Fritz Erler

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US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (right) in conversation with SPD parliamentary group leader Fritz Erler (left) and West Berlin's Governing Mayor Willy Brandt (SPD) on April 13, 1965 in Arlington, Virginia, USA

Fritz Erler (* 14. July 1913 in Berlin , † 22. February 1967 in Pforzheim ) was a German SPD - politician . He was considered an expert on defense issues and at times as a possible candidate for chancellor of the party.

Education and work, family

Memorial plaque on the house, Chodowieckistraße 17, in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg

Fritz Erler attended high school up to high school. He then worked as an administrative clerk at the Berlin city administration. As a part-time job, he worked for the legal weekly in the area of ​​tax law.

From 1939 to 1945 he was serving as a political prisoner , a prison sentence , coupled with forced labor in Emslandlager Aschendorfermoor .

In the subsequent professional transition period he was district administrator in Biberach and Tuttlingen from 1945 before he was elected to the first Bundestag in 1949 and then became a professional politician.

In 1938 Fritz Erler married Käthe Erler (née Wiegand; * October 22, 1912 Berlin, † October 3, 2006 Pforzheim), who was a councilor in Pforzheim from 1965 to 1987, where the Erler family had their residence at Friedensstrasse 8 since 1953. The children of Fritz and Käthe Erler are the family researcher, entrepreneur and Baden-Württemberg State Councilor Gisela Erler and the sons Hans Erler and Wolfgang Erler.

Political party

Until 1945

As a teenager, Erler became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth in 1928 , whose Prenzlauer Berg district he had headed since 1931, and a little later also the SPD. He joined the opposition to the SPD executive committee " New Beginning ". Excluded from the SPD and the SAJ in the early days of National Socialism in April 1933 after political differences, he worked illegally for this group until his arrest in 1938.

After working in the resistance , he was released from civil service in 1938 and sentenced to ten years in prison, combined with forced labor, in 1939. Erler served this sentence together with Hans Glaser in the Emsland camp Aschendorfermoor (from January 1940), in the Rodgau-Dieburg prison camp in the main camp I in Dieburg (from December 1940) and in the Kassel-Wehlheiden prison (from spring 1941). He was able to escape on one of the notorious “death marches” in the direction of the Dachau concentration camp and hide in southern Germany for the last weeks of the war.

According to his denazification file, Erler stated that they wanted to force him to join the NSDAP . In this file there is the information that such an entry was requested on May 1, 1937. This application was rejected in 1939.

After 1945

In 1945 Erler participated in the reconstruction of the SPD. In the mid-1950s, Erler made contact with the GVP of Helene Wessel and Gustav Heinemann and thus laid the foundation for the later transfer of the majority of their members when the Christian- pacifist party dissolved in 1957. Erler belonged with Carlo Schmid , Herbert Wehner and Willy Brandt to the “breakfast cartel” of the SPD, which prevailed until 1958 with its ideas of a party reform.

In 1961 he was under discussion as the SPD candidate for chancellor, but waived in favor of Willy Brandt , who accepted him into the government team presented by party leader Erich Ollenhauer at the party congress on November 25, 1960 in Hanover . Erler was also a member of the government team for the 1965 Bundestag election campaign presented at the party congress in Karlsruhe in November 1964 . He was planned as Federal Defense Minister.

Offices

Activity as district administrator

From 1945 to 1946 Erler worked as a district administrator in Biberach . From July 1947 to June 1949 he held the same office in Tuttlingen as the successor to Erich Schariry . His nomination as Tuttling District Administrator in 1947 was accompanied by a campaign by the CDU , DVP and former National Socialists against him. According to Jean Lucien Estrade, the district commissioner of the French military government , after the experiences with the politically dodgy district administrator Eduard Quintenz and with Shariry had been rather disappointing, Erler was able to "whip up the district office" so that he could also "as excellent organizer, intelligent and very active ”impressed. Erler left office in June 1949 in order to organize the SPD election campaign for the 1949 federal election in his constituency.

MP

Intermediate question at the 1st reading of the Paris Treaties (1954)

In 1946 Erler became a member of the advisory state assembly and in 1947 a member of the state parliament in Württemberg-Hohenzollern . In 1949 he moved into the German Bundestag , which he was a member of until his death in 1967 , as a member of parliament that was always elected from his party's state list . He became known there in the debates for his sharp contributions to the recent German past. He recommended to the alleged followers of National Socialism, who were now striving for political leadership positions: “Whoever comes along cannot lead.” In the Bundestag he was primarily concerned with defense-political issues and headed the relevant parliamentary group working group from 1953 until he took office as parliamentary group chairman.

From 1949 to 1953 he was deputy chairman of the Bundestag committee to take part in the consultation of the EVG contract and the related agreements, from 1950 to 1952 he was deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee of inquiry to review the contracts awarded in the Bonn area. From 1953 to 1957 Erler was Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Bundestag . In the 1950s he was one of the SPD's defense and foreign policy experts and, thanks to his talent for rhetoric, became one of the most important speakers for the opposition in the debates about Adenauer's foreign, defense and Germany policy, often as a counterpart to Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Franz Josef Strauss . As brilliant as his argumentation was, he could not prevent Adenauer's policy of ties to the West. This was also clearly confirmed by the population in two federal elections, 1953 and 1957 .

From 1950 he was a delegate of the Council of Europe and from 1955 he was also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) , where he was chairman of the Defense Committee in 1956.

Since 1957 Erler was deputy group chairman. After Erich Ollenhauer's death on December 14, 1963, on March 3, 1964, he was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and thus leader of the opposition to Chancellor Ludwig Erhard .

In 1965 Erler fell ill with cancer, so that from the late 1966 onwards he could no longer carry out his business. Helmut Schmidt became the executive chairman of the parliamentary group . When the grand coalition of CDU / CSU and SPD was installed on December 1, 1966, Erler was already too ill to be able to take on a ministerial office. His death on February 22, 1967 was a heavy loss for the SPD, because the person who died at the age of 53 had been a great hope for the future. After Willy Brandt's declaration on the day after the 1965 federal election that he would no longer be available as a candidate for chancellor in 1969, he was considered a potential candidate for the SPD.

Two days after his death, the parliament honored Fritz Erler with a memorial service in the plenary hall . On February 28, 1967, he was buried with a state funeral in the main cemetery in Pforzheim . The funeral service took place in the Protestant castle church of St. Michael in Pforzheim.

Honors

Eugen Gerstenmaier presents Erler with the Great Federal Cross of Merit with a star and shoulder ribbon

According to Erler, the Fritz-Erler barracks in Rothwesten near Kassel , where the currency reform was discussed and prepared by Allied and German financial experts during the currency conclave in 1948 , and streets in various cities, e.g. B. in Berlin, Bonn , Bremen , Frankfurt am Main , Karlsruhe , Leverkusen or Munich , also in Ittersbach (municipality of Karlsbad ) the old water reservoir restored as a park ("Fritz-Erler-Höhe").

Likewise, in the city of Kreuztal, a high-rise housing estate built in the late 1960s, whose foundation stone was laid on February 22, 1968, the first anniversary of his death, bears the name Fritz-Erler-Siedlung . The commercial, social and home economics vocational school in Tuttlingen has been called Fritz Erlers since 2008, and a school in Pforzheim . On May 15, 1971 the newly built youth home in Gelsenkirchen- Hassel was named after Fritz Erler (Fritz-Erler-Haus, Am Freistuhl 4)

On May 23, 1965, he received the Federal Cross of Merit with a star and shoulder ribbon.

In November 2016, on the initiative of the residents, a memorial plaque was attached to the house where Fritz Erler was born in Chodowieckistraße 17 / 17a in Berlin .

estate

The main part of the Erler estate has been in the Archive of Social Democracy (AdsD) of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation since 1971 .

Works

  • Democracy and armed power. In: trade union monthly books , vol. 5, issue 6, June 1954, ISSN  0016-9447 , pp. 355-361, online .
  • It should be all of Germany. In: Berlin Voice , from December 4, 1954, ISSN  0405-5721 .
  • Thoughts on the politics and internal order of the social democracy. In: The New Society. Vol. 5, Issue 1, 1958, ISSN  0028-3177 , pp. 3-8, here pp. 7 ff.
  • Democracy, authority and leadership. In: Die Neue Gesellschaft Vol. 10, Issue 2, 1963, pp. 85-89.
  • Democracy in Germany. Seewald, Stuttgart 1965.
  • Parties, parliament and government in a pluralistic society. In: Klaus Dieter Arndt (Ed.): Mündige Gesellschaft. The SPD on the future of the nation. Dietz, Hannover, 1967, pp. 77-86.

literature

  • Walter Henkels : 99 heads from Bonn. Revised and supplemented edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1965, pp. 89f.
  • Hartmut Soell : Fritz Erler. A political biography (= International Library. Vol. 100-101). 2 volumes. Dietz, Berlin et al. 1976, ISBN 3-8012-1100-2 (vol. 1), ISBN 3-8012-1101-0 (vol. 2), (also: Heidelberg, Universität, habilitation thesis, 1974).
  • Hans-Rainer Sandvoss (Red.): Resistance 1933–1945. Volume 12: Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: Resistance in Prenzlauer Berg and Weissensee. German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-926082-03-8 , (description of Erler's activities in the anti-fascist resistance ).

Web links

Commons : Fritz Erler  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 150 years of the SPD, vorwärts extra 2/2013, pp. 86–87
  2. ^ Renate Faerber-Husemann: School for Life - in Hell! Fritz Erler, the moor soldier in the Aschendorfermoor concentration camp . In: Forward extra: 150 years of the SPD , year 2013, No. 2, pp. 86–87.
  3. ↑ Heinz Sirian: The Rollwald camp , article on the website www.lagerrollwald.de of the Association for Multinational Understanding Rodgau eV , Rollwald working group , accessed on June 27, 2016.
  4. ↑ Hartmut Soell : Fritz Erler , Vol. 1 (International Library, Vol. 100), JHW ​​Dietz Nachf., Berlin, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1976, pp. 52–63, ISBN 3-8012-1100-2 .
  5. ↑ See Erler's denazification files in the denazification files of the Spruchkammer Biberach as a digital reproduction in the online offer of the Sigmaringen State Archives (accessed on May 18, 2016).
  6. ^ Jean Lucien Estrade: "Tuttlingen April 1945 - September 1949". The French military government in Tuttlingen. Administrative, political, social and economic events in the Tuttlingen district in the post-war period as reflected in the activity report of the French "governor". History association for the Tuttlingen district c / o Landratsamt - Kreisarchiv, Tuttlingen 1990, ISBN 3-9801601-3-0 , pp. 39–46, both quotations on p. 40.
  7. ↑ Turned the page back ... In: Siegener Zeitung , March 5, 2011.
  8. ↑ Information from the Federal President's Office
  9. ↑ Stefan Strauss: Embarrassing honor for Fritz Erler , In: Berliner Zeitung , November 24, 2016. Belated installation of the memorial plaque in memory of Fritz Erler , press release of the Pankow district office of November 24, 2016.
  10. ↑ www.fes.de , FES online catalog
personal data
SURNAME Erler, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL, MdB
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1967
Place of death Pforzheim