Georg Reuter (trade unionist)

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Georg Reuter (born June 24, 1902 in Gelsenkirchen-Rotthausen , † January 28, 1969 in Bad Salzuflen ) was a German trade unionist . Most recently, he was deputy chairman of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB).

Life

Reuter completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith after elementary school and then worked as a metal worker.

In 1918 he joined the socialist youth workers and the free trade union German metal workers' association . A year later he also became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Reuter worked full-time between 1923 and 1925 as managing director of the Association of Community and State Workers in Gelsenkirchen . After that he was the organization's district manager for the Rhineland until 1927. Then Reuter was secretary and board member of the entire board of employees in public companies and the movement of people and goods based in Berlin until 1933 .

In the course of the break-up of the unions , Reuter was fired. As a result, he was under police supervision and was arrested several times. His wife came from a Jewish family, and six of his relatives were murdered in concentration camps . Reuter made his way as an employee of two Swiss insurance companies. He was in contact with the resistance groups around Wilhelm Leuschner . In the last days of the Second World War he was drafted into the military.

Immediately after the liberation in 1945 he was involved in rebuilding the trade unions. He played a key role in founding the local trade unions in Straubing . The same applies to the local SPD. Reuter was elected second chairman of the Munich trade unions working group in 1946. After the formation of the Bavarian Trade Union Federation in the summer of the same year, he became its general secretary. He was also a member of the zone committee of the unions in the American zone of occupation and had been secretary of the trade union council based in Frankfurt am Main since 1948 . The Bavarian State Parliament appointed him a member of the Economic Council of the Bi-Zone . He was a member of this body from 1947 to 1949.

At the founding congress of the DGB in 1949, Reuter was elected deputy chairman. He was responsible for the management of the main administration as well as for organization and administration. Until 1952 he was also managing director of the union's own publishing house and member of the General Council of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions . At the second federal congress of the DGB he was confirmed in office as deputy chairman in 1952. At that time he was also involved in founding the North German Film Office. This company should promote the production of union-related films.

Reuter has also emerged politically. Before the federal election in 1953 he made it clear that the DGB wanted a change of government. In 1954 he was one of the initiators of the Paul Church Movement , which opposed the ratification of the Paris Treaties establishing NATO .

He was mentioned on various occasions as a candidate for the post of first chairman of the DGB and had corresponding ambitions himself. It didn't come to that. In 1956 Willi Richter was elected chairman. In 1959, Reuter no longer ran for the federal executive committee, officially for health reasons. Behind this, however, there were also longstanding internal power struggles, including with Willi Richter. He remained chairman of the board of trustees of the Foundation for Co-Determination based in Düsseldorf . He was also deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Rheinische Stahlwerke until 1968 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Großmann: Milieu conditions of persecution and resistance using the example of selected local SPD associations . In: Bavaria in the Nazi era. Vol. 5. The parties KPD, SPD, BVP in persecution and resistance . Munich, 1983 p. 463
  2. ↑ Josef Kaiser: A clear rejection. The DGB's appeal "For a better Bundestag" from 1953 was, from the point of view of the critics, a violation of the party-political neutrality of the Berliner Zeitung of June 13, 1998
  3. ↑ Manfred Görtemaker : History of the Federal Republic of Germany: from the foundation to the present. Munich, 1999, p. 190 f.
  4. ↑ Der Spiegel of September 2, 1959

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Reuter, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade union official
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelsenkirchen-Rotthausen
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1969
Place of death Bad Salzuflen