Fritz Wildung

Fritz Wildung (born December 19, 1872 in Tewel , † September 23, 1954 in Berlin ) was a German politician and sports official . He was the father of the later Bundestag President Annemarie Renger .

Life

Wildung came from Tewel in the Lüneburg Heath . He attended the local village school and earned his first living at the age of eight by looking after sheep. After school he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Soltau .

At the turn of the century, Wildung went to Berlin. There he was one of the founders of the TV Fichte Berlin gymnastics club and joined a trade union . From 1893 he attended the evening courses at the workers' education school in Berlin, of which he became second chairman. In 1907 he took over the function of the chief editor of the Arbeiter-Turnzeitung, the federal organ of the ATB in Leipzig. He held this office until 1922. His article Call for Disobedience in the Forward , with which he turned against the Reichsvereingesetz, led to an indictment against him, which, however, ended with an acquittal before the Reichsgericht .

From 1920 to 1923 he was head of the first city office for physical exercise in Leipzig. In 1924 the family moved back to Berlin because Fritz Wildung had taken over the office of Secretary General of the Central Commission for Sport and Personal Care .

After the "seizure of power" by the National Socialists , Wildung was arrested and interrogated several times. Later he was required to report to the police. After the dissolution of the Central Commission, Wildung became unemployed and lost all functions in workers' sport and politics. Later he was offered a position in the “Sport” department by the Nazis. However, he refused this, even though it had serious negative effects on the economic situation of his family, who later had to live on unemployment benefits alone.

After 1945 he moved to his old home in Soltau. Wildung played a key role in building up the sport in the years that followed. In 1946, when the SPD was re-established in Hanover, at the age of 74, he became a sports officer for the SPD and had been a member of the National Olympic Committee since 1949 . He was later made an honorary member of the NOK and the DFB . Fritz Wildung died on September 23, 1954 in Berlin.

Since the mid-1920s, despite the different basic political orientations, a friendly relationship had developed between Wildung and Carl Diem , which continued throughout the Nazi era.

He was married to Martha Wildung (* 1881). Both had seven children, including Annemarie Renger , President of the German Bundestag. Three sons died in World War II .

Appreciation

Wildung was a staunch Social Democrat and Republican. According to his daughter, Annemarie Renger, Wildung was always drawn into "big politics" and less to sport. However, he has remained faithful to his duties in the German workers' sports, "because the was convinced with this" physical culture "could be socio-political and spiritual-political help the broad masses of working people to self-confidence and active political participation." In Wildungs occurred initiative In 1926 the establishment of a Reichstag committee to promote physical exercise.

Honors

• The German Sports Association has been awarding the Fritz Wildung plaque since 1980 . It honors clubs or associations that have built an exemplary model of social help in or through sport. In addition, the association receives a bonus of 2500 euros.
• In 1968, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Lochowdamm at the sports facilities in Berlin-Wilmersdorf was renamed Fritz-Wildung-Straße .
• The Fritz-Wildung Street in Bremen - Vegesack was named after him.
• In 2016 included in the honorary portal of the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History .

Works

Wildung was the author of the first comprehensive publication on workers' sport (1929), which also appeared in an edition in the book club Der Bücherkreis in 1931 . The book Workers' Sports was banned in 1933.

He was one of the founders of the Iron Front and wrote a battle song for it.

literature

• Oliver Kersten: A life for German workers' sport. The sports official and nature lover Fritz Wildung (1872–1954) . In: NaturfreundIn , 2008, no. 4, p. 24.
• Michael Ruck : Wildung, Friedrich Wilhelm (called Fritz) (1872–1954) . In: A. Thomas Lane et al. a. (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders , Volume 2. Westport CT / London 1995, ISBN 0-313-29900-5 , pp. 1037-1038.
• Fritz Wildung . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Volume 1. Hannover 1960, pp. 335-336.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arnd Krüger : The German way of worker sports . In: Arnd Krüger , James Riordan (Ed.): The Story of Worker Sport . Human Kinetics, Champaign IL 1996, ISBN 0-87322-874-X , pp. 1-25.
2. ↑ Information from the DOSB on the badge , accessed on March 5, 2013.
3. ^ Fritz-Wildung-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )