Martin Venedey

Martin Georg Christoph Venedey (born April 8, 1860 in Oberweiler ; † April 22, 1934 in Konstanz ) was a Baden lawyer and politician ( DDP ).

Life and work

Martin Venedey was the son of the left-liberal publicist and politician Jakob Venedey from the Rhineland and the Baden women's rights activist Henriette Obermüller .

Martin Venedey was a student at grammar schools in Weinheim , Freiburg , Ellwangen and Rottweil from 1870 to 1879 . After graduating from high school, he studied law from 1879 to 1883 at the universities of Würzburg (1879/80), Freiburg (1880/81), Berlin (1881/82) and Strasbourg (1883). Then he began a preparatory service and the state examinations followed, in 1885 the first and in 1889 the second state examination in Karlsruhe . From 1885 to 1886 he did his military service as a one-year volunteer with the fifth Baden Infantry Regiment No. 113 in Freiburg. From 1889 he worked as a lawyer in Karlsruhe and from 1900 to 1934 as a lawyer in Konstanz. Here he was in 1931 in the deportation proceedings against the Italian anti-fascist Giovanni Bassanesi his legal counsel.

politics

At the age of 31, Venedey moved into the Second Chamber of the Baden Council of Estates after his victory in the constituency of Constance . He held the parliamentary mandate from 1891 to 1899 and again from 1903 to 1918. There he belonged to the left-liberal Democratic People's Party , which in 1910 was absorbed into the Progressive People's Party . In the state parliament he debated talented and with great commitment against the imperialist zeitgeist, which bothers him. The establishment of a democratic state and the creation of social justice were at the center of his political endeavors. That is why he stood in opposition to the ruling monarchy until 1918 and was also a staunch opponent of the war. From 1913 to 1915 Venedey was the second vice president of the Chamber of Deputies. He also temporarily headed the parliamentary committee for the rules of procedure. After the November Revolution he briefly belonged to the state parliament of the Republic of Baden for the new German Democratic Party , but retired from active politics after he could not take over the leadership of the Baden Foreign Ministry that had been promised to him. Venedey lost his fortune during the inflation of 1923 and was no longer particularly successful in his legal practice, as the supporters of the old order refrained from being the client of a militant supporter of the democratic republic. Martin Venedey played a leading role in the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , was local chairman of the German Peace Society and corresponded in particular with the peace activists Ludwig Quidde and Hellmut von Gerlach . This put Venedey and his family on the list of resolute opponents of the rising National Socialism . His two oldest sons, Hans and Hermann, had to emigrate in 1933 and were unable to attend their father's funeral on April 22, 1934 in Constance. Martin Venedey's funeral took place with great sympathy from the people of Constance and was a silent protest against the still young Nazi regime.

Private life

Martin Venedey was a Protestant and married Mathilde Unglert (* 1877, † 1946) in 1901, who gave him five sons. All five sons survived the Second World War, the two older Hans and Hermann emigrated, the three younger Jakob (* 1915), Gustav (* 1916) and Michael (* 1920) as soldiers in the Wehrmacht.

literature

• Adolf Roth and Paul Thorbecke: The Baden estates. Landtag manual. Verlag der G. Braunschen Hofbuchdruckerei, Karlsruhe 1907, p. 122 f.
• Badische Biographien NF 3, edited by Bernd Ottnad. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-17-009958-2 , pp. 276-277

Web links

• Biography online at leo-bw
• Speeches by Martin Venedey in the Baden state parliament in the digital collections of the Badische Landesbibliothek