Georg Wagner (politician)

Georg Wagner (born January 22, 1867 in Militsch ; † May 30, 1935 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German doctor and active in local politics in various parties of the labor movement. During the November Revolution , he was briefly district administrator of the district of Hanau .

Beginnings

Georg Wagner studied medicine . First he practiced in Marburg , in 1893 he moved to Hanau . He was a member of the union and its medical officer . He also campaigned against the housing shortage of workers in Hanau. In terms of party politics, he was initially active in the SPD , later, after its founding, he switched to the USPD . In 1917 he became a member of the Hanau city ​​council , to which he belonged until 1933.

November Revolution

When imperial Germany collapsed after the lost war during the November Revolution, workers 'and soldiers' councils (ASR) were formed, also in Hanau on November 8, 1918, under the leadership of Friedrich Schnellbacher and Georg Wagner. In a speech that Wagner gave on November 9, 1918 on the Hanau market square , he set the “socialist republic” and the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as his goal. At that time, Wagner was parliamentary group leader of the USPD in the city council. The ASR in Hanau initially selected Georg Wagner as its "consultant" and appointed him district administrator and police director of the Hanau district on November 11, 1918, after the previous district administrator, Carl Christian Schmid , had been declared deposed on November 8, 1918. But since Wagner had no administrative experience, the ASR placed the previous district administrator under his control. This defended himself against the disempowerment - as soon as the political situation allowed it again - by moving the official business of the district committee to Frankfurt am Main and from there sought to disempower the ASR. In January 1919, the district council (still in its old composition) voted for Schmid as district administrator. The SPD-led Reich government did not support the ASR either. For the 15./16. On January 1st, 1919 Schmid and the command of the 18th Army stationed in Bad Nauheim had prepared a military intervention in Hanau, which could only be prevented at the last moment. Because of the political situation that was becoming more and more hopeless for him, Georg Wagner resigned his official duties as district administrator on January 16, 1919.

After Hanau was occupied by the military on February 20, 1919, Georg Wagner was arrested . On January 29, 1919 Schmid was reappointed district administrator. Georg Wagner remained until March 17, 1919 in custody, was in front of the Marburg Regional Court for breach of the peace charged , but acquitted on 8 August 1919th

Weimar Republic

During the Weimar Republic , Georg Wagner continued to be active in local politics in Hanau. In the city council he was particularly committed to solving the housing shortage. He and his entire parliamentary group moved to the KPD in May 1919 . In the local elections in 1920 he was the top candidate of the KPD in Hanau. When this became too radical and politically incapable for him and others, he formed his own communist group, which initially shared the views of Paul Levi and wanted to get involved in the structures of the Weimar Republic instead of eliminating them in a revolutionary way. When Paul Levi turned back to the USPD, however, the group around Paul Wagner did not take part. In the local elections in 1924, the group around Georg Wagner entered Hanau as a separate list and was represented in the city council. The group's own name was probably “ Hanau Communist Party ”. It was only active at the local level and also published its own newspaper: Freiheit. Communist weekly paper . Georg Wagner served temporarily as a city ​​councilor in Hanau and belonged to a number of committees and specialist bodies. His membership in the finance committee, in the commissions for health, for the " electric train " and for a forest recreation center, the public debt deputation and a board of trustees for a lung sanatorium is well known.

When the NSDAP came to power in 1933, political activity was no longer possible for him. He is said to have been deported to a concentration camp in early March 1933 . On May 30, 1935, he committed suicide in the Jewish Hospital in Frankfurt am Main and was buried in the main cemetery in Hanau ; the entry in the cemetery book was later deleted.

family

Georg Wagner was married to Bertha Lilienstein († 1918 in Hanau). They had two sons:

• Hans Justus Wagner (born May 25, 1897, † March 18, 1935, also suicide) also became a doctor. On May 16, 1929, he married Milly Neumann in Frankfurt (* January 27, 1908, † March 18, 1935 through joint suicide with her husband). Their child was Heinz Günter Wagner (* May 18, 1933, † February 2, 1934 during the parents' first joint suicide attempt).
• Friedrich Wagner (born May 8, 1898 in Hanau; † February 10, 1941) lived in Marburg, was abducted to the former Brandenburg prison on October 1, 1940 , and murdered there as part of the "euthanasia program ".

literature

• Herbert Broghammer: Urns are not silent. Life fates of Jewish medical families between the German Empire and National Socialism . Aachen 2004. ISBN 3-8322-2767-9
• Georg-Wilhelm Hanna (edit.): The district of Hanau and its district administrators . Ed .: Kreissparkasse Hanau . Hanau 1989.
• Hartfrid Krause: 90 years: Hanau in the revolution 1918/19 . In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2011, pp. 137–165.
• Hartfrid Krause: Revolution and counterrevolution 1918/19 using the example of Hanau = Scriptor Hochschulschriften Sozialwissenschaften 1. Kronberg Ts. 1974. ISBN 3-589-20036-7

Remarks

1. ↑ In the event of work- related accidents , employers would send the affected employees to doctors, who would certify their ability to work again as quickly as possible or who rated the degree of disability as low as possible. The trade unions counter this with “medical officers”, who gave their opinion more employee-friendly (see: Krause: Revolution , p. 246).
2. ↑ The political opponents saw rather personal differences between leading communists in Hanau as the reason for the split (Krause: Revolution , p. 248).
3. ↑ In the minutes of the city council it appears as " KPD (Wagner), KPD (Wagner group), KPD ( Spartakusbund ) " in contrast to the " KPD (section of the Third International ) " (cf. Krause: Revolution , p. 247). In the press they were also referred to - according to the professional background of the main actors - as " Fraktion Ortskrankenkasse " (Wagner) and " Fraktion Konsumverein " (majority KPD) (cf.: Krause: Revolution , pp. 248, 380, note 935f ).
4. ↑ Partly available in the University Library of Marburg , call number: 065 2 VIII A 1716.
5. ↑ However, the death dates of those murdered in the context of Operation T4 were often forged.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Broghammer, p. 17.
2. ↑ So: Broghammer, p. 17; According to another source, he is said to have been the personal physician of a prince in Kassel (Krause: 90 Years , p. 144, according to the report of a contemporary witness).
3. ↑ Broghammer, p. 17.
4. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 246.
5. ↑ Hanna, p. 29.
6. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 147.
7. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 148.
8. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 252.
9. ↑ Broghammer, p. 29.
10. ↑ So: Broghammer, p. 30; according to other sources on November 9, 1918.
11. ↑ Broghammer, p. 30.
12. ↑ Krause: 90 years , p. 154f.
13. ↑ Broghammer, p. 30; Krause: 90 years , p. 155 (here Wagner's published declaration of resignation is reproduced as a facsimile ).
14. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 160.
15. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 144.
16. ↑ Broghammer, p. 31; Krause: 90 years , p. 161.
17. ↑ Hanna: "Landkreis Hanau", p. 28; Krause: 90 years , p. 161.
18. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 246.
19. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 247.
20. ^ Krause: Revolution , pp. 248, 251.
21. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 247.
22. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 145.
23. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 379, note 928.
24. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 252.
25. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 381, note 942.
26. ^ Krause: Revolution , p. 252.
27. ↑ Broghammer, p. 17.
28. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 145.
29. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 145.
30. ↑ GND entry ; Broghammer, p. 17.
31. ↑ Broghammer, p. 18.
32. ^ Krause: 90 years , p. 145; Broghammer, p. 18f., Names Gießen or Cholm as the place of killing.