Hermann Prüser

Hermann Prüser (born June 9, 1903 in Bremen , † December 18, 1991 in Bremen) was a German trade unionist and politician ( KPD ).

biography

Prüser completed an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer at the Atlas shipyard.

KPD member

In 1918, Prüser became a member of the Educational Association of Young Workers and Workers, from October 1918 Free Socialist Youth (FSJ) and then in 1920 the Communist Youth Association (KJVD) and a member of the free trade union German Metalworkers Association . In 1919 he joined the newly founded Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

From 1928 to March 1933 he was a member of the Bremen citizenship . In the last free meeting of the Bremen citizenship on March 10, 1933, he gave a speech against the “fascist coup d'état”, the “White Terror” and “where communist and social democratic workers are brutally murdered by the SA and SS ”. He had to go into the illegal resistance against National Socialism . He was arrested in June 1933 and spent until Christmas 1933 in the Mißler concentration camp . In 1935 he was again imprisoned for several months. He then worked as a toolmaker at Werft AG Weser , which was part of the Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG (DeSchiMAG) group until 1945 . He was employed at the shipyard until 1968.

In 1945 Prüser became a member of the fighting community against fascism . He also became active again in the KPD. He was temporarily the 2nd chairman of the IG Metall trade union in Bremen.

At the suggestion of Wilhelm Kaisen, Prüser was elected full-time employee of the Chamber for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism. He resigned from this body in 1947 because he was unable to cope with the rapid denazification and the like. a. by shipyard director Robert Kabelac ( Bremer Vulkan ) and general director Franz Stapelfeldt (AG Weser). He saw both of them in their leading positions in the armaments industry during the Nazi era as “jointly responsible for the catastrophic effects of the Hitler’s robbery policy in all European countries” and refused to allow those responsible for industry to escape conviction in the arbitration chamber proceedings , while “small, nameless and economically impotent civil servants and business people would be punished ”. Prüser therefore wanted to classify both of them in the category of the main accused and accused.

Fight at the AG Weser

In 1952, Prüser became the first secretary of the KPD company group at AG Weser. In June 1952 he campaigned unsuccessfully for a combat committee at a department meeting . But in the shipyard workers 'strike that began on April 25, 1953, he played an important role as chairman of the shop stewards' body. In April 1953 he was elected chairman of the works council of AG Weser. During the strike there was a very tense relationship between IG Metall and KPD. After the strike, the confrontation had consequences for the KPD and for Prüser, as the KPD refused to accept the "offer of shame". Two weeks after the strike, IG Metall successfully initiated an expulsion process against Prüser and all the other eleven communist members of the works council.

Because of political activity as a works council - he publicly protested against a march of the right-wing extremist union Der Stahlhelm in Gießen - at the request of the management and after a judgment of the Bremen Labor Court on August 21, 1953, he and two other communists were deposed as works councils. The radical disputes in January 1954 led to the fact that in the works council elections of the AG Weser the union list received 2,620 of 3958 votes and the company unity list dominated by the communists only received 1,265 votes. Prüser was re-elected as a works council, but with this devastating defeat for the KPD, their influence on the AG Weser was permanently broken. This was followed by the newly elected works council chairman Gustav Böhrnsen (SPD) for the next 25 years.

Prüser remained active in the union and the party.

Honors

• The Hermann-Prüser Street in Bremen- Gröpelingen was named after him.

literature

• Prüser, Hermann . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
• Prüser, Hermann. In: Geert Sterringa Foundation: Rode Hulp. De opvang van Duitse vluchtelingen in Groningerland 1933–1940. Wolters-Noordhoff Grafische Bedrijven bv, Groningen 1986, Wolters-Noordhoff / Forsten Groningen, The Netherlands.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hendrik Bunke: Die KPD in Bremen 1945-1968 , p. 247 ff. Papyrossa-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-89438-230-9 .

Web links

• Jörg Wollenberg : Trade unionist and resistance fighter Hermann Prüser