Gerhard Beier (historian)

Gerhard Beier (born April 10, 1937 in Flensburg , † December 13, 2000 in Kronberg im Taunus ) was a German historian, writer and trade unionist.

Live and act

Gerhard Beier studied history, German and psychology in Kiel , where he received his doctorate under Karl Dietrich Erdmann in 1966 and his habilitation in 1978 .

From 1966 to 1967 he was a trainer for the IG Druck und Papier and from 1967 to 1971 national tutor for the German Adult Education Association . In addition, from 1968 to 1997 he was a city councilor for the SPD in Kronberg im Taunus , where he had spent “a large part of his life”.

Beier was chairman of the Association of German Writers (VS) Hessen from 1984 to 1988 and served on the VS federal board for some time. He was also a founding member of the Hessian Literature Office (now the Hessian Literature Forum ) and the Literaturgesellschaft Hessen eV, Frankfurt am Main (LIT), founded in 1996 as the successor to the Association of German Writers (1976–1996). His literary estate is archived by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn.

He was an editorial member of the International Scientific Correspondence on the History of the German Labor Movement (IWK) and a member of the historical commission of the SPD. As a historian, Gerhard Beier researched and documented the history of the German trade unions in the 19th century, until 1945 and after the Second World War . The focus was on social democracy , trade unions , the labor movement , resistance to National Socialism and Europe . In addition to his published works with historical and socio-political references, his estate also includes poems, stories and essays.

Publications (in selection)

• Black art and class struggle , Frankfurt / M. 1968 (cf. Diss. Phil. University of Kiel 1966)
• East-West prejudices in political education , Frankfurt / M. 1972
• The Lehrstück from May 1st and 2nd 1933 , Frankfurt / M. 1975
• The demonstration and general strike of November 12, 1948 , Frankfurt / M. 1975
• Contributions to leadership problems in the labor movement , Frankfurt / M. 1976
• Willi Richter: A life for social reorganization , Cologne 1978 (cf. habilitation thesis Universität Kiel 1977)
• History and union. Political-historical contributions to the history of social movements , Cologne 1981
• The illegal Reich leadership of the trade unions: 1933-1945 , Cologne 1981
• Shoulder to shoulder, step by step: CVs of German trade unionists , Cologne 1983
• Labor movement in Hesse (1834-1984) , Frankfurt / M. 1984
• SPD Hessen: Chronicle 1945 to 1988 , Bonn 1989
• We want to be free people: June 17, 1953. Construction workers went first , Cologne 1993
• Departure to the European welfare state. On the social history of the European revolution , Frankfurt / M. 1998

Posthumous honors

Since his death, the Hesse Literature Society has awarded the Gerhard Beier Prize , which is endowed with 1,500 euros as a literary prize .

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Beier in the catalog of the German National Library
• lit-hessen.de Website of the "Literaturgesellschaft Hessen e. V. "(LIT)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} to Gerhard Beier the Archives of Social Democracy , Bonn, online at fes.de .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Some information on Gerhard Beier's vitae in: kb: Awarding of the Gerhard Beier Prize in the city library in Kronberger Boten on September 23, 2010, online at taunus-nachrichten.de as a PDF file (14.3 MB) Page 4 of 28
3. ↑ lit-hessen.de Vita Gerhard Beier on website of "Literature Society Hessen e. V. "(LIT)
4. ↑ A lance for literature - Literaturgesellschaft Hessen eV ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Report of the Hessian Literature Council on the Literature Society Hessen e. V. and their first award of the Gerhard Beier Prize, online at hessischer-literaturrat.de