Ernst Eckstein (politician)

Ernst Eckstein (born February 21, 1897 in Breslau ; † May 8, 1933 there ) was a socialist politician and lawyer .

Life

Eckstein, who came from a working-class family, managed to attend grammar school and, after completing military service, the university, where he completed a law degree at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Breslau with a doctorate. Eckstein joined the SPD during his studies ; here he acted among other things as city councilor and chairman of the city association in Wroclaw and as a member of the district executive committee. At the same time he opened a law firm in Wroclaw and earned the reputation of an "advocate for the poor". He was a delegate at the party congresses from 1920 to 1924 and from 1927 to 1931. Belonging to the left wing of the SPD, Eckstein had already submitted a (rejected) request at the Berlin party congress in 1924 that the SPD parliamentary group should reject the defense budget in principle; from 1927 he also participated in the organ of the Marxist left in the SPD, Der Klassenkampf . In September 1931 he was expelled from the SPD. As a result, he joined the newly founded SAPD in 1931 , where he was a member of the Reich Executive Committee and headed the Central Silesian party district with 3,000 members. Eckstein played a leading role in the drafting of the party statutes in the statutes commission (SAP party congress March 25-28, 1932).

After the NSDAP came to power in 1933, he was arrested directly after the Reichstag fire on February 28th and died on May 8th, 1933 in the Breslau sanatorium for the mentally ill. While some attribute his death to torture or a forced labor accident to set up the Dürrgoy concentration camp , suicide is more likely. Thousands of Breslau workers took part in his funeral in Breslau; it became one of the last legal demonstrations by the workers' movement against National Socialism .

In honor of Eckstein, the SAPD named its solidarity organization to support the persecuted and their relatives as the Ernst Eckstein Fund .

Works

The fallacy about a spouse's personal characteristics . Breslau 1922 (dissertation)
"Rejection of funds for the Wehrmacht". In: Social Democracy and the Defense Problem. Proposals for program formulations for the defense problem . Edited by Max Adler . Berlin: Self-published in 1929. Digitized
Fritz Bielik, Ernst Eckstein: The organization in the class struggle. The problems of the political organization of the working class . Berlin-Britz: Marxist Publishing Company 1931.

literature

Ernst Eckstein . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Volume I. Deceased personalities . JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, p. 71.
Ernst Eckstein . In: German resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and Letters , Volume 1. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 206-208.
G. Bandur: "Eckstein, Ernst". In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 108-109.
Knut Bergbauer: Ernst Eckstein (1897–1933). Frankfurter Hefte.de April 26, 2013.

Web links

Literature by and about Ernst Eckstein in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ According to Göppinger : "Ernst Eckstein [...] was deported to the Durrgoy concentration camp near Breslau in March and there was brutally abused by SA men for days until he succumbed to the injuries he had suffered.", Göppinger , Horst , Jewish lawyers Descent in the "Third Reich", 2nd edition, Munich: Beck, 1990, p. 62.
↑ Knut Bergbauer , "" Dead on vacation ... ": Bernhard Schottländer and Ernst Eckstein, two Jewish socialists from Breslau", in: Brämer, Andreas / Herzig, Arno / Ruchniewicz, Krzysztof (eds.), Jewish life between East and West: New contributions to Jewish history in Silesia, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014, pp. 60–78, esp. Pp. 75–76.

personal data
SURNAME	Eckstein, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician and socialist
DATE OF BIRTH	February 21, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH	May 8, 1933
Place of death	Wroclaw

[1] According to Göppinger : "Ernst Eckstein [...] was deported to the Durrgoy concentration camp near Breslau in March and there was brutally abused by SA men for days until he succumbed to the injuries he had suffered.", Göppinger , Horst , Jewish lawyers Descent in the "Third Reich", 2nd edition, Munich: Beck, 1990, p. 62.

[2] Knut Bergbauer , "" Dead on vacation ... ": Bernhard Schottländer and Ernst Eckstein, two Jewish socialists from Breslau", in: Brämer, Andreas / Herzig, Arno / Ruchniewicz, Krzysztof (eds.), Jewish life between East and West: New contributions to Jewish history in Silesia, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014, pp. 60–78, esp. Pp. 75–76.