Johannes Meerfeld

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Johannes Meerfeld

Johannes Meerfeld (also Johann Meerfeld, Jean Meerfeld) (born October 16, 1871 in Euskirchen , † June 20, 1956 in Bonn ) was a German politician (SPD).

Live and act

Meerfeld was born in 1871 as the son of a gardener. After attending primary school, he learned the saddlery trade. His years of travel took him to Hanover , Berlin , southern Germany and Austria, among others . In 1893 Meerfeld joined the SPD through the Catholic journeyman's associations . From 1900 he worked as an editor in the social democratic press: during the empire he wrote mainly for the Rheinische Zeitung , of which he was chief editor from 1906, and for Die Glocke in Cologne.

In January 1917, Meerfeld became a substitute for the late Adolf Hofrichter as a member of the last Reichstag of the German Empire , to which he belonged until the November Revolution of 1918. From 1921 he also served as the Prussian Council of State , a mandate that he would hold until 1924. Meerfeld rejected the separatist movement that spread in the Cologne area in the immediate post-war period, which sought to separate the Rhineland from Germany and to found an independent Rhineland state (see Rhenish Republic ).

In January 1919 Meerfeld was elected to the Weimar National Assembly, in which he represented constituency 20 (administrative districts of Cologne and Aachen) until June 1920. He then belonged to the first Reichstag of the Weimar Republic from June 1920 to May 1924 as a member of constituency 23 (Cologne-Aachen).

In the spring of 1920, Meerfeld was elected to the city of Cologne as an alderman. After Cologne's Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer of the Center Party, in an effort to expand the political base of the local government through an integrative policy, brought the Social Democrats into his government team, Meerfeld was responsible for the management of the Department for Art and Popular Education of the City of Cologne. In this capacity he was entrusted with the supervision and promotion of the city's cultural activities, especially the theater. Despite Meerfeld's rejection of political Catholicism, on the one hand, and despite Adenauer's conservative, rather negative attitude towards social democracy, on the other, the relationship with Adenauer was characterized by a special relationship of trust.

In the SPD, Meerfeld was meanwhile a member of the district commission for the Upper Rhine Province . Meerfeld had already held an honorary doctorate from the University of Cologne on October 1, 1919 , which he owed to his decisive role in founding this institution immediately after the end of the war.

In 1933 Meerfeld was sent into retirement by the National Socialists.

After 1945 he participated in the reconstruction of the SPD in West Germany. He served once again as chairman of the Middle Rhine district for a short time before retiring from politics. However, he remained connected to his party until his death in 1956. Meerfeld's grave is in the old cemetery in Bonn.

As an author, Meerfeld submitted several political writings, including a history of the Center Party.

Fonts

  • The war of the pious. Materials on the dispute about the center. 1914.
  • The German Center Party. (= Social Science Library, Vol. 3), Berlin 1918.
  • To be or not to be on the Cologne theaters. Cologne 1931.
  • The future of Cologne theaters. Cologne 1932.

literature

  • 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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Schlemmer: "Los von Berlin". The Rhine State Efforts after the First World War. 20078, p. 397.
  2. ^ Peter Koch: Konrad Adenauer. A political biography . 1985, p. 71.
personal data
SURNAME Meerfeld, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meerfeld, Johann; Meerfeld, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Euskirchen
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1956
Place of death Bonn