Ferdinand Mertins

Ferdinand Mertins (born April 6, 1864 in Schmalleningken , † April 2, 1943 in Königsberg ) was a German politician ( USPD , SPD ).

Life

After attending elementary school, Mertins completed an apprenticeship as a shoemaker. He became involved in the East Prussian labor movement, joined the SPD and had been the party's shop steward for the Gumbinnen constituency since 1892. From 1910 to 1917 he worked as a travel agent for the people's newspaper in Königsberg, where he was also a member of the party executive. He graduated from the Social Democratic Reich Party School and ran unsuccessfully for the Reichstag in the 1912 Reichstag election .

Mertins left the SPD in 1917 and became a member of the USPD, for which he worked from 1917 to 1919 as party secretary. During this time he also worked as an editor for the USPD newspapers Die Volksstimme and Freiheit in Königsberg. In April 1919 he took part as a delegate at the Second Council Congress in Berlin . From 1919 to 1933 he worked full-time as a trade union secretary in Königsberg. In 1927 he became deputy chairman of the provincial cartel of the East Prussian trade unions.

Mertins was a city councilor in Königsberg from 1918 to 1933, was elected to the city council in 1921 and was later head of the city council. He was elected to the Prussian state parliament in February 1921 as a member of the USPD . In autumn 1922 he returned to the SPD with the merger of the USPD and MSPD . He was a member of the state parliament without interruption until the end of the fourth legislative period in 1933. In parliament he represented constituency 1 (Königsberg).

During the Nazi era he was retired and monitored.

literature

• Ernst Kienast (edit.): Handbook for the Prussian Landtag. Edition for the 3rd electoral term. R. v. Decker's Verlag (G. Schenck), Berlin 1928. P. 563.
• Herrmann AL Degener (Ed.): Who is it? - Our contemporaries. IX. Output. Verlag Herrmann Degener, Leipzig 1928. P. 1039.

Web links

• Biography of Ferdinand Mertins . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP)
• Biography of Ferdinand Mertins . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Database Social Democratic Members of the Reichstag and Reichstag candidates 1898-1918 (BIOKAND)