Josef Weiser (politician, 1881)
Josef Weiser (born December 26, 1881 in Gräfrath , † January 22, 1964 in Gelsenkirchen ) was a German politician ( center ).
Live and act
German Empire (1881 to 1918)
After attending primary school , Weiser took up the commercial profession. On August 1, 1908, he set up his own textile shop in Buer in Westphalia on Essener Strasse (today Horster Strasse).
From 1915 to 1916, Weiser took part in the First World War with the Landsturm . He then worked in the city administration until the end of the war.
Weimar Republic (1918 to 1933)
After the war at the latest, Weiser became a member of the Catholic Center Party . In 1918 he moved into the city council of Gelsenkirchen. In 1921, Weiser became a member of the Münster and Bochum Chamber of Commerce . In 1925 he took over his first political office as a member of the Westphalian provincial council . Weiser also sat on the parish council of St. Urbanus. As a textile trader he founded the professional association of textile traders Buer. He also became chairman of the merchants' association.
With the election of September 1930 , Weiser was elected to the Reichstag for the first time , to which he belonged for four legislative periods until 1933 as a representative of constituency 18 (Buer). During his time as a member of parliament he voted for the adoption of the Enabling Act of March 1933, which formed the legal basis for the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship.
Period of National Socialism (1933 to 1945)
Since 1933, Weiser has been exposed to constant hostility and harassment from the National Socialist rulers: on March 18, 1933, the national newspaper in Buer called for a boycott of the Weiser family's department store. He was later briefly detained.
Despite his distance from National Socialism, Weiser was able to become chairman of the Catholic sales association in Buer in 1937. As an operator, he also automatically belonged to the German Labor Front (DAF).
Weiser's expansion of his company in the late 1930s met with repeated criticism after the Nazi era: For this purpose he bought up numerous businesses (especially in Bochum Recklinghausen), including department stores owned by Jewish entrepreneurs that were part of the “ Aryanization “Were forced to offer their company for sale. The historian Stefan Goch judged Weiser's business expansion between 1933 and 1938 that, although Weiser had benefited from Aryanization, he nevertheless behaved “differently” than many “Aryanization winners”: “[He] paid correct prices and tried [the Forced to sell] to help with their escape. ”After the war, Weiser also paid two compensation payments to the previous owners of his houses.
From March 11th to March 25th, 1942, Weiser was held prisoner by the Gestapo in the Buerer Police Headquarters for fifteen days . He himself later stated that the arrest was for distributing a leaflet.
The closure of Weiser's department store, initiated by the NSDAP local group leadership in Gelsenkirchen in 1943 in the course of the so-called business closure campaign, which aimed to close all non-war-essential operations and transfer their workers to the armaments industry, finally failed to materialize. An expert opinion on Weiser from this time notes that his customers are being served satisfactorily, but at the same time emphasizes his political unreliability: “He doesn't care about the movement at all. At the Hitler salute he is forced to raise his hand - but hardly at shoulder height. "
In connection with the grid action , the Gelsenkirchen Gestapo received an order in August 1944 to arrest Weiser and take him to a concentration camp. However, the local officials initially refused to implement the instruction on the grounds that Weiser had lost two sons in the war. Weiser was informed of the impending danger through a confidante in the Gestapo. He used this tip as an opportunity to hide for the rest of the war.
Post-war period (1945 to 1964)
After 1945, Weiser was 2nd chairman of the Bochum Chamber of Commerce and Industry . From 1946 to 1956 he was also a member of the city council for the newly founded center. In 1949 and from 1954 to 1956 he was mayor. From 1946 he also acted as editor of the Westphalian Courier .
In the first years after the war, Weiser made the premises of his department stores available to local authorities and for the storage of textiles. In April 1949 he finally founded a family limited company with his four surviving sons (Theo, Franz, Josef and Karl) to run his department stores. While Josef Weiser took over the management, the sons became managers of the four individual branches: Theo took over the house in Recklinghausen, Franz that in Bochum, Josef the house on the star and Karl the market building. In 1956, Weiser was made an honorary citizen of Gelsenkirchen by the city of Gelsenkirchen.
The department stores that remained in the possession of Weiser's family (Buer, Bochum, Recklinghausen) were finally taken over by the Sinn-Leffers company in 1984 . Today, among other things, the Josef-Weiser-Weg in Gelsenkirchen, named after him, and the memorial plaque at the department store in Buer remind of Weiser's life and work.
Honors
- 1954: Cross of Merit (Steckkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany
Web links
- Josef Weiser in the database of members of the Reichstag
- Former Weiser department store at the Institute for Urban History in Gelsenkirchen
Individual evidence
- ^ Association for mining and industrial history Recklinghausen: Recklinghausen in the industrial age. 2000, p. 198.
- ↑ historiker-vor-ort.de ( Memento from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) “Aryanization”. The destruction of the economic existence of the Jews during the Nazi era. Conference report of the 2008 annual conference. Historians on site
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wise, Josef |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (center), MdR |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 26, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Graefrath |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 22, 1964 |
| Place of death | Gelsenkirchen |