Max Stein (entrepreneur)

Max Stein (* 1871 in Ratibor ; † August 11, 1952 in Berlin ) was a German entrepreneur , social democrat and collector of socialist literature.

Max Stein

Life

Max Stein was the son of a Jewish innkeeper and grain dealer and grew up in cramped conditions. He left school when his father died in 1888 and began a commercial apprenticeship in Glatz. He joined the Social Democratic Party in 1889 (one year before the Socialist Law was annulled ) . In Glatz he also met Paul Löbe , with whom he had a lifelong friendship. In 1893 he became authorized signatory of the Leipzig publishing house bookstore Ernst Wies Nachf. In 1900 he married Hedwig Vollpracht, who was active in the women's movement and in 1914 was chairwoman of the Provincial Association of Silesia of the German Association for Women's Suffrage. At the roofing felt and tar products factory Ludwig Gassmann, Max Stein was promoted to a board member of the United Roofing Paper Factory (Vedag). He was also involved in cultural projects. He was chairman of the supervisory board of the United Theater GmbH Breslau and campaigned for the expansion of the Breslau University Observatory, for which he received honorary citizenship of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau in 1921 . During the Nazi regime, the Stein couple were considered a privileged mixed marriage , which meant that Max Stein lost his professional position, but was spared the fate of deportation and killing in the concentration camp . Through systematic and skilful collecting activities, Max Stein had brought together an extensive library of socialist literature over many years, which, thanks to fortunate coincidences, outlived the period of National Socialist rule. After the end of the Second World War , Max Stein was one of the new founders of the Steglitz Social Democratic Party and headed a political working group, which continued to exist as the Stein working group even after his death . Stein was a district councilor in Steglitz and the age president of the Steglitz district council assembly.

Library stone

Max Stein's book collection comprises around 7,500 volumes and, as Stein himself describes it, contains “works on the social question, the labor movement, socialism, anarchism, communism, Leninism, Stalinism. I have collected this relevant literature for 50 years ”. The collection was purchased by the Free University of Berlin in 1951 and placed in the university library and made accessible through a temporary special catalog. In addition to the holdings of the Amsterdam International Archive for Social History , the Stein Library is an important collection for research on socialism. It was used particularly intensively by the main participants in the student movement , which has led to the claim that this movement would have been inconceivable without the Stein Library or that it would have taken a different course without it. With the foundation of the Stein library, the university library has set up a collection focus on historical socialism research and has continuously purchased the relevant specialist literature. In addition, the library of the Berlin communist Alfred Weiland was acquired in 1979. Stein's collection was thus particularly supplemented by literature on council communism , unionism and anarcho-syndicalism . In total, the special literature on socialism research at the university library of the Free University of Berlin today comprises around 50,000 volumes, including around 20,000 volumes on historical socialism research. The short holdings of the Stein library were made accessible in 1993 in cooperation with Belser Wissenschaftlicher Dienst by filming them on microfiche. This literature is made accessible for use by means of a printed catalog with several registers and keyword overviews.

literature

• Armin Spiller: The library of the Upper Silesian social democrat Max Stein in the university library of the Free University of Berlin. Cologne 1970. (Typewritten examination paper for the higher library service at the librarian training institute of North Rhine-Westphalia)
• Armin Spiller: Max Stein, an Upper Silesian bibliophile and his contribution to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau. In: Yearbook of the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University in Breslau. Volume XVII, 1972, p. 242 ff.
• Wilhelm Krimpenfort: Library stone. Social history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Catalog. With the collaboration of Dieter Vorath. Edited by Ulrich Naumann. Belser Wissenschaftlicher Dienst, Wildberg 1993.

Web links

• Review of the Stein library catalog
• Information from the university library of the Free University of Berlin on the special collection "Historical Socialism Research"