Josef Simon (politician)

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Josef Simon as a member of the Reichstag in 1912

Josef Simon (born May 23, 1865 in Schneppenbach , Lower Franconia, † April 1, 1949 in Kornwestheim ) was a German trade unionist and politician ( SPD ).

Live and act

Life in the Empire (1865-1919)

Josef Simon was born the son of a shepherd. After attending the village schools in Ernstkirchen , Kleinkahl and Johannesberg from 1871 to 1878, he was trained as a shoemaker in Huckelheim until 1881 . He then worked in various shoe factories. In the course of time he rose to become the manager of a larger factory as a master shoemaker .

In 1885 Simon became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the free trade union shoemaker's association in Offenbach am Main . In 1886 he married. 1888, at the height of the of Bismarck forced the fight against social democracy, Simon was from the Frankfurt police because of the proliferation of banned publications in custody taken. Since the subsequent proceedings ended with Simon's acquittal, the authorities expelled him from the area under siege in Frankfurt as a substitute on the basis of the socialist laws . Simon now moved to Nuremberg. At this time he also began to take on official duties in the shoemaker's association: between 1894 and 1900 he was the chairman of the central association committee of the union.

In the following years Simon took part as a delegate at the International Socialist Congresses in Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Basel. From 1897 to 1900 he held the post of municipal representative in Ilversgehofen near Erfurt, where from 1897 to 1899 he also managed a shoe factory organized as a cooperative as managing director. In 1900 he became chairman of the Central Association of Shoemakers in Germany. In 1910 and 1926 he traveled to the United States to study the wage and employment conditions there.

Between 1900 and 1933 Simon was the full-time chairman of the shoemaker's union based in Nuremberg . In 1907 Simon became secretary of the International Association of Shoe and Leather Industry Workers. In the same year he was elected to the Bavarian state parliament for the first time , to which he was finally to belong until 1918. From 1908 Simon was also authorized representative in Nuremberg. He was to hold this position until 1920. He then served as a city councilor in Nuremberg until December 1929.

In January 1912, Simon was elected to the Reichstag for the first time , where he initially represented the constituency of Upper Franconia 1 until the November Revolution of 1918. In 1914, Simons was elected to the state executive committee of the Bavarian SPD. In 1917, Simon left the SPD and joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), a new party that was mainly recruited from members of the left wing of the SPD who were dissatisfied with the SPD's policies during the First World War . A year earlier, in 1916, he had joined the Social Democratic Working Group by rejecting war credits . During the period of upheaval in 1918/1919, Simon was a member of the provisional National Council in Bavaria for the USPD.

Weimar Republic (1919 to 1933)

In January 1919, Simon was elected to the Weimar National Assembly for constituency 26 (Upper Franconia) , from which he left early after his election was declared invalid in November. In March / April 1919 he served briefly in the Hoffmann cabinet as Bavarian Minister for Trade and Industry , but resigned from this government on April 8, 1919, after the Bavarian Soviet Republic had been proclaimed in Munich . He was also a member of the USPD's advisory board or party council from 1920 to 1922. He was also admitted to the Provisional Reich Economic Council , on which he sat until 1933.

In June 1920, Simon resumed his parliamentary career when he was elected to the first Reichstag of the Weimar Republic for constituency 29 (Franconia) . In 1922, Simon left the USPD to return to the SPD, whose parliamentary group he now rejoined. After his mandate was confirmed in the following four Reichstag elections - in May 1924, December 1924, May 1928 and September 1930 - Simon was a member of the Reichstag for a total of almost twelve years - from June 1920 to July 1932. After the Reichstag constituencies were renumbered, Simon's Franconian constituency figured as constituency no.26 from May 1924 to July 1932.

During the dispute over the direction within the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) - which was sparked by the question of whether one should work with the semi-dictatorial Brüning presidential government to prevent the greater evil of the National Socialists coming to power, or whether one should stand uncompromisingly against both opponents - In 1931 Simon pleaded for a sharp course against the government. The reason for his stance was the emergency ordinances of Heinrich Brüning's government on wage cuts: “We have avoided the fight so far, but the question arises as to whether, given the economic situation, we can still avoid it in the foreseeable future. It seems that the enemy is targeting the weakening of our organization and then forcing the fight on us when our organizations are weakened enough. We can no longer bear any further stress tests and have to explain this openly and honestly. ” Simon was not able to assert himself with this position. Only a little later, Simon - obeying the need of the situation - was forced to agree to support the Brüning government and to accept the emergency ordinances it introduced in order to avert the risk of the government overthrowing and the possibility of a successor government by the National Socialists: "It is the terrible thing that we are bound for better or for worse with the Brüning government."

Period of National Socialism and the post-war period (1933 to 1949)

Simon recalls: “[Then] we were put together in a group to take pictures. A cardboard cover was hung around me, on which was written: "I'm a class-conscious SPD bigwig." I tore the poster off, but was put on me again with the threat that if I tear it off again I would get a beating. […] Our pictures were then sold by the SS in the camp for 20 Reichspfennig. ”Shortly after the National Socialists came to power , Simon was arrested and, after various intermediate stops, held in Dachau concentration camp until 1934 . Just a few months after his release, Simons was arrested again in 1935, against whom proceedings for “preparation for high treason ” have now been initiated. He was forced to sign a declaration to cease all activities against the regime in the future. Nevertheless he kept in contact with Wilhelm Leuschner, among others . After the successful outcome of the July 20, 1944 attack , he was designated as a leader in building an administration.

After the end of the Second World War , Simon took part in the reconstruction of the SPD in Nuremberg. Because of his previous achievements, he was elected honorary chairman of the local party group as well as the union. In addition, he was entrusted with the chairmanship of the supervisory board of the consumer cooperative for Nuremberg and Fürth. Josef Simon died during the founding congress of the leather trade union on April 1, 1949 in Kornwestheim near Stuttgart.

souvenir

In 1972 a street in Nuremberg-Langwasser was named after him in memory of Josef Simon.

Fonts

  • The wage and labor conditions in the shoe and leather industry in America. Nuremberg s. a. 1928.

literature

  • Social Democratic Party of Germany (ed.): Committed to freedom. Memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century. Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-89472-173-1 , p. 307f.
  • Adolf Mirkes (Ed.): Josef Simon. Shoemaker, trade unionist, socialist with rough edges. Cologne 1985.
  • Michael Ruck : Simon, Josef (1865-1949). In: A. Thomas Lane et al. a. (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders. Volume 2. Westport, Ct./London 1995, ISBN 0-313-29900-5 , p. 897.
  • Klaus Schönhoven:  Simon, Josef. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 438 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The way into the disaster. Workers and the labor movement in the Weimar Republic 1930 to 1933. Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-8012-0095-7 , p. 355.
  2. ↑ Winkler: Way into the disaster. P. 462.
  3. ↑ Adolf Mirkes: Josef Simon. Cologne 1985, p. 142.
personal data
SURNAME Simon, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists and politicians (SPD, USPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Schneppenbach
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1949
Place of death Kornwestheim