Otto Witte (politician)

Otto Witte (born March 19, 1884 in Halberstadt , † September 19, 1963 in Wiesbaden ) was a Hessian politician ( SPD ) and member of the Reichstag and president of the Hessian state parliament .

education and profession

Otto Witte attended horticultural school after primary school and became a gardener. He continued his education at the Leipzig Workers' Education School, the Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg Adult Education Center and the Hamburg Administrative Academy and worked as a gardener in Charlottenburg and Zwickau .

He later worked as an industrial worker and as an employee of the AOK Chemnitz before he became district manager of the German Gardeners Association in Frankfurt from 1909 to 1912. In 1912 he became a workers' secretary in Wiesbaden and from 1915 to 1918 a soldier at the front.

politics

Otto Witte had been a member of the SPD and the trade unions since 1904. From 1909 he was Gauleiter of the German Gardeners Association in Frankfurt.

Weimar Republic

1918/1919 Witte became chairman of the Wiesbaden soldiers' council. In 1920 he was then elected for the SPD in the Nassau Municipal Parliament , the parliament of the Nassau district association , one of the two Nassau district associations . From 1919 to 1924 Witte was a city councilor in Wiesbaden and chairman of the SPD parliamentary group there.

In 1920 Witte became the acting head of department at the Nassau provincial administration in Wiesbaden and in 1922 regional councilor head of the state welfare office. As chairman of the "German Defense Command against Separatism " he was expelled for a few months in 1923 by the French occupying forces. Between 1926 and 1933 he was the provincial representative in the Reichsrat . Between November 6, 1926 and June 22, 1933 he was a member of the Reichstag for constituency 19 (Hessen-Nassau).

After the National Socialists came to power , he lost his parliamentary seats, was deported to Hamburg and arrested a total of 22 times. From August 1944 to April 1945 he was a concentration camp prisoner in Fuhlsbüttel .

After 1945

After the Second World War , Witte was appointed a member of the State Advisory Committee by the American occupation authorities . From July 15, 1946 to November 30, 1946 Witte was an elected member and president of the state assembly that advised the constitution . From December 1, 1946 to December 16, 1954 Otto Witte was a member and president of the Hessian state parliament. From 1946 until its dissolution in 1953, Witte headed the Nassau district association as governor .

From March 10, 1947 to September 30, 1949 he was a member of the parliamentary council of the state council of the American zone . In 1949 and 1954 Otto Witte was a member of the Federal Assembly .

Honors

• Honorary citizen of the University of Frankfurt
• 1953: Grand Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Otto-Witte-Straße in Wiesbaden is named after him.

literature

• Gerhard Beier : Labor movement in Hessen. On the history of the Hessian labor movement through one hundred and fifty years (1834–1984). Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-458-14213-4 , p. 602.
• Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. 48, 7). Published on behalf of the Hessian Parliament. Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 416.
• Jochen Lengemann : The Hessen Parliament 1946–1986 . Biographical handbook of the advisory state committee, the state assembly advising the constitution and the Hessian state parliament (1st – 11th electoral period). Ed .: President of the Hessian State Parliament. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-458-14330-0 , p. 434 ( hessen.de [PDF; 12.4 MB ]).
• Nassau parliamentarians. Part 2: Barbara Burkardt, Manfred Pult: The municipal parliament of the Wiesbaden administrative district 1868–1933 (= publications of the historical commission for Nassau. 71 = prehistory and history of parliamentarism in Hesse. 17). Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-930221-11-X , pp. 376–377.

Web links

• Otto Witte in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Witte, Otto. Hessian biography. (As of March 3, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).