Oskar Hoffmann (politician, 1877)

Oskar Hoffmann (born July 4, 1877 in Rospe , † February 3, 1953 in Wuppertal ) was a German politician ( SPD , USPD , KPD ). He suggested that the city of Barmen-Elberfeld, formed in 1929, be renamed Wuppertal.

Life

1877-1918

Hoffmann came from a family of farm workers. After attending elementary school, he did an apprenticeship as a book printer and joined the book printers' union in 1896, and in 1898 he became a member of the SPD. After completing his apprenticeship, he went to Iserlohn , where he entered the service of his party. In July 1905 he moved to Elberfeld as editor of the Social Democratic Free Press . His sharp criticism of the city authorities, who did not approve a move on May 1, 1906, earned him a month's imprisonment for public insult. In August 1912 his son Ernst Hoffmann was born. As a staunch opponent of the First World War , Hoffmann joined the USPD in 1917 when the SPD split up. Because of his resolute antiwar stance, he was charged with anti-militarist agitation, acquitted, but shortly afterwards drafted into military service and sent to the Eastern Front. After the outbreak of the November Revolution in 1918, Hoffmann was elected to the soldiers' council and was elected commander of his regiment, which he returned to Germany.

1918-1933

Hoffmanns Blatt, the SPD's own Free Press , became the official organ of the “Provisional Workers 'and Soldiers' Council” of Elberfeld and Barmen after the war. During this time, Hoffmann served as a censor for the civil general indicator . When the USPD founded its own press organ with the Volkstribüne , Hoffmann changed to its editorial office. He also participated as a speaker at meetings of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council and at rallies. In 1921 Hoffmann was elected to the provincial parliament of the Prussian Rhine Province , to which he belonged until 1933. At the same time he was a city councilor in the Elberfeld council, and from 1929 in the council of the newly established city of Barmen-Elberfeld. When the two social democratic parties reunited in 1922, Hoffmann switched back to the SPD and was again editor of the Free Press.

On December 20, 1929, Hoffmann submitted the request for the new city to be renamed Wuppertal on behalf of the SPD parliamentary group , which was granted after a long debate. Hoffmann's original proposal, Engelsstadt , was not able to prevail in his parliamentary group. Inspired by Friedrich Engels' "Letters from Wuppertal" (1839) , he then came up with the name confirmed by the Prussian state in January 1930.

1933-1945

On March 12, 1933 Hoffmann was re-elected to the Wuppertal city council. After he had demonstratively abstained from voting in the constituent meeting of the council to confer honorary citizenship on Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler , members of the SA tried to arrest him, which his courageously intervening wife Eugenie, née. Winner, could initially prevent. In July 1933 he was imprisoned for some time in the Kemna concentration camp , where he was subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse by the SA. The era of National Socialism spent the covered with disbarment Hoffmann in poverty and under guard by the Gestapo , but met regularly with political friends at the home of Hermann Herbert , who lived in the same house as the local leader of the Nazi Party , which covered these meetings.

Hoffmann's house was destroyed in the bombing of June 25, 1943 , and all of Hoffmann's property was burned. The family was then moved to Mecklenburg.

1945-1953

After the end of the war, Hoffmann joined the newly founded SPD in Ziegendorf in January 1946 , which merged with the KPD to form the SED in the Soviet occupation zone in April of the same year . In June Hoffmann returned to Wuppertal, where the Unterbarmer party secretary refused him membership in the SPD because of his commitment to the forced unification with the KPD . On November 8, 1948, Hoffmann finally joined the West German KPD. For the KPD, he moved to the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament in 1947 and was a member of parliament until 1950. In 1948 he was re-elected to the Wuppertal city council, to which he belonged until his death in 1953.

Honors

• The Oskar Hoffmann staircase in Wuppertal was named after Oskar Hoffmann .

literature

• Kurt Schnöring: Oskar Hoffmann. In: Wuppertal biographies. 14th episode. Wuppertal (Born) 1984, ISBN 3-87093-035-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Oskar Hoffmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Oskar Hoffmann at the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament

Individual evidence

1. ^ Oskar Hoffmann stairs in Wuppertal. In: Strassen-in-Deutschland.de. Retrieved July 14, 2019 .