Julius Motteler

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Julius Motteler

Julius Motteler (born June 18, 1838 in Esslingen am Neckar , † September 29, 1907 in Leipzig ) was a German businessman and socialist . He was a leading member of the early German labor movement and a repeated member of the Reichstag . During the time of the Socialist Law he organized the underground distribution of the Social Democratic party press. Furthermore, he was instrumental in the formation of trade unions in Germany, as well as a pioneer of the proletarian women's movement . He was a representative of the left and belonged to the close circle of confidants of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht . Motteler was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and was already involved in the founding of its predecessor parties , the Saxon People's Party , the Social Democratic Workers 'Party (SDAP) and the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP) .

life and work

House in Esslingen am Neckar, where Motteler lived from 1838 to 1856

Motteler was born the ninth of twelve children in a wealthy family. From 1845 to 1852 he attended the pedagogy in Esslingen. As a trained cloth maker , buckskin weaver and businessman, after his military service, he was initially employed as an accountant and factory manager in the Kohn cloth shop in Augsburg , and from September 1859 to 1867 he was an accountant and dispatcher at the "Vigonespinnerei Wolf & Kirsten" in Crimmitschau .

From 1870 to 1878 he was married to Emilie Henriette Kyber from Crimmitschau, and later to Emilie Schwarze from Esslingen. He had a son († 1879).

In 1860 he first joined the liberal German National Association . In 1863 he was involved in founding a workers' education association in Crimmitschau and thus triggered a movement across Germany. In the Association of German Workers' Associations , founded in 1863 , he separated from the liberal “ bourgeoisie ”. He advocated the program of the First International drawn up by Karl Marx as the programmatic basis. In 1866 he was a co-founder of the Saxon People's Party, in 1867 he founded the “Crimmitschauer Republican Volksverein” (the local association of the Saxon People's Party) together with Wilhelm Stolle and was instrumental in sending workers' representatives to the Reichstag of the North German Confederation . In 1869 Motteler took part in the founding of the SDAP (one of the SPD predecessor parties) in Eisenach together with August Bebel and shortly afterwards founded a local group in Crimmitschau.

Many women co-founded among others by equal inclusion into by him in 1869 (based on a format established by Bebel pattern Statute) and he led "International Gewerks cooperative of manufacture - factory - and manual workers of both sexes" in Leipzig (one of the first Workers' Unions in Germany and forerunner of the German Textile Workers' Association ), he became one of the champions of the trade union and proletarian women's movement .

He also spoke out vehemently against the widespread child labor at the time . He also actively supported the establishment of numerous consumer associations , other workers' associations and proletarian trade unions. Together with Stolle he founded and published the first social democratic newspaper in Germany in 1870, the “ Crimmitschauer Bürger- und Bauernfreund ”.

From 1874 to 1878 he was a member of the SDAP or the SAP, as the workers 'party was called after the union with the General Workers' Association (ADAV) , in the Berlin Reichstag for the constituency "Zwickau Werdau Glauchau Crimmitschau". Julius Motteler was one of the founders of the merger of SDAP and ADAV to form SAP (renamed SPD in 1890) on May 22, 1875 in Gotha . During his time as a member of parliament, Motteler was also involved in founding the printing cooperatives in Leipzig from 1874 to 1876 and in Barmen in 1877. For personal reasons he resigned from the management of the Leipzig cooperative book printing company in 1876. A speech by Mottelers on June 4, 1878 resulted in a trial against him for " insulting the emperor ", in which, however, he was acquitted. In 1878 he moved to Munich- Nymphenburg .

After the Bismarck Socialist Law had been enacted in October 1878 , the party had initially entered a phase of destabilization. Only after Bismarck's attempt to deprive the Social Democrats of their active and passive voting rights failed and the Reichstag faction was secured as a party-leading structure at the same time, some of its members founded the exile party sheet " Der Sozialdemokrat ", printed in Switzerland, at the end of 1879 to stabilize it. . Motteler emigrated to Zurich in November 1879 and from 1880 to 1888, supported by Joseph Belli , as managing director, organized the smuggling of the weekly newspaper to Germany and the nationwide underground sales. The illegal distribution took place by smuggling from Switzerland across the Württemberg border and from there to the other parts of the German Empire . Confidants, the so-called “ Red Field Post ”, distributed the newspaper via regional “field post stations”. This contributed a lot to the development and, despite the prohibition, even to strengthening of the party's extensive local structures. Motteler was therefore praised among his party friends with the honorary name "The Red Field Postmaster". From Zurich he also headed the “ Black Mask ”, the party's security service, and put together a collection of materials to expose spies and enemies. While working with Julius Motteler in Zurich on the creation of the "Social Democrat", Clara Zetkin made her decision in 1882 to stand up for the issue of women.

SPD member of the Reichstag from Saxony from 1903

When Motteler was expelled from Switzerland in April 1888 under pressure from the German government (along with other German socialists), he went to London as managing director of the “Social Democrat”, which was published until September 1890, and then headed the party's exile branch there and the party archive to to its dissolution and return to Berlin in 1901. Since the death of Friedrich Engels in August 1895, the Marx-Engels estate has been in his care . In 1901 he worked as a printing and publishing manager for the Leipziger Volkszeitung , and from 1903 until his death in 1907 he was again a member of the Reichstag. He was also active for the party, giving lectures and writing political studies.

His grave is located in the Leipzig South Cemetery .

Honors

In honor of Julius Motteler, streets in Esslingen, Stuttgart, Görlitz, Crimmitschau, Leipzig and Zwickau, as well as schools in Crimmitschau ( Julius-Motteler-Gymnasium ), Leipzig and Schweinsburg (former SED party school) were named after him.

literature

  • Franz Mehring : Julius Motteler † . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung No. 227 of September 30, 1907.
  • Max Grunwald: Julius Motteler in memory. signed GM In: The new time . Weekly of the German Social Democracy. 26.1907-1908, Volume 1 (1908), Issue 1, pp. 1-4 online .
  • August Bebel : A correction in the Motteler matter. In: The new time. Weekly of the German Social Democracy. 26.1907-1908, Volume 1 (1908), Issue 2, pp. 77-78 Online .
  • Ernst Engelberg : Revolutionary Politics and Red Field Post. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1959.
  • Julius Motteler . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Deceased personalities . Vol. 1. JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, pp. 225-227.
  • Alfred Hintze: Julius Motteler, the red field postmaster. In: Collector Express , Berlin 1963, p. 364.
  • Heinrich Gemkow : Motteler, Julius. In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 335–337.
  • Ernst Engelberg: Julius Motteler - a revolutionary socialist. In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement. Issue 2, 1973, p. 305 ff.
  • Gerhard Maag: From the Socialist Law to the First World War. In: Working Group History of the Nürtingen Labor Movement, The Other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD, ed. v. SPD local association Nürtingen, Nürtingen 1989, pp. 23–62.
  • Friedrich Pospiech : Julius Motteler - the "Red Field Postmaster". A journey through the early history of the labor movement and the great times of social democracy. Edited by the Marxist Workers Education Esslingen, information center "Hans Rueß". Selbstverlag, Esslingen 1977 (2nd edition Julius Motteler, the "Red Field Postmaster". Comrade in arms of Bebel and W.Liebknecht. With Marx, Engels, Bebel and Liebknecht creators and designers of the German and international labor movement. Self-published, Esslingen 1998, ISBN 3 -00-007994-7 ).
  • Ernst Engelberg: Julius Motteler. Democratic patriot and revolutionary socialist. In: Gustav Seeber : Shaping the Bismack period. Volume II. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1986, pp. 235-250.
  • Friedrich Pospiech: 100 Years of the Socialist Law. 100th birthday of Julius Motteler. Information center "Hans Ruess", Esslingen 1992.
  • Sabine Kneib: Julius Motteler (1838-1907). In: Günter Benser, Michael Schneider (ed.): Preserve, spread, enlighten. Bonn-Bad Godesberg in 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-105-8 , pp 202-208 online (pdf; 277 kB) .

Web links

Commons : Julius Motteler  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ There he met August Bebel for the first time, over two years before Bebel's first contact with Wilhelm Liebknecht.
  2. ↑ In 1867 his employer "Wolf & Kirsten" dismissed him for campaigning for this party. Then he was the authorized signatory of the "Spinning and Weaving Cooperative Ernst Stehfest & Co." founded on July 8th, 1867 in Crimmitschau.
  3. ↑ The founding meeting of the cooperative was from May 15th to 17th, for Crimmitschau on February 10th, 1869. For political and / or legal reasons, the headquarters of the cooperative was in Esslingen am Neckar , but the central organizational management was in Crimmitschau. As of June 1872, the seat of Crimmitschau to was on a proposal Motte moth due to overloading Leipzig laid. The cooperative represented around 3,100 workers. Under Motteler's leadership it developed into the most progressive and largest trade union in Germany at the time and was one of the forerunners of the German Textile Workers' Association. On December 10, 1878, it was dissolved by a police order as part of the Socialist Act.
  4. ↑ Cf. Maag, Gerhard, From the Socialist Law to the First World War, in: Working group history of the Nürtinger workers' movement, The other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD, ed. v. SPD local association Nürtingen, Nürtingen 1989, pp. 23–62, p. 27.
  5. ↑ See ibid., P. 33.
  6. ↑ Zetkin on Motteler: “What Motteler did for the first, difficult build-up and expansion of the social democratic party, what he did for the beginnings of the proletarian women's movement, would suffice to ensure that his name will never be forgotten. However, it takes a back seat to his illegal work in the years of the Socialist Law [...] As a 'Red Field Postmaster', Motteler has achieved the most valuable and unforgettable. " Quoted from: [1]
  7. ↑ Despite the expiry of the Socialist Law in September 1890, Motteler was only able to return to Germany in 1901, as he was wanted in Germany because of his illegal activities. Therefore, in the “high phase” of the labor movement at the end of the 19th century, according to the party leadership, he could not take on a leading position in Germany.
  8. ^ Franz Mehring. Collected Writings. Essays on the history of the labor movement. Vol. 4. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1963, pp. 498-501.
personal data
SURNAME Motteler, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES The red field postmaster; Brandter; Moretti; Weissmann, Friedrich; Hims, AH of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), member of the early German labor movement, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Esslingen am Neckar
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1907
Place of death Leipzig