Paul Göhre

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Paul Göhre

Paul Göhre (born April 18, 1864 in Wurzen ; † June 6, 1928 in Buchholz ) was a German Protestant theologian and politician who was one of the first to demand social policy responsibility from the Protestant Church , to quit church service and to become a social democrat . Göhre was also the editor of workers' biographies.

Life

SPD member of the Reichstag from Saxony from 1903

Göhre came from the simplest of circumstances, but was able to attend the Prince and State School St. Afra in Meissen thanks to a scholarship . He studied theology and economics at the universities of Leipzig and Berlin . In order to proclaim the Christian faith to the workers, he worked in the factory for a quarter of a year, but found that “the workers were in a psychological situation that prevented them from approaching them religiously first. The most elementary experience I made was that you first had to improve their social situation thoroughly before they could be tackled religiously again. ”He published his experiences in 1891 in the study“ Three months of factory workers and craftsmen ”, which was an attack on the The evangelical church, which was largely dominated by the bourgeoisie , was accepted and triggered a bitter public debate about his approach, in which he also received support from Friedrich Naumann and Max Weber . When he became too socially committed in Frankfurt (Oder) , where he had taken on a pastor's position in 1894, he was given leave of absence by the church administration. In 1896 he founded the National Social Association with Naumann , and in 1900 he joined the Social Democratic Party .

Göhre was a member of the Leipzig-Plagwitz consumer association , about whose first period he reported in detail from his own experience in his book The German Workers Consumer Associations 1910. Göhre worked intensively as an editor of worker biographies at the Eugen Diederichs publishing house . From the estate he published the autobiography The Life of a Farm Worker by Franz Rehbein in 1911 .

When he threatened to fall between all stools - the social democrats did not want to be Christian proselytized, the church was afraid of "social democratization" - Göhre broke completely with the church in 1906, which had deeply disappointed him. He returned a first mandate for the Mittweida constituency , but from 1910 to 1918 he represented the Zschopau-Marienberg constituency for the SPD in the Reichstag . In the First World War , Göhre volunteered in the army and was on the Eastern Front from 1915 . After the end of the war, he was appointed Undersecretary of State in the Prussian War Ministry in 1918 , and in 1919 as State Secretary in the Prussian State Ministry. In 1923 he resigned from all offices for health reasons.

Works (selection)

As an author:

  • Three months of factory workers and craftspeople. A practical study , Grunow, Leipzig 1891
  • The Evangelical Social Movement. Their history and goals , Grunow, Leipzig 1896
  • How a pastor became a social democrat. A speech , Berlin 1900 ( online )
  • From socialism to liberalism. Changes in the National Socialists , Berlin 1902
  • Church in the 19th century (= At the beginning of the century , issue 5), Berlin 1902
  • The agrarian danger. A description of their origins, their power and ultimate goals , Berlin 1902
  • Home work in the Ore Mountains and its effects , Chemnitz 1906
  • The German workers' consumer associations , Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1910
  • Front and home. Religious, political, sexual from the trenches , Diederichs, Jena 1917
  • The unknown god. Attempt at a religion of modern man , Grunow, Leipzig 1919

As editor:

literature

  • Max Bloch: The Socialist Monthly Issues and the Academic Debate in the German Social Democracy before 1914: The "Cases" of Göhre, Schippel, Calwer and Hildebrand. In: Bulletin of the Institute for Social Movements. 40 (2008), pp. 7-22.
  • Joachim Brenning, Christian Gremmels: Industrial world and Christian consciousness. Remembering Paul Göhre. In: Theologia Practica. 11. 1976, pp. 291-302.
  • Joachim Brenning: Christianity and Social Democracy: Paul Göhre. Factory worker - pastor - social democrat. A socio-ethical-historical investigation, Diss. Theol. Marburg 1980.
  • Eberhard Pikart:  Göhre, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , pp. 513-515 ( digitized version ).
  • Klaus Thiele: The role of Paul Göhre in the disputes over the Prussian elementary school maintenance law and in the fight for a new elementary school law in Saxony. A contribution to the investigation of revisionism in the field of educational policy and pedagogy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany between 1900 and 1914, dissertation Pädagogische Hochschule "Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander" . Dresden 1981. (typescript)
  • Martin Stolzenau: Factory worker - pastor - social politician. Paul Göhre was born in Wurzen 150 years ago . P. 28 in the Leipziger Volkszeitung , regional section Muldental, March 24, 2014
  • Matthias Wolfes :  Göhre, Paul. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 562-575.  ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive ) ´

Web links

Wikisource: Paul Göhre  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Göhre, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and pastor, author, editor and politician (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Spice up
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1928
Place of death Buchholz