Karl Kirchmann

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Karl Kirchmann (born August 15, 1885 in Hanover , † February 3, 1967 in Stralsund ) was a German politician and member of the SPD in the Weimar Republic .

Life

Karl Kirchmann attended primary school in Hanover from 1891 to 1899 and then learned, like his father, the profession of carpenter and joiner by 1903, in which he worked until 1919. From 1913 to 1918 he worked part-time on the regional board of the Hanoverian woodworkers' association.

In 1917 Kirchmann came to Stralsund for military service. At that time he was a member of the USPD , from August 1918 also chairman of the party in the Stralsund administrative region . During the November Revolution he was second chairman of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council on Rügen .

From July 1919 to 1933 he was employed as a workers secretary at the ADGB . After the resignation of MP Ohlhoff, he moved to the provincial parliament of the Pomerania province in 1921 , to which he belonged until 1925. In 1922 he rejoined the SPD and took over the chairmanship of the SPD sub-district Stralsund. From 1923 to 1924 he was a member of the Reichstag , where he replaced the late MP Ewald Vogtherr . From 1924 he was on the board of the SPD district of Pomerania and a member of the Stralsund citizenship. From 1925 to 1933 he was a member of the Prussian state parliament . From 1928 Kirchmann was chairman of the Stralsund local health insurance fund and of the Vorpommerschen district association of the provincial association of health insurance companies.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the struggle against National Socialism was his main concern. At meetings he successfully held discussions with the NSDAP Gauleiter Walther von Corswant and Wilhelm Karpenstein , who had asked him to do so. In addition, he was able to persuade the KPD local chairman and subdistrict head Willy Harder as well as the SAP local chairman Prinz to join the SPD.

After taking power , Karl Kirchmann was one of the first social democrats to be arrested by the National Socialists. From May to September 1933 he was imprisoned in Stralsund, Gollnow and in the Sonnenburg concentration camp . After his release he moved to Szczecin , where he made a living as a grocer and later as an insurance agent. He participated in regular meetings with former functionaries of his party and the trade unions and kept in touch with Willy Harder, who had emigrated to Denmark . In 1938 and 1940 Kirchmann was temporarily imprisoned in Stettin. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he was arrested and interned in Pölitz until September .

After Stettin, which had been captured by the Red Army , was handed over to Poland , he had to leave the city and went back to Stralsund. There he became a member of the SED in 1946 .

Karl Kirchmann was married four times. His third marriage was in 1932 with the SPD politician Else Höfs (1876–1945).

literature

  • Werner Lamprecht: The workers' parties in Pomerania in the first months of the Nazi dictatorship . In: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation u. a. (Ed.): On the causes of the downfall of parliamentary democracy in the Weimar Republic - attempt to take stock of Mecklenburg and Pomerania . Rostock 2001, pp. 43-45. ( Digital copy , PDF )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theodor Wengler: The Pomeranian Provincial Association. Directory of the members of the provincial assembly. Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania, Series V, Volume 44. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne Weimar Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20109-8 , pp. 141–144.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kirchmann, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1967
Place of death Stralsund