Franz Stöhr (politician, 1879)

Franz Stöhr

Franz Xaver Stöhr (born November 19, 1879 in Weiten Trebetitsch , Böhmen; † November 13, 1938 in Schneidemühl ) was a German functionary of the German National Sales Aid Association and National Socialist parties, politician and member of the Reichstag.

Life

Stöhr was born in 1879 as the son of master saddler Karl Stöhr and his wife Franziska Voit. Up to the age of 16, Stöhr attended elementary, community and middle schools. He then worked for several years as an invoice clerk , correspondent and accountant in various companies in industry and trade. He also performed three years of military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army .

In January 1903, Stöhr moved from Bohemia to Saxony, where he joined the German National Trade Aid Association (DHV). From 1906 he worked full-time as a social politician at DHV in Hamburg , and later until 1918 as managing director in Chemnitz . Stöhr also joined the anti - Semitic German Social Party .

At the outbreak of the First World War , in which he was deployed as a sergeant in the Austro-Hungarian Army in Italy and Serbia, he was district chief of the DHV for Thuringia in Erfurt. After the war he returned to this post for a year. He then became managing director of the DHV in Vienna for the Gau Ostmark and in Munich for the Gau Brandenburg-Pomerania. From 1921 to 1925 he was head of the DHV-Gaus Brandenburg-Pommern, based in Berlin. Most recently he worked as a union publisher and editor of the Brandenburgische Wacht .

On May 4, 1924 Stoehr moved as Thuringian leading candidate of the National Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFP) in the Reichstag one, which he then on until his death, initially for the Deutschvolkische Freedom Party (DVFB) as part of the NSFP, then for the National Socialist German Workers' Party , continuously belonged (until 1930 for constituency 12 - Thuringia, from then on for constituency 11 - Merseburg).

As a member of the DVFB, Stöhr spoke primarily on issues of labor and social policy and, as a DHV functionary, mainly represented the interests of employees in parliament. Stöhr advocated the eight-hour day , an expansion of co-determination rights and a professionally organized unemployment insurance , whereby he assumed that the unemployed, especially workers, no longer tried to find a new job if the support payments were too high. The historian Martin Döring According founded Stöhr the expansion of participation as "a characteristic mixture paternalistic -konservativer, corporative and 'socialist' arguments". A “socialist” position was represented “only for a short period and to a very limited extent,” said Döring. In February 1927, Stöhr left the DVFB in a dispute over a program geared more towards the interests of the workers. He accused the DVFB leader Albrecht von Graefe of lacking understanding for the workers' problems. Stöhr joined the NSDAP in March 1927.

From May 1924 Stöhr was managing director of the respective faction or group of Völkisch or National Socialists in the Reichstag. After Wilhelm Frick was appointed Minister of Thuringia in January 1930, Stöhr actually led the NSDAP group in the Reichstag. Since 1929 he was the publisher and editor of the party official press service National Socialist Press Correspondence . Stöhr confessed to similar positions as Otto Strasser . When Strasser left the NSDAP in July 1930, Stöhr remained in the party and signed a declaration of loyalty in favor of Hitler .

After the National Socialists' success in the Reichstag elections in September 1930 , Stöhr was elected Vice President of the Reichstag on October 15, 1930. It received a majority with 288 of 534 votes cast (with 577 members of the Reichstag, one vote less than the majority of members). Stöhr's behavior during the few meetings he chaired is described as correct and neutral. Within the NSDAP, Stöhr was probably selected for the office of Vice President because of his parliamentary-administrative qualifications and his reputation in the DHV. At the DHV General Assembly in August 1930, Stöhr was received with an ovation. In the course of a boycott of the Reichstag by the National Socialists, Stöhr resigned as Vice President on February 10, 1931. He staged this boycott himself by standing in front of the microphone on the occasion of a budget debate in the Reichstag:

“[I] warn the German and world public (shouts in the center and among the Social Democrats: Hear! Hear! - International finance capital!) To take this Parliament and its decisions seriously. The day will come, and very soon, when you will be given the receipt you deserve for your shameless behavior! We leave the hall to protest against your actions. "

Led by Stöhr, the members of the NSDAP left the meeting, shouting "Heil!" And chanting the Horst Wessel song .

In November 1932, Stöhr was deposed as managing director of the parliamentary group because he was made responsible for embezzling a parliamentary group employee.

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " from May 1933 to 1934 Stöhr headed the Office for Social Issues in the German Labor Front (DAF). From 1934 Stöhr was Lord Mayor of the Prussian provincial capital Schneidemühl in the border region of Posen-West Prussia .

literature

• Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform: the members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the Volkish and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924 . Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 649 f .

Web links

• Franz Stöhr in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Döring: "Parliamentary arm of the movement." The National Socialists in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. (= Contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties, Volume 130) Droste, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-7700-5237-4 , pp. 193-200.
2. ^ Reimer Wulff: The German National Freedom Party 1922–1928. Hochschulschrift, Marburg 1968, pp. 150–153.
3. ^ Döring, Parlamentarischer Arm , pp. 220-223.
4. ↑ Döring, Parliamentary Arm , p. 273.
5. ^ Weimar Reichstag, 5th electoral period, 20./21. Meeting on February 9, 1931. Minutes p. 827
6. ↑ Döring, Parlamentarischer Arm , pp. 272 ​​f, 280, 347.