-district of Düsseldorf . In the party, he took on a number of functions at the district level.

literature

• Achim Arndt: Erich Bührig (1886–1959) , In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (ed.) With the assistance of Marion Goers: Functionaries of the German Metalworkers' Association in the Nazi state. Resistance and persecution (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - resistance - emigration. Volume 1). Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-059-2 , pp. 188-192.

Web links

• Literature by and about Erich Bührig in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography on the website of the DGB