Georg Flatow

Georg Flatow (born November 2, 1889 in Berlin ; died in October 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German ministerial official and labor lawyer . He played a key role in the development of the Works Council Act of 1920, the forerunner of today's Works Constitution Act . In 1933 he was dismissed from service as a social democrat and a Jew. During the Third Reich he worked as an escape helper for other threatened Jews and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

Stolperstein in Niklasstrasse

Life

Youth and Studies

Georg Flatow was the son of the linen merchant Robert Flatow and his wife Minna Flatow, nee Goldberg. Flatow attended the Königsstädtische Gymnasium from 1896 to 1908 and passed the Abitur there. He then studied law at the universities of Berlin and Munich ; in Heidelberg he received his doctorate in 1914. Between 1915 and 1917 Flatow did his military service .

Ministerial official and labor lawyer

After being appointed public prosecutor in Berlin, he joined the new Reich government as a private secretary from December 1918 to March 1919 and then worked as an assessor in the Reich Ministry of Economics until May 1919 .

During his time as Councilor in the Ministry of Labor (May 1919-October 1922) is Flatow brought in labor and was instrumental in the development of the legal framework of the councils Act of 1920, the forerunner of today's industrial relations law involved. The introduction of the law led during the second reading on January 13, 1920 to what was probably the bloodiest demonstration in German history , which ended with several deaths, innumerable injuries and the declaration of a state of emergency by Friedrich Ebert . As an employee of the Social Democratic Minister, Flatow, together with Otto Kahn-Freund, became the leading commentator on the law, which was of central importance for the work of the works councils . Flatow was also a leading commentator on the Labor Court Act of 1926.

Until his suspension in the course of the law for the “restoration of the professional civil service” in April 1933, Flatow was still employed as a ministerial advisor in the Prussian Ministry of Trade and Industry. Flatow's appointment as associate professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin was thwarted by the transfer of power to the National Socialists .

Emigration and refugee aid

During the November pogroms Georg Flatow was arrested on 9 November 1938 and deported him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . He, his wife Hedwig Helene, née Wiener (born September 6, 1882 in Berlin; † 1944 in Auschwitz) and daughter Betty Ilse (born October 20, 1919 in Berlin) succeeded in emigrating to Amsterdam in February 1939 . The Flatow family got involved in setting up the Werkdorp Wieringermeer (Nieuwesluis) emigration camp and helped many Jews to flee to Palestine .

Three years after the German occupation of the Netherlands, he and his wife were arrested and deported in 1943 . He was first taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , from where he was transferred to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1944 . Georg Flatow and his wife were deported from there to the Auschwitz extermination camp on October 12, 1944 , and were probably murdered shortly afterwards.

memories

Memorial plaque on Hedwig-und-Georg-Flatow-Platz

Before his residence from 1929 at Niklasstrasse 5 in Berlin in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district , stumbling blocks have been remembering him, his wife Hedwig and daughter Ilse since 2014 . In addition, on October 12, 2014, the nearby Hedwig-und-Georg-Flatow-Platz was named after them. A plaque on this place reminds of both lives.

Works

• The concept of pamphlets, periodical pamphlets and correspondence according to §§ 2, 3, 7, 13 Reichspreßgesetz . Berlin: 1914 (dissertation)
• Prisoner of War memo book . Together with Hermann Dersch and Fritz Harold Cohn. Berlin: Society and Education 1919
• Basics of the Prussian administration in municipality, district and province . Berlin: Society u. Upbringing in 1919
• The socio-political achievements of the revolution . Berlin: Socialist monthly issues 1919
• The law of the transition period Berlin: Society and education 1919
• Commentary on the Works Council Act, including election regulations and the most important implementation provisions of the Reich and the Länder . Berlin: Forward 1920.
• Commentary on the ordinance on measures to be taken against business interruptions and shutdowns, along with the execution instructions Berlin: Vorwärts, 1920
• New ordinance on the recruitment and dismissal of workers and employees of February 12, 1920 as well as the law on the employment of severely disabled persons of April 6, 1920 . Stuttgart: Hess 1920
• Company agreement and work regulations Mannheim: J. Bensheimer 1921
• The basics of arbitration . Berlin: FHW Dietz Nachf. 1923
• The case law of the Reichsgericht on labor law . Edited by Hermann Dersch, Georg Flatow, Alfred Hueck and Hans Carl Nipperdey.
  • Volume 1: The collective labor law and the employment contract law from 1919-1926 . 1926
  • Volume 2: The collective labor law and the employment contract law from 1926-1928 . 1929
• Basic questions of labor law. 5 lectures by Hugo Sinzheimer, Georg Flatow, Heinz Potthoff, Clemens Nörpel and Lutz Richter . Edited by Gertrud Hermes. Berlin: Publishing company of the General German Trade Union Confederation 1927
• Labor Court Act of December 23, 1926, together with the Ordinance on Compensation for Employers and Employees, Owners of Labor Court Authorities of June 24, 1927 and the Act on Amending the Works Council Act of February 28, 1928 . Berlin: Julius Springer, 1928 (with Richard Joachim)
• Before choosing a career Together with Deutschkron, Gerson et al. Berlin: Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany, Dept. of Jewish Book Publishers 1938

literature

• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 2: Social politicians in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism 1919 to 1945. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7376-0474-1 , p. 50 f. ( Online , PDF; 3.9 MB).
• Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 92.
• Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Vol.1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur 1980, p. 180.
• Dieter G. Maier, Jürgen Nürnberger: Georg and Hedwig Flatow: For employee rights and social welfare . Leipzig 2020. (Jewish miniatures; 252). ISBN 978-3-95565-386-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dirk Jordan , Schlachtensee
2. ↑ Tagesspiegel , Dirk Jordan: Zehlendorf: Stolperstein for Georg Flatow - The Nazis and the Worker Friend , October 9, 2014.
3. ^ Georg Flatow in the Federal Archives , accessed October 16, 2014.
4. ↑ Axel Weipert: Before the gates of power. The demonstration in front of the Reichstag on January 13, 1920. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume 11, Issue 2, Verlag NDZ, Berlin 2012, ISSN  1610-093X , p. 16.
5. ↑ Berliner Woche ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Ulrike Martin: In memory of the Flatows - naming and laying of stumbling blocks , October 6, 2014. 
6. ^ Steglitz-Zehlendorf: Place is named after Hedwig and Georg Flatow. Berliner Morgenpost , June 1, 2014, accessed on August 17, 2015 . 
7. ↑ Naming of a place after Hedwig and Georg Flatow on October 12th, 2014. In: Press release No. 577 of October 7, 2014. Berlin.de, accessed on August 17, 2015 .