Hans Emil Hirschfeld

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Hans Emil Hirschfeld , known as Hans E. Hirschfeld (born November 26, 1894 in Harburg , † April 10, 1971 in Muri bei Bern , Switzerland ), was a German social democratic journalist , ministerial official and politician .

life and work

Hirschfeld was the second son of the Berlin doctor and Social Democratic Senator from Harburg, Emil Hirschfeld, who came to Harburg in 1892 in connection with a cholera epidemic and settled there with his family. The son attended the secondary school there until 1913 and graduated with a small matriculation so that he could study modern literary history, philosophy and history in Berlin and later in Göttingen. In August 1914 he passed the school leaving examination .

After the outbreak of World War I , he volunteered for the military and served as an officer and front-line fighter from December 1914 to December 1918 . In 1916 he was appointed lieutenant in the reserve. In 1919 he resumed his studies again, received his doctorate in 1920 with his dissertation Political Time poetry in Georg Herwegh , poems of a lover ' Dr. phil. He became a journalist and began working as an editor for the Franconian Daily Post and the Social Democratic Press Service .

Hirschfeld was married to Bella Strauss (born February 23, 1902 in Mengeringhausen). On September 1, 1923, their daughter Dorothea, Dorle or, in later years, Dorothy was born and became a technical laboratory assistant.

From 1924 to July 1932 he was personal advisor to the Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing and press officer at the Prussian Interior Ministry, where he remained until 1933. In 1927 he was the youngest ministerial advisor in Prussia. As a representative of the Prussian state, he was on the supervisory board of various government-owned companies. He was also a member of the editorial staff of various magazines and series.

In March 1933, immediately after the National Socialists came to power , he fled to Switzerland and lived briefly in Zurich, where he was expelled for anti-Nazi activities and deported to France that same year. There he found work as a journalist again and worked for the Paris emigrant newspaper “Deutsche Freiheit” and “Deutsche Informationen”. In 1936 he was stripped of his German citizenship .

In 1940 he emigrated to the USA, where he worked for the OWI , a US government agency for disseminating war information and propaganda during the Second World War , and was also a member of the German Labor delegation . In 1949 he returned to Berlin, following a call from his old friend Ernst Reuter , who entrusted him with leading positions in the West Berlin Senate in the post-war period.

In January 1950 he took over the management of the press and information office of the city ​​council of Greater Berlin , which he held until 1960. He was also head of the Senate Chancellery from 1957 to 1959 . In 1960 he was released as a ministerial director into retirement. From 1961 to 1970 he was chairman of the Berlin Press Club , the Berlin Press Center , the German Broadcasting Museum and deputy chairman of the German-English Society . He was a board member of the Mayor Reuter Foundation and a member of the SFB - Broadcasting Council .

His estate has been in the Berlin State Archives since 1971 (E Rep. 200-18).

Publications (selection)

  • Political poetry in Georg Herwegh's 'Poems of a Lover'. Dissertation to obtain a doctorate at the Philosophical Faculty of the Hamburg University. 1921.
  • A look at the administration. Volume 3 of You and the State . Verlag Gersbach, 1920 (edited with Hans Goslar).
  • Political poetry in Georg Herwegh's “Poems of a Living”. 1921.
  • Mister Clueless walks through town. Press and Information Office, 1956.
  • The Inselmanns want to know exactly. Press and Information Office, 1957.
  • Berlin - fate and mission. Press and Information Office of the State of Berlin, 1959.
  • Do not lose your calm! Press and Information Office, 1959.
  • From speeches and writings. 1965 (with Ernst Reuter and Hans J. Reichardt).
  • Ernst Reuter, writings, speeches. Volume 1, Berlin 1972 (edited with HR Reichhardt).

literature

  • Barbara Burmeister: Only the stranger here has not become my home: the social democrat Hans Emil Hirschfeld in exile. In: Berlin in the past and present. Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives 1992, pp. 121–153
  • Matthias Heyl: Maybe the synagogue is still standing! Jewish life in Harburg 1933–45. BoD 2009, ISBN 3-8370-5207-9
  • Jürgen Wetzel: The Hirschfeld estate in the Berlin State Archives. A contribution to the biography. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. Volume 70, 1974, pp. 447–452.
  • Barbara Dumke: Hans Emil Hirschfeld - Experiences in Exile 1933–1949 . Berlin 1991 (Master's thesis).
  • Hirschfeld, Hans , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (eds.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economics, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, p. 302

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Expropriation list, Reichsanzeiger 360303-11
  2. ^ Estate at the German Exile Archive 1933–1945 of the German National Library
  3. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: In the struggle for the German republic. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2001, ISBN 3-4865-6591-5 , p. 333
  4. ↑ Socialist Communications No. 26 - 1941
personal data
SURNAME Hirschfeld, Hans Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirschfeld, Hans E.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and politician (SPD), MdA
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Harburg
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1971
Place of death Muri near Bern