Josef fields

Josef Felder (around 1933)

Grave of the Felder family in the cemetery in Untermenzing

Josef Felder (born August 24, 1900 in Augsburg , † October 28, 2000 in Munich ) was a German resistance fighter , journalist and politician ( SPD ).

Life and work

Josef Felder was the oldest of eleven children of an Augsburg merchant family . His parents were Josef and Therese Felder. His mother died when he was seven years old. In the first few years of life, the family often moved to southern Germany . After visiting elementary and junior high school - at the elementary school was one of Julius Streicher his teachers - he trained in graphic arts. He then worked first in his father's textile factory and from 1924 to 1933 as an editor for the Schwäbische Volkszeitung . 1933 fled fields first to Austria and from there to the Dollfuss revolt further into Czechoslovakia . In 1934 he returned illegally to Germany and was arrested. Felder was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp until 1936 . He then worked until 1946 as an accountant in Willy Bogner senior's textile and sporting goods company in Munich and Oberaudorf . Bogner, who was well known to Felder's brother, had "requested" him to get him out of the concentration camp.

In 1946, Felder became the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Südostkurier in Bad Reichenhall . From 1955 to 1957 he was editor-in-chief of the SPD newspaper Vorwärts .

Josef Felder died on October 28, 2000 at the age of 100 in Munich. He was married and had two children.

Political party

In July 1919, Felder was a founding member of the local branch of the USPD in Mindelheim . However, when the local association decided to join the Communist International in 1920 , it switched to the SPD. In 1985 he was elected honorary chairman of the Bavarian SPD .

MP

From 1930, Felder was a city ​​councilor in Augsburg , from 1932 a member of the Reichstag . Fields was one of the 94 Social Democratic members of the Reichstag , in 1933 against the Enabling Act of Nazis agreed. Josef Felder was the last living member of the Reichstag from the time of the Weimar Republic .

Felder was a member of the SPD in the German Bundestag from October 15, 1957 to October 19, 1969 .

Honors and nominations

• On December 7, 1964, Josef Felder was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit .
• In 1983 he was awarded the Gustav Heinemann Citizen Prize .
• In 1989, Felder received the title of honorary academic citizen of the University of Augsburg .
• In 1990 the state capital Munich awarded him the Golden Citizen Medal .
• On July 31, 1990, Felder received the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon from the Federal Republic of Germany.
• In 1992 he was awarded the "Lindau Socialist Hat" from the SPD district association Lindau in Lindenberg .
• In 1995, the SPD regional association in Bavaria donated the “ Josef Felder Prize for the Common Good and Civil Courage”.
• The last democratic member of the Reichstag died with Felder. For this reason, the Federal Republic of Germany honored him on November 7, 2000 with a state ceremony .
• In 2002, Deutsche Post issued a special postage stamp with a portrait of Felders at a face value of 56 euro cents as part of the Upright Democrats series .
• On October 1st, 2009 the state capital Munich decided to name the northern bypass Pasing (NUP) after Felder.

Publications

• Records and memories. In: German Bundestag (ed.): Members of the German Bundestag. Records and memories. Volume 1, Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1982, pages 9 to 78, ISBN 3-7646-1819-1
• Why I said no Memories of a long life for politics. Autobiography, Pendo Verlag, Munich / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-85842-392-0 .

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

Commons : Josef Felder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Josef Felder in the catalog of the German National Library
• Josef Felder in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Josef Felder's estate (ED 312) in the archive of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (PDF file; 79 kB)
• Josef Felder and the German Social Democracy - Detailed online biography about the Augsburg SPD politician