Hermann Molkenbuhr

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Hermann Molkenbuhr around 1890

Hermann Molkenbuhr (born September 11, 1851 in Wedel , † December 22, 1927 in Berlin ) was a German SPD politician and member of the Reichstag . Molkenbuhr is one of the formative personalities in the history of the German labor movement and German parliamentarianism.

biography

Molkenbuhr was born the son of a master tailor. Only a few years, from 1857 to 1862, he attended elementary school in his hometown Wedel. From 1862 he lived in Ottensen in a typical proletarian milieu during industrialization . From 1862 to 1864 he worked 59 hours a week in the Ottenser chicory factory , a factory for coffee substitutes . In addition, he attended the “evening school for children working in factories”. From 1864 to 1871 he worked as a "preparer" (unskilled worker) for various cigar makers, until he learned the craft himself, which he practiced until 1891.

In 1872 Molkenbuhr was a co-founder of the Lokstedt-Ottensen local group of the “ General German Workers' Association ” (ADAV) founded in 1863 and immediately became politically active as an agitator. In 1874 he became chairman (authorized representative) of the ADAV in Ottensen and in 1875 took part as one of the youngest delegates at the unification congress of the ADAV and the “ Social Democratic Workers 'Party ” for the “ Socialist Workers' Party of Germany ” in Gotha. He is therefore considered to be one of the founding fathers of the united social democracy.

After the " Socialist Law " was passed in 1878, Molkenbuhr organized underground social democracy. Molkenbuhr was expelled in 1881, emigrated to the USA and worked there as a cigar maker from 1881 to 1884. He also remained politically active in the USA and was involved in the Socialist Labor Party of America .

In 1884 Molkenbuhr returned to Germany and settled first in Bremen, then from 1885 to 1890 in Kellinghusen in Holstein. In 1887 Molkenbuhr was indicted in a secret society trial, but acquitted after four months in custody. After several unsuccessful candidacies for the Reichstag from 1884 onwards Molkenbuhr won the mandate for the 6th Schleswig-Holstein constituency (Elmshorn-Pinneberg) on ​​March 1, 1890. In the Reichstag election in 1893 he won the constituency of Hamburg 1, in 1898 the constituency of Düsseldorf 2 and finally in the Reichstag election in 1907 the constituency of Saxony 17. Molkenbuhr was an uninterrupted member of the Reichstag from 1890 to 1924 (1890-1918 MP, 1919/20 member of the National Assembly and 1920–1924 MdR) and thus has one of the longest careers in the German parliamentary history. Within the SPD, Molkenbuhr was one of the pioneers of constructive parliamentary cooperation and at that time was considered the most influential social politician in his parliamentary group and in the Reichstag as a whole.

In 1891 he was a member of the program commission that advised the “ Erfurt Program ” of the SPD, from 1892 to 1902 a member of the “Reich Commission for Workers Statistics”, and since 1902 of the “Advisory Council for Workers Statistics”, which was supposed to lay the foundations for reforms of labor law. In 1902 Molkenbuhr presented the first draft of a "state unemployment insurance ". From 1904 until his death, Molkenbuhr was a member of the SPD party executive, initially as a secretary.

From 1911 to 1922 Molkenbuhr was one of the chairmen of the SPD parliamentary group alongside August Bebel and Hugo Haase , but failed in the 1911 election as SPD party chairman. In 1914 Molkenbuhr advocated the SPD's approval of the war credits and supported the policy of the party majority during the First World War (" Politics of the Burgfriedens "). In 1917, as a member of the German SPD delegation in Stockholm, Molkenbuhr sought a peace initiative of the “ Socialist International ”.

During the revolution of 1918/19 Molkenbuhr consistently advocated a republic and democracy in Germany: “The political basis of socialist society can only be democracy.” At the end of November 1918 he received the party order to have the last German Empress Auguste Viktoria on her as a security guarantor Accompany the way into exile to the Dutch border.

Hermann Molkenbuhr's grave

In 1921 he was chairman of the program commission of the “ Görlitzer Program ”, in 1925 a member of the program commission of the “ Heidelberg Program ” of the SPD. At the SPD party congress from May 22 to 27, 1927 in Kiel, its last party congress after 52 years of continuous participation in all party conventions, Secretary Molkenbuhr was elected as an assessor of the party executive.

In addition to the national party level, since 1889 he was a permanent delegate at the congresses of the “International” and since 1908 a member of the “ International Socialist Bureau ”.

Molkenbuhr died on December 22, 1927 in Berlin and was buried in the cemetery in Friedrichsfelde with great sympathy from the Social Democrats. In 1950 his remains were reburied by the GDR leadership in the “ Memorial of the Socialists ” there.

The third son Hermann Molkenbuhrs, Brutus Molkenbuhr was 1918/1919 as Soldiers deputy chairman of the Executive Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils Greater Berlin in the November Revolution .

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermann Molkenbuhr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See his speech on workers' insurance at the Munich party conference in 1902, printed in: Collection of sources for the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914 , III. Department: Expansion and differentiation of social policy since the beginning of the New Course (1890-1904) , Volume 1, Basic Questions of Social Policy , edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Darmstadt 2016; No. 119.
personal data
SURNAME Molkenbuhr, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Wedel , Duchy of Holstein
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1927
Place of death Berlin , Prussia , Weimar Republic