Erwin Hartsch

Erwin Hartsch

Erwin Hartsch (born June 1, 1890 in Jugelsburg , † August 2, 1948 in Dresden ) was a German politician ( SPD , SED ).

Live and act

Hartsch attended elementary school from 1896 to 1904 , then from 1904 to 1910 the teachers' college in Schneeberg . As a young man he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1910 to 1913 Hartsch worked as an assistant teacher in Mylau . In 1913 he worked as a permanent teacher in Falkenstein and in 1914 in Sebnitz . From 1915 to 1919 he was a member of the German army .

After the war, Hartsch worked in school in Mylau. In 1921 he was the initiator of the city's first proletarian youth consecrations . In the same year he became a city councilor in this city. In 1923 he became deputy mayor of Mylau. At this time he also became a member of the Saxon Teachers 'Association, which he left in 1929 to join the General Free Teachers' Union of Germany (AFLD) . He was also a member of the District Assembly of the Plauen District Administration .

From 1926 to 1932 Hartsch belonged to the state parliament of Saxony for the SPD . In 1929 Hartsch joined the board of the Saxon state parliament and became chairman of the civil servants' and salary committee. In the Reichstag elections of July 1932 Hartsch was a candidate of the SPD for the constituency 30 (Chemnitz-Zwickau) in the Reichstag voted, of which he was subsequently until June 1933rd The most important event in which Hartsch was involved during his time in parliament was the passage of the Enabling Act . Hartsch was one of 94 MPs who voted against this law, which formed the legal basis for the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, and which was passed with a majority of 444 to 94 votes.

After the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, Hartsch was removed from school service in April 1933 due to the law to restore the civil service. On May 3, 1933, he was arrested in Dresden and held until November 1934 as a “ protective prisoner ” in the Osterstein , Colditz and Sachsenburg concentration camps , among others . After his release, Hartsch was under constant police surveillance; his house was searched frequently. He initially earned his living as a sales and insurance agent, later as an employee of a publishing bookstore and a life insurance company.

After the war, Hartsch became school director in his Saxon homeland. As a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), he became a member of the first Saxon state parliament in the post-war period. From 1946 to April 1948, Hartsch was the first minister of culture in Saxony. In May 1948 Hartsch was appointed director of the Saxon State Library in Dresden, but was unable to take up this post due to a serious illness from which he died a few months later.

Today the Erwin-Hartsch-Oberschule in Gelenau / Erzgeb are remembering . and the Erwin-Hartsch-Grundschule in Gersdorf and the Erwin-Hartsch-Weg in Mylau on Hartsch's life and work.

literature

• Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
• Mike Schmeitzner : Tortured for insight? The SPD politician Erwin Hartsch and the "lessons of history" . In: ders., Gerhard Lindemann (Ed.): ... that's where we strike. Political violence in Saxony 1930–1935 (= Reports and Studies No. 78 of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism). V & R unipress, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8471-0934-1 , pp. 231-267.

Web links

• Erwin Hartsch in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Andreas Pehnke: Hartsch, Erwin Wilhelm . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation 1933-1945. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-5162-9 , p. 255.
2. ^ Karl Assmann: Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden, 1556-1956 , 1956, p. 83.