Hans Böckler

Hans Böckler striking the hammer to lay the foundation stone of the large settlement named after him in Neumünster on March 5, 1950

Hans Böckler

Postage stamp from the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin (1961) on the 10th anniversary of death

Johann Georg "Hans" Böckler (born February 26, 1875 in Trautskirchen , † February 16, 1951 in Cologne-Lindenthal ) was a German politician and union official . Today he is mainly known for the Hans Böckler Foundation named after him .

Life

youth

Böckler grew up in simple circumstances. In 1888 his father died. As a result, he dropped out of school at the age of thirteen, from then on provided for the livelihood of the family of six and began an apprenticeship as a gold and silver beater . In 1894 he joined the SPD and the German Metalworkers' Union (DMV).

Beginning union career

After he had already been elected chairman of the trade union cartel and municipal representative (city council) in Fürth , he became union secretary of the DMV in Saarland in 1903, moved to the district management in Frankfurt in 1907 and became head of the Silesian Association in Breslau in 1910 .

In evening classes at the union, he acquired knowledge of mathematics and bookkeeping.

From 1914 to 1915 he took part in the First World War. He was seriously wounded while serving as a sergeant on the Eastern Front . He was then exempted from conscription and devoted himself to trade union work in Gdansk , Katowice and Siegen until the end of the war .

Weimar Republic

In 1918 he became secretary of the central working group . Hans Böckler was the first authorized representative to move to the local administration in Cologne, where he was a city councilor of the SPD from 1924 to 1926. In 1928 he was elected a member of the Reichstag , to which he belonged until 1933.

National Socialism

After the failed assassination attempt against Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Böckler had to go into hiding because he had contacts with the resistance group around Wilhelm Leuschner . Looking back, Böckler wrote: “During the Nazi era, I simply did my duty, was repeatedly in protective custody and, like so many others, was economically destroyed. After resuming my current job, I will continue the previous one. "

reconstruction

Memorial plaque on Hans-Böckler-Platz in Mülheim an der Ruhr , 2007

In 1945 he began rebuilding the unions in the British Zone . He became the central figure in the rebuilding of the trade union movement in Cologne and the North Rhine Province. From October 2, 1946 to April 19, 1947 he was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. On April 25, 1947, several individual trade unions completed their merger to form the trade union federation in the British occupation zone and elected Böckler as their chairman. On October 14, 1949, he became the first chairman of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) .

Böckler initiated the first and largest systematic housing project in West Germany in 1949: the ERP special program " Construction of 10,000 refugee apartments " . The special program was implemented in Schleswig-Holstein with the support of Marshall Plan funds. Thanks to his good contacts with US trade unionists, especially Harvey W. Brown , who had been director of the Office for Labor Affairs at the US High Commission for Germany since 1949 , the special program could be carried out quickly and successfully with US support.

On January 25, 1951, Böckler reached an agreement on coal and steel co-determination with Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer .

Böckler's tombstone in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne, 2006

Demise

In 1951, Hans Böckler died of a heart attack ten days before his 76th birthday in Cologne University Hospital . The funeral service took place on February 21, 1951 in the ballroom of the University of Cologne. The deceased was buried in the Melaten cemetery (hallway 60A) in Cologne. He had been married to Magdalena Barbara nee Müller since 1899.

His gravestone shows the trade union symbol of the gear with a quote from Georg Herwegh : All the wheels stand still when your strong arm wants it. The monument to Hans Böckler was made by Ludwig Gies .

Honors

• The Deutsche Bundespost Berlin issued a special stamp in 1961 on the tenth anniversary of his death.
• The Deutsche Bundespost issued a special stamp in 1975 on the occasion of the 100th birthday.
• In 1951 he and Konrad Adenauer were made an honorary citizen of the city of Cologne.
• In 1948 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cologne .

Portrait stele of Karl Trumpf in Berlin-Kreuzberg , as in 2006

• The Hans Böckler Society and the Hans Böckler Foundation of the DGB was named after Böckler . Its purpose is to promote co-determination and economic and social science research, as well as study and doctoral funding in the form of grants.
• In memory of his life's work, the trade unions donated the Hans Böckler Medal . It is the highest honor given by the DGB and the trade unions. With their award, special merits in the trade union area, especially voluntary work, are recognized.
• In Berlin-Kreuzberg, the Böcklerpark on the Landwehr Canal was named after the politician, and it also contains a portrait stele of Böckler made by the artist Karl Trumpf. The bronze bust was stolen in early March 2011 and has not yet been replaced.
• The Böcklersiedlung in Neumünster is named after him; he personally laid the foundation.
• Böckler's tombstone in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne dates from 2006.
• A memorial plaque on Hans-Böckler-Platz in Mülheim an der Ruhr was erected in 2007.
• The name Hans-Böckler-Straße can be found in numerous German cities.
• The name Hans-Böckler-Schule lead u. a. an upper school center in Berlin, a secondary school in Fürth and a primary school in Neustadt am Rübenberge .
• A fishing steamer owned by the Gemeinwirtschaftliche Hochseefischerei GmbH, Bremerhaven, (GHG) was named Hans Böckler . It was built in 1961 at the Flender shipyard in Lübeck .

Fonts (selection)

• Let there be light! In serious times - a serious word to the smelters and metal workers in the Saar area. J. Böckler publishing house, Saarbrücken 1906 (printed by DMV printing company Schlicker & Cie, Stuttgart).
• A life for the union. Cologne 1950.

literature

• Hans Böckler . In: Werner Blumenberg : Fighters for Freedom . To. JHW Dietz, Berlin and Hanover 1959, pp. 156–162.
• Ulrich Borsdorf: Hans Böckler. Work and life of a trade unionist from 1875 to 1945. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7663-0497-6 ( series of the Hans Böckler Foundation , Volume 10; with a foreword by Heinz Oskar Vetter ; in the appendix: Tables, used archives, information and materials from private individuals, printed sources, bibliographies and other resources, bibliography and person and place registers).
• Joachim Heinz: The masters dogs lead a nicer life than you. Hans Böckler's trade union activity on the Saar 1903–1907 (contributions to regional history, Blickwinkel 1), St. Ingbert 1992.
• Reinhold Nimptsch: “Productive refugee aid from the trade unions: New organizational methods for the construction of 10,000 apartments”; Cologne 1950
• Working group for contemporary building eV (Ed.): Johannes Scharre: "The construction of 10,000 refugee apartments in Schleswig-Holstein (ERP special program 1950) - result, method, experiences and conclusions", / Working group for productive refugee aid eV; (Research report on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Housing No. 148 (2404/05)); Building research report of the Working Group for Contemporary Building eV No. 2, Kiel 1952
• Working group for contemporary building eV (Ed.): Haake, Ulrich: "Building cost reduction through standardization and typification - ERP experiences"; Bulletin No. 40, Kiel 1953
• Ulrich Haake: "10 years of housing construction in Schleswig-Holstein 1946 - 1956"; Kiel 1956 *
• Alfred Milatz:  Böckler, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 371 f. ( Digitized version ).
• 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 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Böckler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hans Böckler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Hans Böckler in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Dorlis Blume, Irmgard Zündorf: Hans Böckler. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Hans Böckler in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Hans Böckler Finduch (Download as PDF - 250 kB - 146 pages) . In the archive of social democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Death certificate no. 983 from February 26, 1951, registry office Cologne I. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved July 26, 2020 . 
2. ^ Hans Böckler at the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament
3. ↑ http://www.chroniknet.de/daly_de.0.html?year=1947&month=4&day=25
4. ^ Josef Abt, Johann Ralf Beines, Celia Körber-Leupold: Melaten - Cologne graves and history . Greven, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-7743-0305-3 , p. 111.