Georg Ledebour

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Georg Ledebour
Georg Ledebour (October 1931)

Georg Ledebour (born March 7, 1850 in Hanover , † March 31, 1947 in Bern ) was a socialist German politician and journalist.

Life

Ledebour completed a commercial apprenticeship, completed his military service during the war of 1870/71 as a medic and initially worked as a private teacher and later as a journalist. From 1876 to 1882 he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Berliner Blätter in London and then as editor of the left-liberal newspapers Democratic Sheets and the Berliner Volks-Zeitung . After his return to Germany he became involved in the Hirsch-Duncker trade associations and in 1882 joined the German Progressive Party . In 1886 he took part in the founding of the Democratic Party of Northern Germany , but in 1891 he switched to the SPD , where he soon belonged to the left wing and worked until 1900 first in the editorial office of Vorwärts and then the Saxon workers' newspaper in Dresden. From 1900 to 1918 he was a member of the Reichstag and was active as a freelance author and party speaker. Since 1913 he was a member of the SPD parliamentary group executive. In 1905 he was one of the harsh critics of the crimes against the Herero in the German colonies. In December 1905, Ledebour read parts of General von Trotha's decree of October 2, 1904 in the Reichstag : Every Herero should be shot; It also said: "I no longer take women or children (listen! listen! to the Social Democrats), drive them back to their people or have them shot at."

Group photograph at the end of 1919 with members of the USPD party executive and other prominent representatives of the Independent Social Democrats on the occasion of a visit by Friedrich Adler (fourth from left), a leading representative of Austrian social democracy. Among those pictured: Arthur Crispien , Wilhelm Dittmann , Friedrich Adler, Richard Lipinski , Wilhelm Bock , Alfred Henke , Curt Geyer , Fritz Zubeil , Hugo Haase , Fritz Kunert , Georg Ledebour, Arthur Stadthagen , Emanuel Wurm

During the First World War , the antimilitarist Ledebour took part in the conferences in Zimmerwald and Stockholm and stood within the SPD on the side of the opponents of the war and the truce policy , which split off or were excluded between 1915 and 1917. Ledebour joined the Social Democratic Working Group around Hugo Haase in 1916 and was a founding member of the USPD in 1917 . Ledebour was a member of its executive committee until 1919 and was one of the few politicians who belonged to the circle of revolutionary chairmen . In January 1918 he was a member of the strike leadership of the January strike .

During the November Revolution he served as a member of the Executive Council of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils in Greater Berlin and was one of the leaders of the Independents at the 1st Reich Council Congress in December 1918. From the very beginning of the revolution, Ledebour was a bitter opponent of any cooperation between the independents and the leaders of the majority Social Democrats , whom he regarded as traitors to the revolution. So he refused the place offered to him in the Council of People's Representatives and also turned against the participation of the USPD faction in the elections for the Central Council of the German Socialist Republic at the Reichsrätekongress , whereby he prevailed with this demand against the party leader Haase. In January 1919 he called for the Spartacus uprising and was a leading member of the Revolutionary Committee. After the rebellion was put down, he was arrested and charged with rioting, but acquitted in June of the same year. As chairman of the USPD he sat again in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1924 , but spoke out against the unification of the USPD with only the KPD or the SPD and for the unity of all revolutionary forces. He also turned against the USPD joining the Communist International .

After most of the USPD members had merged with the KPD (late 1920, see also VKPD ) and the SPD (September 1922), Ledebour continued to run the rest of the USPD together with Theodor Liebknecht until the end of 1923 , after a dispute with him about the Ruhr occupation , where the majority of Liebknecht's revolutionary defeatism , the minority to Ledebour the KPD slogan "Beat Poincaré on the Ruhr and Cuno propagated on the Spree!" Ledebour end of 1923 left the party and led a secession, the Socialist Federation until 1931 continued. In the second half of the 1920s, Ledebour was also involved in leading organizations of the KPD such as the World League against Imperialism and the International Workers Aid (IAH). In autumn 1931 he joined the newly founded Socialist Workers 'Party of Germany (SAP), which unsuccessfully tried to get him into discussion as a unity candidate for all workers' parties for the 1932 presidential election .

In 1933 he fled from the National Socialists to Switzerland , where he was active as a journalist against National Socialism . From there he spoke in 1946 for the merger of the SPD and KPD to form the SED . Shortly afterwards he died very old after a long stay in a sanatorium.

literature

  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
  • Minna Ledebour (ed.): Georg Ledebour, man and fighters. Europa-Verlag, Zurich 1954, OCLC 13170567 .
  • Ursula Ratz: Georg Ledebour, 1850–1947. Way and work of a socialist politician. de Gruyter, Berlin 1969, OCLC 4064121 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Negotiations of the Reichstag, 5th session, December 2, 1905, p. 91.
personal data
SURNAME Ledebour, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politicians (DFP, USPD, SADP, SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1947
Place of death Bern