Louis Brunner

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Louis Brunner

Ludwig (Louis) Brunner (born March 4, 1865 in Erbach ; † October 9, 1950 in West Berlin ) was a German trade unionist and politician ( SPD ). He became known as one of the organizers of the free- trade union railway movement.

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Life in the Empire (1865 to 1919)

After attending elementary school in Stockheim near Erbach, Brunner completed an apprenticeship as an ivory carver and an apprenticeship as a turner. He then worked in his learned profession until 1893 as a machine worker, toolmaker and assistant in a bookstore.

As early as 1887 Brunner had become a member of the free trade unions and the SPD, in which he now increasingly took on functionary tasks: after temporarily managing the Hamburg payment office of the wood turner's association, he was accepted - together with Carl Legien - in the central wage commission of this union. There he took part in the organization of strikes and fundraising throughout Germany. In 1889, Brunner was elected chairman of the commission. On the basis of the Socialist Law - with which Bismarck fought against social democracy - Brunner had to serve a short prison sentence in the same year. When Legien was temporarily arrested a year later, Brunner temporarily replaced him as secretary of the association journal of the wood turner association. After that, Brunner served as deputy chairman of the association until 1891. However, he rejected the election of the first chairman.

From 1893 to 1903 Brunner held the post of cashier of the local health insurance fund for tobacco workers in Hamburg. He also worked as a temporary unskilled worker at the General Commission of the German Trade Unions , where he was temporarily responsible for the dispatch of the trade union newspaper Correspondenzblatt . One focus of Brunner's trade union work at that time was the organization of employees in the railroad. In 1899 he had already taken over responsibility for the finances of the "Association of German Railway Workers". After the chairman of the association, Heinrich Bürger , had been sentenced to prison, Brunner took over the effective management of the association.

From 1903 Brunner was employed as a full-time employee of the general commission of the trade unions in Berlin, in which he was responsible for the management of the statistical department. In this capacity he presented numerous reports published in the trade union press as well as the study "The German trade unions 1891-1904 in geographical and statistical representation". In 1908 he added a similar font. However, the election to the board of the free trade unions hoped for by Brunner this year did not materialize.

Parallel to his work in the union headquarters, Brunner also remained connected to the railway workers 'organization: Bearing in mind the weakness and stagnation of the association, he supported the proposal to include the railway workers as a Reich section in the significantly stronger transport workers' union . After completing this step, he led the Reich Section of Railway Workers within the Transport Workers' Union from 1908 to 1916. In the international trade union movement, he took on an analogous position as a member of the central council of the International Transport Workers' Union. As editor of the association magazine Weckruf , he kept in touch with the base of his association .

In 1916, during the First World War, after years of repression, the state's anti-union stance was relaxed. Brunner and others took advantage of the opportunity to found the German Railway Association (DEV), whose chairman Brunner remained until 1921. During Brunner's tenure, there was also an explosion in the number of members of the association, which rose to more than 550,000 after the November Revolution from 1918 to mid-1919.

Weimar Republic (1919 to 1933)

Immediately after the end of the war, Brunner was accepted into the federal executive committee of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB), of which he was a member until 1928. From 1919 to 1920 Brunner was a member of the constituent state assembly in Prussia. Just one year later, in June 1920, he entered the first Reichstag of the Weimar Republic as a Reich election proposal by the SPD , of which he was a member until May 1924. After his election to the Reichstag, Brunner resigned his Prussian state parliament mandate.

In these years, Brunner was controversial in the railroad workers' union due to his moderate stance on the question of the state restructuring after the founding of the republic - for example on the council question. Above all, he was rejected by the radical left. His contradicting stance in labor disputes and his accumulation of offices also met with criticism. On the other hand, he gained a lasting reputation as one of the organizers of the general strike on the railways, which contributed significantly to the collapse of the extreme right-wing Kapp Putsch in 1920 .

After his defeat in an intra-trade union conflict, Brunner became a representative of the DEV at the newly founded " Deutsche Verkehrsbund ", which was to form an umbrella organization for the entire transport industry, including the officials from the post and railroad. For the remainder of the Weimar Republic, Brunner was a full-time employee of the federal government. Brunner also flanked this function by working as editor of the association magazine. The main goal of the association, namely to organize all employees, failed as early as 1922 with the establishment of the General German Association of Officials . In the end, the transport association essentially corresponded to the old transport workers' association and some organizations of post office workers. In 1930 he retired.

Fonts

  • The German trade unions , Berlin 1908.
  • The right of coalition for railway workers , Hamburg 1911.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Brunner, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brunner, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists and politicians (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Erbach
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1950
Place of death Berlin