Joseph Hess

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Maria Joseph Aloysius Heß ( partly also Hess ) (born May 13, 1878 in Cologne ; † February 4, 1932 in Berlin ) was a teacher, civil servant and politician of the Center Party . He was one of the most influential politicians of this party in the Prussian state parliament during the Weimar Republic .

Life

education and profession

Hess was the son of a businessman from Cologne. After graduating from high school, he studied classical philology and German language and literature in Bonn and Münster and obtained his doctorate. phil. He then worked briefly as a teacher at grammar schools. As a student in Bonn, he joined the Unitas-Salia. In 1903 he was also editor of the magazine "Unitas." From 1906 Hess worked in the school administration. First he worked as a district school inspector in Wipperfürth , was appointed to the school council in 1916 and to the senior government councilor of the district government in Koblenz in 1920. In 1930 Heß became the conductor of the finance department of the Prussian building and finance department.

politics

Within the Center Party, Hess was more on the left wing. In 1908 he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives for the first time . He was a member of parliament until 1918.

After the November Revolution, Hess became a member of the Prussian state constituent assembly . After the first regular state election, he was a member of the Prussian state parliament from 1921 to 1932. In addition, he was a member of the Rhenish provincial parliament from 1921 to 1932 (occasional information that he was also a member of the Reichstag from 1928 onwards is probably incorrect, as corresponding evidence is not available in the Reichstag handbook, for example).

Hess was of historical importance as the long-standing manager of the center faction in the Prussian state parliament. As the actual leader of the faction, he was referred to in the press as a "factional leader". In 1930 he finally replaced the previous parliamentary group leader, Felix Porsch , and thus officially took the lead. Hess was offered a ministerial post several times, which he refused each time. Incidentally, his position in the background was so strong that Hess was more influential than some ministers.

Hess accepted the role as a smaller coalition partner behind the SPD. Together with Ernst Heilmann , the parliamentary group leader of the SPD , Hess played the central role in the existence of the coalition. Both worked together in a trusting manner and mutually agreed on personal and tactical issues. Together they managed to swear the left wing in the SPD parliamentary group as well as the conservatives in the center around Franz von Papen to the coalition.

death

Joseph Hess died in Berlin in 1932 at the age of 53 and was buried in the local St. Hedwig cemetery on Liesenstrasse . The tomb has not been preserved.

literature

  • Wilhelm Ribhegge: Prussia in the West. Struggle for parliamentarism in Rhineland and Westphalia 1789–1947. Aschendorff, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-402-05489-5 (special edition for the State Center for Civic Education North Rhine-Westphalia) p. 325.
  • Eric D. Kohler: The Successful German Center-Left: Joseph Hess and the Prussian Center Party, 1908-32 , in: Central European History , Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 313-348

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006. p. 54.
personal data
SURNAME Hess, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hess, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (center)
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1932
Place of death Berlin