Paul Grottkau

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Paul Grottkau

Otto Hugo Paul Grottkau (born April 2, 1846 in Cottbus , Brandenburg , † June 3, 1898 in Milwaukee ) was a German bricklayer , socialist and trade unionist and American journalist . He defended the victims of the Haymarket massacre and the journalist August Spies .

Life

In Germany

Nothing is known about Paul Grottkau's early years. From 1870 he was a member of the "General German Bricklayer and Stone Carver Association" in Berlin . At that time he became a member of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV), which had been founded by Ferdinand Lassalle . Grottkau adopted Lassalle's theoretical views, but did not follow the same rigorous course as other ADAV members on the union issue. From 1871 he was an agitator of this association. Paul Grottkau took part as a delegate at the general assembly of the ADAV from May 22nd to 25th, 1872. He represented Berlin, Kassel and Lüneburg with a total of 399 members.

Paul Grottkau around 1886.

In July-August 1871 there was the 'great wall strike' in Berlin, which ended with success. The bricklayers reached the ten-hour day, previously it was thirteen hours, six days a week, plus a daily allowance and overtime pay. Another strike in Berlin the following year was lost. Grottkau was one of the leaders of the two great bricklayers' strikes. In the summer of 1871, Grottkau was elected president of the “General German Bricklayer and Stone Carver Association”.

Together with Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche , Grottkau turned against the policy of Carl Wilhelm Tölcke , who demanded that "existing trade union connections be dissolved and that the members of the General German Workers' Association be added." Paul Grottkau was part of the opposition in the ADAV. With his writing Enthaltendes in 12 letters to the members of the general German bricklaying and stone masonry association and those who want to become one, he convincingly promoted the organization of bricklayers in the unions and formulated a "sustainable trade union policy" for the ADAV.

"(...) that the so-called freedom of labor becomes arbitrary under the rule of capital."

- Entertaining in 12 letters . 2nd letter.

During the Reichstag election in 1874 , Grottkau drew as an “irresponsible editor” for the magazine “Die rothe Laterne”. "'The red lantern'", says Grottkau, "lights up the anti-socialists every three years during the election campaign". In the first year, 'No 00', Grottkau wrote the satire against Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch : “The great apostle of austerity or: the art of showing blue haze to the worker. According to Goethe ”.

During the unification party conference in Gotha in May 1875, Grottkau was imprisoned for six months because of his speech on the Paris Commune and because of his publications in the "red lantern". On August 14, 1875 , after serving a sixteen-month sentence in Stettin , workers in the Prater in Berlin's Kastanienallee gave the chairman of the General German Bricklayer and Stone Carver's Association, Paul Grottkau , an overwhelming welcome.

In his role as chairman, Grottkau was also responsible for the association's magazine: “Grundstein. Organ of bricklayers, stone masons and related professionals in Germany. General German bricklayer and stone mason association ”. In 1875 this union had 12,000 members in the German Reich. At a popular assembly on April 30, 1876, Grottkau spoke about the importance of the organization of the workers. As a delegate to the Gotha Congress in 1876, he applied to move the headquarters of the central press organ from Leipzig to Berlin. However, this was refused.

In 1876 there was a trial in Berlin against Carl Derossi , Ignaz Auer (saddler in Hamburg), Albert Baethke (wood turner in Berlin); Carl Friedrich Heinrich Braasch (cigar worker in Altona), Wilhelm Leopold August Geib (bookseller in Hamburg), Carl Friedrich Greifenberg (printer in Berlin); Otto Hugo Paul Grottkau (journeyman bricklayer in Berlin), Georg Wilhelm Hartmann (shoemaker in Hamburg), August Wilhelm Heinsch (typesetter in Berlin); Heinrich Rackow (accountant in Berlin) for “contravening the Association Act of March 11, 1850 a. a. ”and also condemned Grottkau.

From the beginning of 1876 Grottkau was an employee of the "Berlin Free Press". In 1877 he was one of the members of the 'Mohrenklub', which Eduard Bernstein , Fritz Milke and Louis Viereck u. Others belonged. In March 1877, Grottkau spoke against the Hirsch-Duncker trade unions at a meeting of the Berlin bookbinders . From May 27 to 29, 1877, Grottkau took part as a delegate at the Socialist Congress in Gotha, at which Bebel and Liebknecht enforced the continuation of the reprint of Friedrich Engels ' Anti-Dühring . Paul Grottkau replied to Wilhelm Hasselmann : “If, on the other hand, the Congress wanted to transfer the party's last means of power from Berlin to Leipzig, it would increasingly appear that the Leipzig direction was becoming more and more overgrown, so that ultimately the original character of the movement a completely different one. "

On January 3, 1878, the public founding meeting of an anti-Semitic association, the so-called Eiskeller Assembly, took place in the “Eiskeller” bar in a working-class district in the north of Berlin . Adolf Stoecker had commissioned his helpers to recruit employees of the Berlin city mission, supporters of conservative associations and evangelical youth and men's groups in order to secure a following in the audience. Nevertheless, the approximately 1,000 Social Democratic workers present were in the overwhelming majority, and so Paul Grottkau chaired the meeting. After Stoecker, the Social Democrat Johann Most took the floor. “Do your math with the heavens, your clock has run out!” At the end of the meeting a resolution was passed with all against 17 votes that Christianity has not been able to alleviate hardship and misery in almost 1000 years, let alone out of it Creating the world. Grottkau closed the event with three cheers for the Social Democrats, and as they left the hall, the workers' marseilise was sung. Stöcker then claimed in the press that Most had "requested the clergy to be murdered".

When the responsible editor of the “Berliner Freie Presse”, Paul Dentler, was arrested on January 18, 1878, Paul Grottkau took over this dangerous post of editor. Grottkau was supposed to be arrested on January 27th. He fled and went to America. “Nine accusations hatched against him over a period of just as many days wept after him. Richard Fischer, who stepped into the breach in his place , was put in custody on March 11th, ”reports Eduard Bernstein in his history of the Berlin workers' movement.

On April 15, 1879, his writing “Entertaining in 12 Letters” was banned on the basis of Section 28 of the Socialist Law .

In America

Chicago

Emigrated to the United States with his family, Paul Grottkau went to the social democratic “Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung” in Chicago . Here he met August Spies in the editorial office of the newspaper, and he made contact with the anarchists and also wrote for anarchist newspapers such as "Freiheit". When Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883, he published two necrologists and spoke on March 18, 1883 at a mass gathering of German-American socialists in Cleveland , Ohio : “To live and act according to his teachings (...) and always the interests of To represent and promote the exploited, to promote the class struggle for the purpose of finite emancipation ”.

In 1883 Grottkau broke organizationally with the anarchists and August Spies. Shortly afterwards Paul Grottkau had to leave his post as editor in Chicago for August Spies.

This became evident on May 24, 1884, when he debated with Johann Most and defended the Communist Manifesto against him.

"That anarchism is the principle of individualism and thus arbitrariness, and communism is the principle of solidarity: that these fundamental opposites are incompatible and any attempt to discuss them must therefore fail."

- anarchism or communism? P. 2.

Milwaukee

Rolling Mills of the Milwaukee Iron Company at Bay View. This is where the massacre took place.

In Milwaukee , Wisconsin , Paul Grottkau founded the "Milwaukkee'r Arbeiter-Zeitung" (1886–1888) in 1886, which appeared three times a week.

Grottkau became one of the leaders of the militant "Milwaukee Central Labor Union", which organized together with the Knights of Labor on May 1, 1886, a demonstration of 16,000 people for the eight-hour day. On May 3rd there was a general strike by brewery workers in Milwaukee. More than 14,000 brewery workers took part in the strike. On the same day 1,400 Polish railway workers went on strike. The police were then called in. The Governor Jeremiah McLain Rusk cabled by the National Guard . The next morning, 600 to 700 workers marched into Bay View . The National Guard had orders to fire sharply. The guard fired and there were seven dead. Paul Grottkau was subsequently imprisoned because he was the obvious preparer of the strike. Grottkau was sentenced to one year in prison. He also spoke at the funeral of Oscar Neebe's wife.

Haymarket massacre

August Spies, Grottkau's colleague at the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung and one of the martyrs of the Haymarket massacre in 1886.

On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated for the eight-hour day in the United States , including in Chicago, where 80,000 workers were on strike. On that day, despite the presence of the police and the National Guard, there were no police operations, thanks to the discipline of the workers. On May 3, when striking workers dropped windows in front of the McCormick agricultural machinery factory, police shot dead and four people were killed and several others were wounded. On May 4, Albert Parsons , August Spies, George Engel , Oscar Neebe , Louis Lingg, and others spoke at a rally. A stranger threw a bomb into the crowd and eight people were killed, including a police officer. Although no one had even recognized the bomb thrower, eight men who organized the strike were charged and found guilty. There was no evidence of any link between the defendants and the bombing. Rather, Judge Joseph Gary argued that the bomb thrower had acted on the ideas of the men and that they were just as guilty as if they had carried out the attack themselves. Four death sentences were immediately carried out. A few years later, Governor John Peter Altgeld had to admit the defendants' innocence and release the remaining prisoners.

This May 4th is known as the Heumarkt massacre . Paul Grottkau also took sides with the innocent like Josef Dietzgen , although neither of them agreed with the political ideas of the accused. However, they considered it their duty to defend the workers' right to freedom of demonstration and freedom of the press against all attacks.

"If Christ himself came here to-day and preached the doctrine of communion which his followers preached he would, judging from recent events be hanged."

- Paul Grottkau. From a speech given in Chicago on December 25, 1888.

California

Grottkau went to San Francisco , California in 1889 . There he edited California Workers' Newspaper, a short-lived publication. He was also the editor of the German weekly Vorwärts in San Francisco. Here he had himself photographed in Collier's studio.

In 1890, Grottkau is named as the traveling organizer of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor , tasked with agitating for the eight-hour day.

Paul Grottkau died on June 3, 1898 in the 'St. Joseph Hospital 'in Milwaukee. His urn was buried in the 'Forest Home Cemetery' with the participation of the local trade unions.

He had a wife Auguste Wilhelmine Hönig and with her three children, all of whom were born in Cook County (Illinois) near Chicago: Ella (* October 24, 1880), Francis Arthur Felix (* February 19, 1883) and Max Henry Georg ( * November 8, 1885).

Works

  • Entertaining information compiled in 12 letters to the members of the General German Masons and Stone Cutters Association and those who want to become one. Written and ed. on behalf of the General German Masons Association . Berlin 1873, 108 pp.
  • The red lantern. Humorous organ to illuminate the political and social dark sides. Humorous-satirical election newspaper from the election campaigns of 1874 . Responsible editor: Paul Grottkau. Schoenfeld & Baumgarten, Berlin 1874
  • Berliner Bockbier newspaper. Berlin at the time of the buck / editor Paul Grottkau . Berlin 1876 No. 1
  • Chicago Workers Newspaper. Independent body for the interests of the people. Organ of the international union of the working people.

Motto: 'For the people's rights, against everything bad'. United States Labor Party; Socialist Labor Party of North America. Editor: Paul Grottkau from July 14, 1880 to September 1884

  • Harbinger . Ed. International Association of Working People. Editor: Paul Grottkau from July 1, 1882 to May 4, 1886. German-speaking section of the SAP Chicago
  • The torch .
  • Karl Marx is dead! In: Chicagoer-Arbeiter-Zeitung. Chicago, March 16, 1883
  • Karl Marx is dead! In: Harbinger. Chicago. No. 12, March 24, 1883
  • To the Congress of Socialists of North America. In: freedom. Organ of the Revolutionary Socialists. Justus H. Schwab, New York. 1883. Vol. 32, August 11, 1883
  • Discussion on the topic: 'Anarchism or Communism?' Run by Paul Grottkau and Johann Most on May 24, 1884 in Chicago. . The Central Committee of the Chicago Groups of the IAA, Office of the “Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung” and the “Verbote”. Chicago 1884
  • Illinois People's Newspaper . Edited by Paul Grottkau and Julius Vahlteich . 1886
  • Milwaukee Workers Newspaper . Edited by Paul Grottkau. 1888

literature

Commemorative sheet for the Gotha Party Congress. Paul Grottkau (4th from top right)
  • Grottkaus vs. The State. In: Wisconsin reports. Cases determined in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. Chicago 1888, pp. 462-468.
  • Paul Grottkau † . In: The True Jacob . No. 318 of September 27, 1898, p. 2829 digitized
  • Gustav Keßler: Brief history of the German bricklayer movement. On behalf of the shop steward of the Berlin bricklayers. Baake, Berlin 1895
  • Fritz Paeplow: The organization of bricklayers in Germany from 1869 to 1899. A contribution to the history of the German bricklaying movement. Edited by the board of the Central Association of Masons in Germany. Th.Bömelburg, Hamburg 1900
  • August Bringmann : History of the German carpenter movement. Edited on behalf of the Central Association of Carpenters and Related Professional Members of Germany. 2 vols., JHW ​​Dietz successor, Stuttgart 1903
  • Morris Hillquit: History of Socialism in the United States. Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1903
  • Eduard Bernstein : History of the Berlin labor movement. A chapter on the history of German social democracy. First part: From 1848 to the enactment of the Socialist Law. Vol. 1, Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1907
  • Eduard Bernstein: Social Democratic Apprenticeship Years. The book circle, Berlin 1928
  • Marvin Wachman: History of the Social-Democratic Party of Milwaukee. 1897-1910. The University of Illinois press, Urbana 1945 (Diss. University of Illinois 1942) (Illinois studies in the social sciences. Vol. 28, 1)
  • H. Beike: Grottkau, Hugo Otto Paul . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 173-174.
  • Annemarie Lange: Berlin at the time of Bebel and Bismarck. Between the founding of an empire and the turn of the century. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1972
  • Werner Ettelt, Hans-Dieter Krause: The struggle for a trade union policy in the German labor movement from 1868 to 1878. Verlag Tribüne, Berlin 1975
  • Dieter Fricke: The German labor movement 1869-1914. A manual about their organization and activity in the class struggle. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1976
  • Gary M. Fink: Paul Grottkau. In: Biographical Dictionary of the American Left . Ed. by Bernard K. Johnpoll. Greenwood Press, New York 1984, pp. 268-269.
  • Renate Kiesewetter: The institution of the German-American workers' press in Chicago. On the history of the 'Vorboten' and the 'Chicagoer Arbeiterzeitung' 1874–1886. In: Glimpses of the German-American radical press. The anniversary numbers of the 'New Yorker People's Newspaper' 1888, 1903, 1928 . Ed .: Dirk Hoeder u. Thomas Weber. University of Bremen, Bremen 1985
  • Heinz Habedank u. a. (Ed.): History of the revolutionary Berlin workers' movement. Vol. 1. From the beginnings to 1917. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-320-00824-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Fricke, p. 76.
  2. ↑ Annemarie Lange, p. 159 f.
  3. ↑ H. Beike, p. 173.
  4. ↑ Minutes of the general assembly of the General German Workers' Association in Berlin from May 22 to 25, 1872 , Berlin (1872), pp. 12 f., 28, 37, 43.
  5. ↑ Shlomo Na'aman : From the Labor Movement to the Labor Party. The 5th Association Day of the German Workers' Associations in Nuremberg in 1868. A documentation. In: International scientific correspondence on the history of the German labor movement . Beiheft, Berlin 1976, p. 258. See also Werner Ettelt / Hans-Dieter Krause, pp. 477-480.
  6. ↑ Facsimile of the first newspaper in red letters in: Eduard Bernstein (1907), after p. 288.
  7. ↑ The People's State June 6 and August 15, 1875.
  8. ↑ Heinz Habedank, p. 195.
  9. ^ The newspaper appeared in Hamburg from September 15, 1875 to December 15, 1878.
  10. ↑ Heinz Habedank, p. 215.
  11. ↑ Heinz Habedank, p. 219.
  12. ^ IISG , Amsterdam Julius Motteler Estate 2593.
  13. ^ Eduard Bernstein (1928), p. 56.
  14. ^ The trade union of March 16, 1877 (Werner Ettelt, Hans-Dieter Krause), p. 606.
  15. ↑ Dieter Fricke, p. 123.
  16. ↑ Quoted from Heinz Habedank, p. 222.
  17. ^ Eduard Bernstein (1907), pp. 349-350.
  18. ↑ He died in custody in April 1878. (Eduard Bernstein (1928), p. 59).
  19. ↑ Annemarie Lange, p. 407 f.
  20. ^ Eduard Bernstein (1907), p. 360.
  21. ^ 'The public-dangerous aspirations of the social democracy': The reports of the Berlin police president on the social democratic movement in Berlin during the Socialist Act 1878-1890 . Edited by Beatrice Falk, Ingo Materna. BWV, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2009, p. 84.
  22. ^ Morris Hillquit, p. 235.
  23. ^ To the Congress of Socialists of North America . 1883.
  24. ↑ Karl Marx dead!
  25. ↑ Gerhard Becker: Obituaries for Karl Marx. In: Journal of History . Berlin 1968. Issue 4, p. 474.
  26. ↑ The undersigned is resigning from editing of the Chicago workers' newspaper, the torch, and the harbinger. Reasons: In the presence of the Managing Officials of the 'Socialistic Publishing Society' one of this Society's men reproached me: That my activity is the ruin of the aforementioned papers of which I have been the editor. 2. It was insisted that I was not competent and displace better elements. 3. It was further insisted that my work was not efficient and has not been in proportion to my salary, and 4. I have been called a vagabond. For all this I ask of the Management an explanation, whether they have entrusted a vagabond with the editing of those newspapers and if not, this insult should be repelled as a defamation and explained, that I have in every respect fulfilled my duty, defended socialistic Principles, and through my activity, these newspapers, whose editor, I have been, not only promoted but, to a certain extent made their existence possible. The management did not protect me against the defamation mentioned, although only one of the proposed explanations would have sufficed. With phrases, that the management can not interfere with private disagreements, they would like to close this affair, After listening to such defamations, it was to be expected, that an explanation would follow. But this did not take place. In the interest of the party and in my own defense as to my spotless past, I am resigning as Editor of these newspapers. To the 'Socialistic Publishing Society', I have sold my work and activities, but not my honor. Dishonesty is asked of me, but I do not qualify for it. I am satisfied to say that the 'Socialistic Labor Party' and the proletarian emancipation studies I have served well. This declaration I owed to my honor, to the 'Socialistic Labor Party' and to the readers of the Arbeiter Zeitung, the Fackel, and the Vorbote. Paul Grottkau . (Translation from: Chicagoer Arbeiter Zeitung , July 19, 1879?)
  27. ↑ Anarchism or Communism?
  28. ^ Marvin Wachman: History of the Social-Democratic Party of Milwaukee. 1897-1910. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1945, p. 10.
  29. ^ Henry E. Legler: Leading Events of Wisconsin History. The story of the state. Sentinel Co., Milwaukee 1898S. Pp. 303-308.
  30. ^ A b Biographical Dictionary of the American Left .
  31. ^ New York Times March 12, 1887.
  32. ^ Paul Avrich : The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton University Press, 1986
  33. ^ Daily Alta California December 26, 1888, p. 5, columns 5-6. On-line
  34. ↑ "If Christ himself came here today and preached his principles of the union of his disciples, he would be hanged by the recent standards applicable here."
  35. ^ Hartmut Keil: The German Immigrant Working Class of Chicago, 1875–1890. Workers, Labor Leaders, and the Labor Movement. In Dirk Hoerder (Ed.): American Labor and Immigration History, 1877-1920s. Recent European Research. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1983, p. 165.
  36. ↑ The Milwaukee Sentinel June 4, 1898. Online
  37. ↑ Also written " King ".
  38. ^ All born in Cook County, Illinois.
  39. ^ Sources familysearch Online
  40. ^ Weekly edition of the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung .
  41. ^ Sunday edition of the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung .
  42. ↑ Printed in: Your names live on through the centuries. Condolences and necrologists on the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1983, pp. 209-211.
  43. ↑ The court records and the birth records of his children speak against the arrangement of first names.
personal data
SURNAME Grottkau, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grottkau, Otto Hugo Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bricklayer, socialist and trade unionist and American journalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH cottbus
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1898
Place of death Milwaukee