Franz Lütgenau

Franz Lütgenau (born October 25, 1857 in Rheindorf near Opladen , † April 26, 1931 ) was the first member of the Reichstag for the SPD in the Dortmund electoral district .

Life

Lütgenau was born on October 25, 1857 as the son of a teacher in Rheindorf near Opladen. He attended school in Rheindorf and Opladen and passed his Abitur at the Quirinus-Gymnasium in Neuss in 1875 . Lütgenau then studied philosophy and theology at the Münster Academy . After studying Romance languages , he continued his studies at the universities of Berlin and Bonn. In 1880 the doctorate to Dr. phil. and the state examination for the higher teaching post. This was followed by a legal clerkship and one year probationary year as a teacher in Elberfeld . After teaching for four years in Potsdam, he resigned from the civil service in 1885.

In the meantime, Franz Lütgenau had turned to socialism, for which he was henceforth agitated as a speaker, journalist and active politician.

Party career

In 1892 Lütgenau was a candidate for the Reichstag in Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Until 1893 he went on agitation trips as an active socialist in Thuringia and from 1893 he was editor-in-chief of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Arbeiterzeitung in Dortmund. In 1895 he became a member of the Reichstag . From winter 1895 to spring 1898 he represented the Hörde constituency as the first Social Democrat in the Ruhr area in the Reichstag . In 1894 he was chairman of the Westphalian Provincial Party Congress. He was also chairman of the SPD party congresses in Lütgenau (1896), Hörde (1897), Bochum (1898) and Hagen (1899). In 1898 he was dismissed without notice from his position as editor-in-chief, expelled from the party in 1899 and retired into private life. In 1901 he was involved in an embezzlement process that finally ended his political career. From then on he gave private language lessons and lived off odd jobs as a freelance journalist. Now he found time again for his literary inclinations.

Further life

In 1900 Lütgenau founded the Dortmund Association for Literature and Art , which he headed as chairman until 1928. In 1904 he was the responsible editor and publisher of the Westphalian Revue for intellectual life , especially for literature and art. The organ appeared every six months and was dedicated to the stage life of Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hagens and Elberfeld. He also reported on the theater life in Dortmund and Hagen in the Dortmund magazine and the reports from the Dortmund City and State Library.

In 1907, as a partner in the merchant Wilhelm Büring at Loki-Verlag , he brought out various print products: books, writings, cards, sheet music, works of art. In July 1913, Lütgenau and Ewald Reincke published the cultural magazine Westdeutsche Warte , which, due to the First World War, only had eight issues, and was co-founder and managing director of the Dortmund Adult Education Association, where he gave lectures and introduced theater events. In the war years he became a substitute teacher in Dortmund.

During the First World War, the Association for the Promotion of German Theater Culture was founded, to which he belonged as a member of the Westphalian Provincial Committee and head of two committees (advertising, schools) of the Dortmund local group. From 1919 he taught as a tenured senior teacher and finally as a school teacher in Dortmund. In 1920 he wrote a history textbook, which, however, was never published. So his retirement in 1923 still gave him the financial independence to devote himself to voluntary adult education, especially in the adult education center he co-founded in 1913.

When the political and economic situation revived the adult education center movement in 1927, he was again one of the initiators who campaigned for the revitalization of the adult education center. He was deputy chairman and from 1930 first chairman of the Dortmund Adult Education Center . During the Weimar Republic he was re-accepted into the party in which he worked in local politics until the end of the 1920s (member of the SPD's education committee for Greater Dortmund).

In 1927 he founded the Freie Volksbühne Dortmund eV, whose artistic committee he chaired. The managing director was Erich Grisar , who also took over the editing of the monthly books, in which the performances of the theater schedule were explained. Lütgenau died on April 26, 1931.

Lütgenau's grave is located in field 50 of the Dortmund main cemetery .

Web links

• Franz Lütgenau in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of Franz Luetgenau . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)
• Franz Lütgenau in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Hall: Franz Lütgenau. The first social democratic member of the Reichstag in the Ruhr area and founder of the Dortmund Adult Education Center . In: Contributions to the history of Dortmund and the county of Mark . Edited by the historical association for Dortmund and the county of Mark. Vol. 72. Verlag des Historisches Verein Dortmund, Dortmund 1980, pp. 109–162
• Bernd Faulenbach , Stefan Goch , Günther Högl, Karsten Rudolph , Uwe Schledorn: Social democracy in transition: the district of Western Westphalia 1893-2001 . 4th edition. Essen: Klartext, 2001 ISBN 3-89861-062-4 , p. 53