Hugo Haase

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Hugo Haase (1905)
Hugo Haase (drawing, 1915)

Hugo Haase (born September 29, 1863 in Allenstein , East Prussia , † November 7, 1919 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer , politician and pacifist . As a lawyer, he defended many politically persecuted Social Democrats and Socialists, including Otto Braun , Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Liebknecht and Ernst Toller . He was a member of the Reichstag from 1897 to 1907 and from 1912 to 1918. From 1911 to 1916 he was one of the two chairmen of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and from 1912 to 1916 one of the two parliamentary group leaders of the SPD in the Reichstag. Excluded from the parliamentary group and party as an opponent of the war policy of the SPD executive committee, he and his supporters founded the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1917, of which he was chairman until 1919. After the November Revolution of 1918 he was a member of the Council of People's Representatives for two months (November 10 to December 29, 1918) . According to the coalition agreement with Friedrich Ebert, he was equal chairman. He resigned because the government had cracked down on the People's Naval Division. Elected to the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 , he became parliamentary group leader of the USPD.

Hugo Haase died at the end of 1919 as a result of an assassination attempt.

Lawyer and social democrat in Königsberg

Hugo Haase was born in Allenstein as the son of a Jewish shoemaker and retailer. After graduating from the Herzog-Albrechts-Schule in Rastenburg , he studied law and political science at the Albertus University in Königsberg , where he practiced as a lawyer between 1890 and 1911 . He was a journalist for the Königsberger Volkszeitung and the first and only social democratic lawyer in East Prussia . In many trials he defended farm workers who were held in an almost lawless state by large landowners and authorities, or who had defended themselves against police officers. In dozens of trials, he defended politically persecuted Social Democrats, mostly journalists, who were often charged with insults because of their critical articles. In 1904 Haase became known across the empire through the Königsberg secret society trial. Together with his colleague Karl Liebknecht , he obtained an acquittal for nine Prussian Social Democrats, including the later Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun , whom the Prussian government had accused of smuggling “ anarchist ” writings into Russia. Haase uncovered the cooperation between the Prussian government and the tsarist Russian secret service. In the end, the court largely followed Haase's argument that smuggling social democratic writings into Russia was not at all punishable under German and Russian criminal law.

Otto Braun had been in custody for six months before the trial. This occasion became a strong motive for Haase to demand extensive reforms of German criminal law in 1906 (see following paragraph).

When Haase was elected SPD chairman in 1911, he gave up his prosperous law firm in Königsberg and opened a new law firm in Berlin with considerable financial sacrifices.

Haase had been a member of the SPD since 1887 . Like his friend Karl Kautsky , he counted himself as part of the so-called centrist wing of the party, which tried to mediate between revisionists and Marxists in the revisionism dispute . However, this only applied to political practice. At the theoretical level, Haase fought revisionism “with fire and sword” (E. Dombrowski). Carl E. Schorske calls him a "tried and true representative of the Erfurt ideology", by which he means the principle of the Erfurt SPD program of 1891 to derive practical demands for everyday political life from a Marxist interpretation of society and history. In the mass strike debate of 1906, Haase did not comment publicly, but internally criticized the attitude of the trade unions and August Bebel to rule out political mass strikes. At the Magdeburg party congress in 1910, Haase vehemently opposed (and there in agreement with Bebel) the attitude of the Baden Social Democrats, namely Ludwig Frank , who had approved the budget of the liberal Baden government in the state parliament. Such approval of the politics of the bourgeois state violated, according to Haase, basic social democratic principles.

In 1894, Haase was elected to the Königsberg city council as the first social democrat under the conditions of three-class suffrage and in a non-secret ballot. In 1897 he was elected to the Reichstag of the German Empire in a by-election for the Reichstag constituency administrative district Königsberg 3 (Königsberg-Stadt) . In the Reichstag election in 1907 , he did not succeed in winning the constituency again. After his return to the Reichstag in 1912, he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Reichstag alongside Philipp Scheidemann .

Haase and the criminal law reform

In September 1906, Hugo Haase gave a comprehensive, critical lecture on German criminal law at the Mannheim party congress of the SPD , in which he made numerous reform proposals. Among other things, he called for the abolition of the criminal offenses lese majesty , “despising state institutions” and “ inciting class hatred ”. Haase: "There is no doubt that we have class justice in Germany ." The judges punished their critics arbitrarily and ruthlessly. He demanded that striking workers could no longer be convicted of extortion or trespassing . Instead, negligent homicide due to poor occupational safety in factories should be made a criminal offense. The judges should be elected by the people, including women. He criticized the arbitrariness in the imposition of pre- trial detention , especially the reason for the risk of obscuration , which is unknown in Anglo-Saxon criminal law. Haase criticized " rubber paragraphs", which gave the judges a free hand for draconian arbitrary judgments. Pretrial detention is used in practice to pull strike leaders out of the market without trial or judgment.

According to Haase, the steadily growing number of convicts, especially property crimes, was a symptom of growing social hardship. "All criminal politicians recognize that our current criminal law is powerless against criminals." Haase cited the judicial reformer Franz von Liszt and called for a mild punishment for perpetrators who stumbled out of social hardship. Alcoholism, prostitution and the neglect of children are manifestations of mass misery that emerged from the class structure of society. However, Haase distanced himself from Friedrich Engels ' thesis that there would be no more crimes in a socialist community. Haase drew the link from criminal law to education policy , another major topic of the party congress. "We demand such a design of the elementary schools that they are suitable to have a ennobling effect on the mind and understanding of the pupils."

For the penal system, Haase called for short sentences to be abolished because they were more likely to encourage the crime. Instead, socially staggered fines or suspended sentences as well as special youth sentences are preferable. The state had to take care of the rehabilitation of released offenders so that they would not relapse. For the prison system , Haase demanded that the requirement of silence and brutal disciplinary punishments be abolished and that further training opportunities be created for the prisoners.

Haase's speech was met with tumultuous applause. At the request of Paul Singer , the party congress passed Haase's theses en bloc as a resolution. In the years that followed, lawyers and journalists repeatedly took up Haase's demands for criminal law reform, such as Wolfgang Heine in 1906, Siegfried Weinberg in 1908, Michael Surski in 1908, but above all in Gustav Radbruch in 1908–1911. Some of his demands were shared by professors who, on behalf of the imperial government 1905–1907, examined the possibilities of a criminal law reform. In 1909 the Reichstag debated the first reform proposals that went in Haase's direction. However, they were only decided in 1912. Gustav Radbruch brought Haase's demands into the Görlitz program of the SPD in 1921 and, as Justice Minister of the Weimar Republic, in many criminal law debates from 1922 to 1930.

SPD chairman

Memorial plaque , Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 4, in Berlin-Mitte

After Paul Singer's death in 1911, the SPD party congress in Jena in September 1911 elected Hugo Haase as co-chairman of the SPD, alongside the long-time chairman August Bebel . Haase was controversial in the right wing of the party because he had taken a position at the Magdeburg party congress in 1910 against the Baden comrades who had accepted the budget of their liberal state government in the state parliament. In the vote, Bebel received 390 and Haase 283 votes. Friedrich Ebert was proposed as an opposing candidate to Haase, but renounced the candidacy; nevertheless 102 votes were cast for him. Haase was politically close to Bebel and Kautsky.

Haase's colleague Wilhelm Dittmann wrote in his memoirs: “Bebel valued Haase very much as a fundamentally firm comrade in the party and as an astute lawyer ... Our radical friends saw Haase next to Bebel as the most skilful and at the same time most conciliatory leader of the left wing of the party, and he was also on the right rated similar. "

After Bebel's death in 1913, Haase and Ebert were elected party chairmen with equal rights in September. The rivals Haase and Ebert practically represented the two conflicting party wings ; Haase did not see himself as a wingman, but held on until 1916 to the idea that he could restore the unity of the SPD, once embodied in August Bebel, as a radical opposition party against the German Empire and against imperialism . Ebert was also initially not seen as a wingman because he held back on political issues.

Pacifist engagement

Arms race and threat of war

German and French Social Democrats in Basel on June 21, 1914. Haase 2nd row left outside

Haase already dedicated his first speech in the Reichstag on March 15, 1898 to the subject of militarization . He spoke against the draft of a new military tribunal ordinance and, above all, objected to the fact that military jurisdiction should be extended to civil life. In 1907 he participated as legal advisor to August Bebel and Georg von Vollmar in the formulation of the anti-militarist resolution of the VII International Socialist Congress , which took place in Stuttgart that year . At the previous congresses of the Second International since 1892, the delegates from various states demanded that, in the event of war, social democrats in affected states should organize defensive measures such as mass strikes, general strikes or armed uprisings. The only party leadership that strictly rejected all of this was the German. In Germany this was reflected in the mass strike debate at the time . The compromise brought in by the German side with Haase's participation now read: "... that every nationality should, in the given case, declare itself against the outbreak of war using the means that seem most effective to it ...".

In January 1912, Haase was re-elected to the Reichstag. In April 1912, before the Reichstag, he attacked the army draft of the Bethmann Hollweg government : The continued armaments led to an escalating arms race and increased "the danger of world fire". A restriction of armaments is also possible under capitalism . Until 1914, Haase repeatedly called for some kind of international arms control . Exactly one year later, Bethmann Hollweg submitted the next draft to the Reichstag. It envisaged an increase in the presence of the land army by 136,000 men and demanded almost 1.3 billion marks in additional funds for this and for massive arms purchases. Haase stated in the Reichstag: "The army bill ... demands monstrous sacrifices from the people ... It by far exceeds anything that a people in peacetime has ever expected of a government." Bethmann Hollweg combined the bill with a cover bill, which was an "extraordinary one." Military contribution ”for all assets over 10,000 marks. Since the SPD had always called for direct taxes for the wealthy, the SPD parliamentary group agreed to this cover bill after a controversial debate. Rosa Luxemburg and others heavily criticized this decision at the SPD party congress in Jena in September 1913.

At the Chemnitz party congress of the SPD in September 1912, Haase gave the main speech on imperialism . In doing so, he relied on Rudolf Hilferding's work Das Finanzkapital , published in 1910 , but focused on the topic of armament and the danger of war. Haase said the industrialized nations' hunt for new markets, sources of raw materials and investment opportunities is driving them into ever more acute international entanglements. In imperialism, “violence is an 'economic power' to an outstanding degree”. Haase turned against the view that the arms race would secure peace: "The competition in the field of armaments must ultimately lead either to world war or to financial collapse." However, the war is by no means an inescapable fate. According to Haase, disarmament negotiations between states could counteract the war; Above all, however, Haase hoped that the "internationally fraternized proletariat " could prevent war and ensure that "peace, freedom, independence and welfare of all peoples" flourished.

At the International Socialist Congress in 1912 , Hugo Haase spoke at a peace rally in Basel Minster . He described the suffering of the population in the war zones of the Balkan War in 1912 and shouted: "The rulers should know that the international proletariat detests war from the bottom of their hearts." The next International Socialist Congress was to meet in Vienna in the summer of 1914 . Haase prepared a paper for this in which he wanted to develop the idea that the imperialist danger of war could be reduced by international courts of arbitration. It never came to that. Because of the July crisis in 1914, the congress was canceled.

First World War

Haase already expressed fear in the party executive committee meeting on June 29, 1914 that the assassination attempt in Sarajevo the day before could push the general danger of war to a new high point. Only after the Austrian ultimatum against Serbia on 23 July did the entire SPD leadership agree with this assessment. Haase organized numerous anti-war rallies by the SPD in Berlin, but they were only allowed to take place in the hall. At several meetings he spoke himself. In doing so, referring to the Balkan wars of 1912/13 , he exclaimed :

“The fields in the Balkans are still steaming with the blood of thousands murdered, the ruins of devastated cities and devastated villages are still smoking, starving unemployed men, widowed women and orphaned children are still wandering through the country, and the one unleashed by Austrian imperialism is still wandering around War fury to bring death and ruin all over Europe. "

- Hugo Haase

On July 26th, Undersecretary Wilhelm Drews Haase informed that Germany would go to war if war should break out between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Haase's diary notes are available on this. Haase therefore contradicted the assessment that a war provoked by Austria would trigger the fall of an alliance for Germany under the Triple Alliance Treaty.

On July 29, one day after Austria declared war on Serbia, Haase and Karl Kautsky met the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès for the last time in Brussels . Rosa Luxemburg was there as a representative of the Polish party. Haase and Jaurès both swore their governments' desire for peace. Rosa Luxemburg did not consider the German government to be ready for war either.

On July 31, Jaurès was murdered by a nationalist in Paris. On the same day the Russian general mobilization became known. On August 2nd and 3rd, 1914, Haase fought in the SPD parliamentary group against accepting war credits . However, he could not prevail against the faction majority. On August 2, the parliamentary group's executive committee decided with four votes against two in favor of the war credits. In the parliamentary group meeting on August 3, Eduard David spoke for and Haase against the approval. The parliamentary group decided the adoption with 78 votes against 14. Immediately before the Reichstag session on August 4, the majority of the parliamentary group forced its co-chairman Hugo Haase to explain the resolution of the SPD parliamentary group against his will in the Reichstag. Haase used the phrase that "the free future" of the German people was threatened by a "victory of Russian despotism ". The imperial government responded to his statement “We will not abandon our own fatherland in the hour of danger” by proclaiming the “ truce ”.

After the failure of German war plans at the end of 1914, the conflict in the SPD intensified. While David, Ebert, Scheidemann and others showed a tendency to support not only the "defense" but also annexionist war aims of the government, Haase and his friends turned more and more openly against the war and against the war policy of the SPD. Reichstag parliamentary group. When the Reichstag voted on the war budget on March 20, 1915, Haase and another 29 MPs left the room. Karl Liebknecht and Otto Rühle voted against the budget. On June 19, 1915, Haase, Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky published an anti-war manifesto in the Leipziger Volkszeitung with the title The Commandment of the Hour . In it they attacked the expansionist German war aims and called for a firm opposition from the SPD.

The SPD party committee condemned this action and especially the participation of party chairman Haase. From now on, Ebert in particular campaigned for Haase to be replaced as party and parliamentary group leader. Scheidemann noted in his diary: "Ebert treated him [Haase] brutally." In November 1915, the opposition to the war course in the SPD parliamentary group had grown to over 40 votes, and Haase hoped to soon be able to win the majority on his side . But the war advocates refused to let Haase speak in the plenary session and present his dissenting position. The situation came to a head when Haase took the floor on the agenda at the session of the Reichstag on December 9th to repeal the end of the debate, which had already been decided, so that Otto Landsberg could speak as the second SPD speaker. Haase sharply attacked Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg, who had joined in with annexionist war aims. When Landsberg was actually allowed to speak, he distanced himself from Haase's criticism and defended the Chancellor against his accusation. Haase then decided to resign from the parliamentary group and to vote against the war credits for the first time in plenary on December 21, together with 19 friends; 22 other war opponents had left the hall. Haase initially held fast to the party leadership.

Split of the SPD

Since the war opponents could not express themselves outside the Reichstag under the conditions of military censorship, the war opponents around Haase decided to vote in the Reichstag on March 24, 1916 against the acceptance of the note that the SPD parliamentary group wanted to accept according to the majority resolution . Haase justified this, surprisingly for the majority of the parliamentary group, in plenary. When he also discussed the foreign policy of the Reich government and its course of annexation, there was a tumult in the Reichstag. Philipp Scheidemann insulted Haase as a "bastard" during his speech, Friedrich Ebert called him "shameless fellow, cheeky scoundrel" - accompanied by applause and "Bravo" shouts from the bourgeois parliamentary groups. The SPD member Wilhelm Keil shouted "Traitors! Traitors!" The MP Julius Kopsch from the Freedom People's Party went even further : "Again a Jew, a Jew, what do the Jews want here? Bravo Wedge!" Members of the majority tried to forcibly prevent Haase from continuing to speak. The majority in the Reichstag, including some members of the parliamentary group, decided at the request of the Presidium to withdraw Haase from the floor. Afterwards, the SPD parliamentary group excluded Haase and 17 other opponents of the war by 58 votes against 33 because of their “breach of faith” from the parliamentary group. On March 25, the other party board members forced Haase to resign as party chairman. The split in the SPD faction gave Haase greater freedom to represent his criticism of government and war policy in the Reichstag; but it also thwarted his plan to win the majority of the parliamentary group for his course. Haase's opponent Eduard David therefore classified this step in his war diary as a tactical mistake by Haase and a victory in his own tactics. The war opponents initially organized themselves in the Social Democratic Working Group (SAG) , which Haase took over as chairman. The majority of the party organizations in Berlin, Leipzig and Niederrhein joined the SAG, but not Karl Liebknecht and Otto Rühle.

When Liebknecht was arrested during an illegal peace demonstration on May 1, 1916, Haase campaigned intensively for his release. Kautsky disapproved of his friend Haase's sympathies for Liebknecht and the Spartacus group , which had emerged in 1916 from the Gruppe Internationale , founded in August 1914 .

A final attempt to maintain the unity of the party failed with the Reich Conference in September 1916. The SAG was only able to enforce with difficulty that Haase was allowed to speak there at all. He reminded the representatives of the majority of their responsibility: "By supporting the politics of the bourgeois classes, you are jointly responsible for it." In his closing speech, he unsuccessfully demanded a clear demonstration of sympathy for the arrested Liebknecht and expressed his disgust at the personal insults, which Gustav Noske in particular had hurled at him.

In January 1917, representatives of the SAG met together with representatives of the Spartacus group founded by Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin and Ernst Meyer , which, however, remained at a distance from the SAG. The SPD leadership took this meeting as an opportunity to Haase and SAG members from the party to exclude and to establish their own new organizations in the party districts that SAG had joined. Against this background, the party opposition met on March 6-8. April 1917 in Gotha for a non-public conference and after a controversial debate was constituted as the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) . Hugo Haase and Georg Ledebour were elected chairmen of the new party. Haase enthusiastically welcomed the Russian February Revolution in 1917 in several speeches . On March 30, 1917, he spoke in the Reichstag for the first time that the introduction of the republic was also on the agenda in Germany.

The rest of the SPD called itself in contrast to the USPD MSPD (majority SPD). In April 1917, Haase and Adolph Hoffmann supported striking workers in Berlin who had elected a workers' council based on the Russian model . In mid-1917 the Spartacus group joined the USPD. In the autumn of 1917, Haase expressed solidarity in the Reichstag with the sailors Albin Köbis and Max Reichpietsch , who had been shot for mutiny.

During the November Revolution of 1918, the MSPD and USPD were both considered legitimate representatives of the previously unified German Social Democracy. Most of the SPD supporters had not learned anything about the background to the split because the USPD, under military censorship, was unable to publish its positions. The Spartacus group and members of the USPD, who were in favor of a Soviet republic, criticized the early elections to the National Assembly and called on their supporters to boycott the elections. That is why the USPD, led by Haase, won only 7.6 percent of the vote in the Weimar National Assembly elections on January 19, 1919. Haase was elected to the National Assembly and took over the chairmanship of the USPD parliamentary group. After the founding of the KPD , he spoke out in favor of a reunification of the USPD and SPD and thus opposed the radical USPD wing, which sought to merge with the KPD and join the Communist International .

Revolution 1918/19

Council of People's Representatives before the resignation of the USPD members. From left: Emil Barth (USPD), Otto Landsberg (MSPD), Friedrich Ebert (MSPD), Hugo Haase (USPD), Wilhelm Dittmann (USPD), Philipp Scheidemann (MSPD)
Postcard with the Council of People's Representatives, November 1918

In the course of the November Revolution , the SPD politicians Ebert, Scheidemann and Otto Landsberg and the USPD politicians Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth formed a provisional government on November 10, 1918, the Council of People's Representatives . Haase took over their deputy chairmanship and the external department. Since the workers 'and soldiers' councils were everywhere pressing for an agreement between the two parties, Haase saw no other way out than a coalition with Ebert. In the coalition terms, however, the USPD insisted that the power of the councils must first be consolidated. In the Council of People's Representatives, Haase refrained from questioning Ebert's claim to chair the meetings and set the agenda.

Due to the course of the Reichsrätekongress on 16. – 20. December 1918, Haase and the USPD lost a lot of influence, also because the left-wing USPD representatives had boycotted the Central Council elections against Haase's will . Haase tried in vain to implement the resolutions of the Council Congress on the democratization of the army ( Hamburg points ). In consultation with General Wilhelm Groener , Ebert and comrades of the MSDP ensured that structurally everything remained the same in the army. Haase advocated the elections to the National Assembly , which Ebert had pushed , but advocated a much later election date at the Council Congress because otherwise the prisoners of war would not be able to participate and because many returning soldiers would not have had the opportunity to discuss the positions of the parties. He couldn't get his way with that.

On the night of December 23rd to 24th, Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg single-handedly ordered the violent crackdown by government troops against the revolutionary People's Navy Division in the Berlin Palace ; it came to the Christmas battles . For the first time soldiers used heavy artillery against their own compatriots in a major German city. On December 28, the Council of People's Deputies negotiated the incident with the Central Council. Haase accused Ebert of having allied himself with the military. With a list of detailed questions, he managed to get the Central Council on the side of the USPD on important points, but not on one point: The Central Council approved Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg's unauthorized action and their assignment to the Prussian War Minister Heinrich Schëuch . That is why Haase, Dittmann and Barth resigned as representatives of the people on the night of December 29, 1918. They declared: "We cannot answer for the fact that a representative of the old system of violence is given control over the life of others as he sees fit."

When the so-called Spartakus uprising began in Berlin at the beginning of January 1919 , Haase spent days working with Kautsky, Dittmann, Rudolf Breitscheid and Oskar Cohn to find a mediation and a negotiated solution. He obtained numerous concessions from the revolutionaries who, among other things , had occupied the editorial staff of the Vorwärts , but no concessions from Ebert and Gustav Noske, who had meanwhile joined the council of people's representatives. Haase had to break off the mediation without any results because Noske was determined to have the revolutionaries crushed by armed forces with the Freikorps . So it happened. An investigative committee of the Prussian state parliament later put the death toll at 156. After the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg on January 15, 1919, Haase wrote to his cousin: “You cannot have any idea about the situation in Berlin. The white terror rages like ever under the tsarist regime ... The Landsberg, Ebert, Scheidemann, who play themselves as guardians of legality, let the Soldateska, which they put together from the old officer and non-commissioned officers and bourgeois sons and incited, switch . "

At the USPD congress in March 1919, a controversy arose between the moderate wing around Haase and the left-wing radical wing led by Ernst Däumig and Ledebour. Haase advocated a connection between council power and parliament, but was unable to enforce his position; the majority insisted on a pure council model. In the elections for the two party leaders, Haase received 154 and Däumig 109 votes. To the surprise of the party congress, Haase did not accept the election because he could not work with Däumig. Däumig then renounced his candidacy; Arthur Crispien was elected in his place alongside Haase.

At the meeting of the Weimar National Assembly on May 12, 1919, which took place for the first time in Berlin in the auditorium of Berlin University, Haase was the only speaker to support the adoption of the upcoming Versailles Peace Treaty . As an East Prussian and as a German, he protested the harsh conditions, but acknowledged that they were a reaction to the annexionist German war aims of 1914–1918. A rejection of the contract, as Reich Chancellor Scheidemann had demanded, was just a defiant gesture that would lead to even tougher conditions. In any case, the peace treaty will be ruined by the expected world revolution .

After the defeat of the Munich Soviet Republic , Haase defended the poet and temporary Bavarian USPD chairman Ernst Toller in July 1919 as a lawyer before the Munich “ People's Court ” (a special court with negotiation similar to that of standing right). As chairman of the central council and commander of a military unit of the Soviet republic, Toller was charged with high treason . Haase achieved that Toller was not sentenced to death a month before him, like the communist protagonist of the Soviet republic Eugen Leviné , but got off relatively lightly with five years of imprisonment - in view of the politically heated socio-political atmosphere at the time .

Grave of Hugo Haase in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin

death

On October 8, 1919, Haase was injured in the legs by a revolver shot by Johann Voss, an allegedly mentally deranged leather worker. He was hospitalized and was on the mend when he suddenly died of sepsis on November 7, 1919 . He was 56 years old. Around 1,200 people attended the funeral service in the meeting room of the Reichstag, including the Vice President of the Reichstag, Paul Löbe . Reich President Friedrich Ebert was not among them.

family

Hugo Haase was married to Thea Lichtenstein (* 1869 in Ortelsburg , † 1937 in Königsberg). When he was on the road, Haase wrote her numerous letters in which he let her participate in his political thoughts. Ernst-Albert Seils was able to use some of them as sources in his biography.

Their son, the neurologist Ernst Haase , a student of Kurt Goldstein , worked in the Moabit hospital and in the welfare office of the Tiergarten health department. In 1929 he edited some writings and speeches from the father's estate. In 1938 the National Socialists withdrew his license to practice medicine and he emigrated to the USA via England. Most of Hugo Haase's estate was lost. The two granddaughters emigrated to Palestine as a result of the National Socialist takeover and joined a socialist kibbutz .

Hugo Haase in the judgment of contemporaries

Luise Zietz , who with Haase belonged to the SPD executive committee, wrote in her memoirs about the years 1913–1916:

“Those years from Bebel's death to our resignation from the executive committee of the Social Democratic Party were full of bitterness and pure martyrdom for both of us, but especially for Haase. Again and again I admired the patience and the conciliation of our comrade Haase with regard to the ruthlessness and the pennilessness that opposed him on the board. Everything petty and every intrigue was repugnant to our Haase in the soul. "

- Luise Zietz

Erich Dombrowski portrayed Haase under the pseudonym Johannes Fischart in the magazine Die Weltbühne at the end of 1918and characterized him as follows:

“A small, inconspicuous person. One who was shy and depressed. A yellowish, wrinkled face. A slim, casually drooping mustache. Small fleeting gray eyes that half shaded tired lids. One who, with his back bent, looked like a tough youth and a lot of work [...].
A clever head, a man of compelling logic and a great deal of painstakingly acquired knowledge. And a person who had kept a feeling heart in his body through all the bitter pinpricks of life. He wasn't drawn to the top. He didn't crave social ambition, money and more money. He stayed down and helped the poor. He became the proletariat's advocate in Konigsberg, and his practice grew day by day. He often overlooked it when the fees were not paid [...]
His radicalism is impressive. At the party congresses he knows how to captivate the comrades because he does not, like Ledebour, engage in rabid opposition for the sake of the opposition. The matter is more important to him, and he always showed understanding for practical questions, for tactics, when they did not touch the basic principles. "

- Erich Dombrowski

Heinrich Ströbel wrote in his obituary for Hugo Haase in November 1919:

“Haase's talent was mostly analytical. He had the most penetrating mind and an amazing ability to adapt to the most difficult of situations in the moment. And since these important qualities were combined with selfless zeal for the cause of socialism and with agitational activity, Haase drew the attention of Bebel early on, who was looking for a reliable reinforcement of the left wing and a later replacement for himself for the party leadership ... As an intellectual, he had just been driven to the party by the social and humanitarian ideals of socialism [...] In
terms of political-historical knowledge and theoretical knowledge, he surpassed most of his colleagues by a large margin. In addition, he had a practical understanding, a quick sense of orientation and the penetrating knowledge of the laws and administrative practice, which is suitable for the experienced lawyer ... Haase, however, knew how to make Scheidemann , Ebert and his peers bearable by the uncommon commitment of his appearance. This kindness and conciliation now ... was nothing artificially accepted, not diplomatic habituation, but the real nature of this person who was so personable in human terms ... Haase was nothing less than a cool, intellectual nature. More than once I have seen him burst into tears in emotional pain ... You buried a good man. And maybe that of a redeemed future is considered the greatest glory! "

- Heinrich Stroebel

Hugo Haase in the judgment of historians

Arthur Rosenberg criticizes the policy of the Council of People's Representatives in 1918, including the policy of Haase : The Social Democrats concentrated their activities on the areas “which also included the interests of the old German Social Democrats” - namely social policy and electoral law, while other areas “either ignored or only touched timidly and inadequately ”.

Erich Matthias agrees with this judgment: “Nothing was able to justify the attentist policy of the people's commissioners better than invoking the pending decision of the whole people.” Haase and Dittmann's attitude towards the National Assembly differed only slightly from that of Eberts and Scheidemann . The SPD and the USPD both stuck to “traditionalist ideas”. The departure of the USPD from the cabinet was "largely due to election tactics and agitation" and can be "interpreted as a convenient evasion into the non-binding formal radicalism of the old social democracy".

His biographer Kenneth Calkins justifies Haase's neglect in literature with the fact that “Hugo Haase was in a lost position. He took the lead of the Social Democratic Party of Germany when it was on the verge of collapse and, even in the face of the profound consequences of the war and the revolution, refused to give up the party's traditional principles. In their defense, he opposed his colleagues in the party leadership and then contributed significantly to the split in the party. The Independent SPD that emerged from this split was largely his creation ... and collapsed shortly after Haase's death. Like Haase, the party he founded did not leave any organized heirs who would have cared to keep both memories alive. ”Calkins writes about Haase's role in the SPD from 1911:“ With his theoretical way of thinking, he stood for a majority of practically minded people Against politicians and bureaucrats who rallied around Ebert ... As co-chairman of the party, Haase wanted to stand above the parliamentary groups ... It is due to this circumstance and his isolated position on the executive committee that his role in the party in the immediate pre-war period cannot be precisely outlined . "

Dieter Groh sums up Haase's role as SPD chairman before the war: “Even Haase did not bring the [left wing] desired strengthening of Bebel's line against the bureaucratic majority of the party executive, nor did he have enough authority to assert himself against Ebert - especially after his election as Bebel's successor in autumn 1913. With Bebel's death, Haase lost his strongest support, as he lacked the self-confidence of a Bebel, an Ebert or the old board members. Besides, he was only a candidate for embarrassment from a party that was more divided than ever in its history about strategy and ultimate goal. "

His biographer Ernst-Albert Seils values ​​Haase's influence on the later attempts by Gustav Radbruch and other lawyers to reform criminal law. Seils also sees the influence of Haase and his USPD loyalists Dittmann, Eisner and Ewald Vogtherr on the outbreak of the November Revolution as significant, since a. The revolutionary events in Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart followed rallies by those named, at which the speakers had demanded that the "war party" be disempowered.

Joachim Käppner compares the "enemy brothers" Haase and Ebert. He says of Haase: “He doesn't have the best speaker's voice, but his speeches can captivate thousands, his capital is credibility and a sense of justice. And he is the more winning, more charismatic personality than Ebert. ”Regarding their big argument on the war question, he says:“ Ebert has the stronger battalions. He has the clear majority of the party behind him, but Hugo Haase has a stronger belief, the clearer principles ... Haase is more fearless, Ebert more skilful, especially in politics behind the scenes ... Haase will distrust power and rely on the community of the convinced; Ebert distrusts the emotions of this community and gathers power to protect himself and the country from them if necessary ... Many hate him [Haase]. But Haase doesn't hate back, he hopes. To reason, to progress, to insight. (...) Haase, a master of the rational, does not understand the depths of irrationalism. "

Honors

From August 1945 to April 1953 a street in Leipzig , today's Erich-Weinert-Straße, was named after Haase. Today there are Hugo Haase streets or paths in Nuremberg , Strehla , Südharz , Weimar , Winsen (Luhe) and Zwenkau .

In Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin Hugo Haase is represented SPD leader in the gallery of.

Publications

literature

  • Kenneth R. Calkins: Hugo Haase. Democrat and revolutionary. Colloquium, Berlin 1976 ISBN 3-7678-0399-2 .
  • Dieter Engelmann, Horst Naumann: Hugo Haase. Life path and political legacy of a militant socialist. New ways, Berlin 1999 ISBN 3-88348-216-1
  • Jens Flemming: Haase, Hugo. In: Democratic Ways. German résumés from five centuries. Edited by Manfred Asendorf and Rolf von Bockel. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1997 ISBN 3-476-01244-1 p. 227f.
  • Dieter Groh :  Haase, Hugo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 381 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Dieter Groh: Negative Integration and Revolutionary Attentism. Berlin 1973
  • Ernst Haase (Ed.): Hugo Haase. His life and work. With a selection of letters, speeches and essays . JJ Ottens, Berlin-Frohnau 1929 (table of contents)
  • Joachim Käppner: 1918: uprising for freedom. The prudent revolution. Munich 2017 ISBN 978-3-492-05733-2
  • Karsten Krampitz : The dead ride fast. 100 years ago, the social democrat Hugo Haase was assassinated in an emotionally whipped up situation. In: Neues Deutschland, October 8, 2019, p. 12
  • Karsten Krampitz: 1919: Terrible minutes. USPD chairman Hugo Haase dies after an assassination attempt. In the year after the revolution, politicians on the left are considered outlaws, also because the SPD is not doing anything about it. In: Friday, November 7, 2019, p. 12. ( online )
  • Ernst Gottfried Lowenthal: Jews in Prussia. A biographical directory. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1982 ISBN 3-496-01012-6 , p. 84
  • Susanne Miller : Burgfrieden and class struggle: The German social democracy in the First World War . Düsseldorf 1974 ISBN 3-7700-5079-7
  • Franz Osterroth : Hugo Haase. In: Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . 1st part: Deceased personalities . JHW Dietz Nachf., Hanover 1960, pp. 109–111
  • Uli Schöler, Thilo Scholle (Hrsg.): World war, split, revolution. Social Democracy 1916–1922. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. Bonn 2018 ISBN 978-3-8012-4260-2
  • Thilo Scholle: Hugo Haase. Lawyer and member of parliament in the center of social democracy. Jewish miniatures, 246. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2019
  • 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 .
  • Ernst-Albert Seils: Hugo Haase (1863-1919). A German politician from Warmia. In: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ermlands, 48, 1996, pp. 99-137
  • Ernst-Albert Seils: Hugo Haase: A Jewish Social Democrat in the German Empire. His fight for peace and social justice. Peter Lang, Bern 2016 ISBN 978-3-631-66876-4
  • K. Stenkewitz: Haase, Hugo. In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 179-181.

Web links

Commons : Hugo Haase  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Hugo Haase  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase , Frankfurt 2016, p. 114ff. On the situation of farm workers under the Prussian servants' order Wolfram Siemann: Society on the move. Germany 1849–1871. Frankfurt 1990, pp. 162f.
  2. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase , Frankfurt 2016, p. 115ff.
  3. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 13f. E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase, pp. 195–201, pp. 212–225
  4. ^ Johann Fischart: Politicians and Publicists XLI. Hugo Haase. Die Weltbühne 50, December 12, 1918, pp. 553ff.
  5. ^ Carl E. Schorske: German Social Democracy 1905-1917 , Cambridge 1955, p. 210; after K. Calkins: Hugo Haase (1976), p. 211 (note 39)
  6. ↑ K. Calkins: Hugo Haase (1976), p. 19
  7. ↑ K. Calkins: Hugo Haase (1976), pp. 22-25
  8. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase (2016), pp. 254–261
  9. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase (2016), pp. 263–272
  10. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase (2016), pp. 274–279
  11. ↑ E.-A. Seils: Hugo Haase (2016), p. 281f
  12. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 16.
  13. ↑ Quoted from D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 16.
  14. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 13.
  15. ↑ August Bebel. A biography . Dietz, Berlin / GDR 1989, p. 657.
  16. ^ August Bebel: Selected Speeches and Writings 1906 to 1913. Volume 8/1. KG Saur-Verlag. Munich, 1997, ISBN 3-598-11277-7 , pp. 583ff.
  17. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 17f.
  18. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 21.
  19. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 18f.
  20. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 20.
  21. ↑ a b c According to Karsten Krampitz: "... and we are infinitely impoverished". The forgotten SPD chairman Hugo Haase . Feature on Deutschlandfunk, October 8, 2019 ( online as PDF )
  22. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 24.
  23. ^ Declaration by the Social Democratic Party on the outbreak of war given by parliamentary group leader Haase in the Reichstag (August 4, 1914)
  24. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 32.
  25. ↑ KR Calkins: Hugo Haase, p. 102f
  26. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 33f.
  27. ↑ To: Karsten Krampitz , 1919 terrible minutes , in: Friday, Issue 45 v. November 7, 2019, p. 12
  28. ^ K. Calkins: Hugo Haase. Democrat and revolutionary. Berlin 1976, p. 110f. Johannes Fischart too: politicians and publicists portray the scene. The world stage. 50, December 12, 1918, pp. 553ff. See also: Negotiations of the German Reichstag, 37th session of March 24, 1916, p. 844 B; https://www.reichstagsprotokoll.de/Blatt_k13_bsb00003403_00076.html
  29. ^ The war diary of the Reichstag deputy Eduard David 1914 to 1918, revised. v. Susanne Miller, Düsseldorf 1966, p. 168.
  30. ^ KR Calkins: Hugo Haase, p. 112. E. David, Kriegstagebuch, p. 168
  31. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 38.
  32. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 39f.
  33. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 43.
  34. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. Berlin 1999, p. 47.
  35. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy. Beck, Munich 1993, pp. 70ff
  36. ^ Haase's speech at the 1st Reichsrätekongress on December 19, 1918. In: D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 174ff.
  37. ↑ Joachim Käppner: 1918. Uprising for freedom. Munich 2017, p. 348
  38. ↑ J. Käppner: 1918 (2017), p. 353ff. Eduard Bernstein : (Chapter) “The withdrawal of the independent Social Democrats from the Council of People's Representatives”. In the same: the German revolution. History of the formation and the first working period of the German republic . Verlag for Society and Education, Berlin 1921, pp. 122–127.
  39. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 66f.
  40. ^ Wolfram Wette: Gustav Noske. A political biography , Droste Verlag, 1987, p. 308
  41. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 68.
  42. ↑ D. Engelmann, H. Naumann: Hugo Haase. P. 71ff.
  43. ↑ K. Calkins: Hugo Haase (1976), p. 193
  44. ^ Salomon Grumbach : The annexionist Germany: A collection of documents 1914-1918. Donat Verlag, Bremen 2017, ISBN 9783943425345 .
  45. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 58.
  46. ↑ Ernst Haase: Hugo Haase. His life and work. JJ Ottens-Verlag, Berlin 1929.
  47. ^ Politicians and Publicists XLI. Hugo Haase. In: The world stage. 50, December 12, 1918, pp. 553ff.
  48. ^ Heinrich Ströbel: Hugo Haase. In: The world stage. 48, November 20, 1919, pp. 617ff.
  49. ↑ Arthur Rosenberg: History of the German Republic (1935), p. 37; quoted based on Erich Matthias: Between Councils and Privy Councilors, Düsseldorf 1970, p. 126
  50. ↑ Erich Matthias: Between Councils and Privy Councilors, Düsseldorf 1970, p. 127
  51. ↑ Erich Matthias, p. 128
  52. ^ K R. Calkins: Hugo Haase , Berlin 1976, foreword, p. 7
  53. ^ K R. Calkins: Hugo Haase , Berlin 1976, p. 39f
  54. ^ Dieter Groh: Negative Integration and Revolutionary Attentism. Berlin 1973, pp. 203f
  55. ↑ Ernst-A. Seils: Hugo Haase , 2016, pp. 263–272, 281f
  56. ↑ Seils, pp. 647–653
  57. ↑ Joachim Käppner: 1918. Uprising for freedom. Munich 2017, p. 106
  58. ↑ J. Käppner, p. 110ff
  59. ↑ Lt. Message from Andreas Helle from the SPD party executive, January 27, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Haase, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, politician (SPD), MdR and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenstein , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1919
Place of death Berlin
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 30, 2019 .