Max König (politician, May 1868)

Max King

Max King (* 3. May 1868 in Halle , † 31 January 1941 in Koblenz ) was a German social democratic politician, a member of the Weimar National Assembly , member of parliament and from 1919 to 1933 President of the Government of the governmental district Arnsberg .

Live and act

Max König was a trained blacksmith, but was already a functionary of a metal workers 'organization in 1889 and was one of the founders of the free trade union German Metal Workers' Association (DMV) in 1891 . He was also active in the (political) social democratic movement at an early age . In 1890, when he was 22, he was the youngest delegate at the party congress in Halle.

Professionally he was a full-time functionary of the DMV, then editor of the social democratically oriented Volksblatt in Dortmund and head of the first workers' secretariat in the city.

From 1893 König was chairman of the newly formed district of West Westphalia of the SPD . Between 1907 and 1919 he was the party's full-time district secretary.

As “The Red King” he held this position until 1918 and was one of the most influential figures in social democracy in Westphalia and beyond. In 1909 he was the first social democratic city councilor in Dortmund. He contributed to the strengthening of social democracy in the Eastern Ruhr area, which was still strongly Catholic at the time. In addition to his party offices, König was a member of the Reichstag in various constituencies from 1912 to 1928. As the state representative of the SPD since 1903, he was also responsible for agitation outside the industrial areas. Before the Reichstag elections of 1903, he called for an agitation campaign in the “promised Sauerland and Münsterland”, where the predominance of the “black columns” had not yet been touched. Despite considerable efforts, he had not succeeded in decisively strengthening the party's influence in the rural strongholds of the Center Party in the Münsterland or Sauerland .

During the First World War , König was on the side of the parliamentary majority around Friedrich Ebert . During the revolution of 1918/19 he took over the leadership of the workers 'and soldiers' councils in Westphalia and was a member of the Central Council of the German Socialist Republic in Berlin. In Dortmund he became a member of the magistrate .

As a member of the Dortmund Workers 'and Soldiers' Council, he and others were responsible for controlling the Arnsberg district government . In 1919, König was initially appointed provisional government president in Arnsberg . This triggered resentment in the central circles of the Sauerland. The social democratic press replied: “ If Mr König is the district president, then he does not run his business as a socialist, but as the highest official in the district. He is then no longer the agitation speaker as they chalk him up, but the district president. "

His regular appointment followed in 1920. He was initially vehemently rejected by the mostly conservative officials and the Catholic population of the government city. As a relatively right-wing social democrat, however, he represented positions that could well be shared by bourgeois circles. When he was inaugurated, he attributed the economic crisis and social hardship not to the German policy of the Empire, but to the Treaty of Versailles . During his term of office, among other things, the Kapp Putsch and the Ruhr uprising fell in 1920. At times he viewed the Freikorps as an effective means of combating the extreme left and underestimated the right-wing extremist character of these associations. The occupation of the Ruhr followed in 1923 . This affected the administrative district directly and made the king's work very difficult. A large rally against the "rape of the Ruhr area" took place at his official residence in Arnsberg, with König as the main speaker. The great inflation also fell during his term of office, followed by the rubber iron dispute in 1928 and the global economic crisis . During this time he visited the emergency areas around Ramsbeck and tried to help alleviate the need.

König acted as the government president, not as a party politician. But he has not denied his political origins either. He supported the SPD in the Sauerland as a speaker and advisor. Above all, however, he was anxious to strengthen the republican idea in his district. He spoke at a demonstration in honor of the murdered center politician Matthias Erzberger in Arnsberg. In 1925 he campaigned for the candidacy of the center politician Wilhelm Marx for the office of Reich President , which was supported by the SPD, and sharply attacked the extreme right and left. He also later appeared for the Republican cause.

In terms of urban planning, he still left visible traces in Arnsberg today. In 1926 he had the old teachers' college expanded with another wing and a striking tower as the new seat of the government. He also gained recognition among the republican-minded Catholics through his work for the constitution and democracy against communists, right-wing radicals and National Socialists.

At the height of the global economic crisis, on the occasion of the 1932 Constitution Day, he rejected the claims of the anti-republicans that the Weimar constitution was to blame for the hardship. Rather, it is a historical merit of the constitution to have saved the unity of the German people.

After the National Socialists came to power , Max König was dismissed from civil service on February 13, 1933. Persecuted by them, he withdrew with his family to Koblenz, where he died in 1941.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cit. after: Jens Hahnwald: Max König. In: Sauerlanders lift the social democracy from the baptism. The history of the SPD in the Hochsauerlandkreis and in its cities and communities. Arnsberg, 2013 p. 214

literature

• Bernd Faulenbach u. a. (Ed.): Social Democracy in Transition. The district of Western Westphalia 1893-2001. Essen, 2001.
• Jens Hahnwald: Max König. In: Sauerlanders lift the social democracy from the baptism. The history of the SPD in the Hochsauerlandkreis and in its cities and communities. Arnsberg, 2013 ISBN 978-3-943973-07-5 pp. 213-216
• Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
• Karin Jaspers / Wilfried Reinighaus: Westphalian-Lippian candidates in the January elections in 1919. A biographical documentation , Münster: Aschendorff 2020 (Publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia - New Series; 52), ISBN 9783402151365 , p. 112f.

Web links

• Max König in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Max Koenig's biography . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)

predecessor	Office	successor
Alfred von Bake	District President of the Arnsberg District 1919–1933	Max von Stockhausen