Karl Kirchner (politician)

Karl Kirchner (born December 2, 1883 in Stuttgart , † November 24, 1945 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German journalist and local politician . He was married to Johanna Kirchner , nee Stunz , from 1913 to 1926 .

Life

In his youth, Karl Kirchner attended elementary school in Stuttgart from 1890 to 1897 . He then began training as a locksmith , during which time he joined the trade union of the German Metalworkers' Association . After his apprenticeship he worked as a locksmith in Mannheim and Frankfurt am Main until 1904 . in 1900 he joined the SPD , in which he worked as party secretary in the Frankfurt office from 1906 and where he became a board member from 1910. From 1905 he worked for Volksstimme , from 1907 he also worked as a journalist, among other things as editor of the “ Social Democratic Correspondence ” (until 1914).

In his role as a board member of the Frankfurt SPD, Kirchner was particularly committed to the democratization of local politics in the interests of the labor movement . In 1914 he became honorary managing director of the War Welfare Organization in Frankfurt until he was drafted into military service in April 1915. In October 1915 he was released from the military for health reasons and then took over the management of the "Central Office for Potato Supply". This was borne by the war welfare organization and the city of Frankfurt, he was responsible for the food supply for the entire population of Frankfurt. In October 1916 he became head of the newly founded schoolchildren's feed, which was urbanized in 1919 together with the war welfare organization. Kirchner came into the city service and worked as the director of the school children feed.

From 1918 he was a member of the Frankfurt Workers 'and Soldiers' Council and from 1919 to 1933 city councilor of the SPD. From 1924 to 1933 he was chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the city council. As a board member of the Reich Union of German municipal officials, he was also the spokesman for the union wing of the SPD in Frankfurt (1922–1925).

During his work as a local politician, Kirchner was in opposition to Lord Mayor Ludwig Landmann and was known as a sharp and uncomfortable critic. He had a good knowledge of administration and budget law, and so he quickly became an expert in budget planning, tax legislation and tariff structuring in Frankfurt. As a member of the Audit Deputation, he worked closely with the Audit Office . In 1925/26 he opposed the tax policy of the Reich and the proposed budget of the city. In general, he worked hard for the welfare in Frankfurt from 1924 to 1928 in order to combat the impoverishment of large sections of the population.

After the seizure of power , he was briefly imprisoned on March 13, 1933. After 1934 he was dismissed from the city service due to the law to restore the civil service. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 against Hitler , he went into hiding. Karl Kirchner died shortly after the end of the war of pulmonary and larynx tuberculosis .

literature

• Willi Emrich: Portraits of Frankfurt Democrats. Frankfurt am Main 1956 pp. 36-38.
• Peter Friedel, Jan von Trott: Karl Kirchner. Portrait of a Frankfurt local politician. Frankfurt am Main 1983.
• Reinhard Frost, Sabine Hock : Karl Kirchner , in: Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 , p. 395 .

Web links

• BUNDESARCHIV - Central database for estates In: '' nachlassdatenbank.de ''. Retrieved on August 30, 2016 (information about the Karl Kirchner estate in the Institute for City History )