Paul Hirsch

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Paul Hirsch (disambiguation) .

Paul Hirsch (born November 17, 1868 in Prenzlau , Uckermark , † August 1, 1940 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( SPD ). He was Prime Minister of the Free State of Prussia from 1918 to 1920.

Life

Stolperstein , Gervinusstrasse 24, in Berlin-Charlottenburg

Memorial plaque on the house, Wilmersdorfer Strasse 15, in Berlin-Charlottenburg

From 1879 to 1888, Hirsch attended the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in Berlin . Then he studied medicine, social sciences and economics at the Friedrich Wilhelms University . From 1892 Hirsch worked as a freelance writer and journalist. Among other things, he was parliamentary rapporteur and co-editor of parliamentary correspondence. In the 1890s he became a member of the SPD . From 1899 to 1920 he was a city ​​councilor in Charlottenburg and Berlin . In 1908 he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives as one of the first Social Democrats , to which he belonged until November 1918 as parliamentary group leader of the SPD.

On November 12, 1918 he took over the chairmanship of a revolutionary cabinet in Prussia on behalf of the Executive Council of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils, together with the USPD representative Heinrich Ströbel . At the same time, Hirsch was Prussian Minister of the Interior until March 1919 . In this capacity, on January 4, 1919, he relieved the Berlin Police President Emil Eichhorn , who belonged to the USPD and who had sided with the mutinous People's Navy Division during the Christmas fighting . The USPD members then left the government. The USPD and the Spartakusbund called for a general strike the next day and formed a revolutionary committee that called for the later so-called Spartacus uprising .

From 1919 to 1921 Hirsch was a member of the Prussian state constituent assembly . Hirsch is considered one of the leading supporters of the Greater Berlin Act , which came into force on October 1, 1920. After the collapse of the Kapp Putsch , Hirsch resigned from his government offices on March 24, 1920. He remained a member of the Prussian Landtag until 1932 and served from July 1920 to April 1921 as "parliamentary" State Secretary in the Prussian Ministry for People's Welfare .

From April 1921 to November 1925, Hirsch was a city councilor and deputy mayor in Charlottenburg. Then he was appointed mayor of Dortmund under Ernst Eichhoff . Some representations say that Hirsch was forced to give up his office in 1933 at the beginning of the National Socialist era because of his Jewish origins. But regional histories report that he gave up his post for health reasons as early as 1932. Anti-Semitic attacks on him may also have played a role.

Paul Hirsch moved back to Berlin with his family. From May 1934 the National Socialist state stopped paying him retirement benefits. As early as 1933 Paul Hirsch rejoined the Berlin Jewish community , from which he had left in 1918. The two daughters of the Hirsch couple were able to emigrate from Germany in 1936 and 1939, but they were no longer able to have their parents join them. They were forced to move into a room in a house that was only inhabited by Jews. Paul Hirsch died on August 1st, 1940 of old age and malnutrition. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . His wife Lucie Hirsch, née Jacoby, committed suicide a year later in order to avoid deportation to a concentration camp .

On June 23, 2015, a stumbling block for him and his family was laid in front of his former place of residence, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Gervinusstraße 24 .

Fonts

• Municipal suffrage (with Hugo Lindemann ), Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1905.
• The local program of the Prussian Social Democracy. Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1911.
• The Prussian Landtag. Handbook for Social Democratic Landtag Voters. Vorwärts bookstore, Berlin 1913.
• Tasks of German community politics after the war. Publishing house for social sciences, Berlin 1917.
• Socialism is work. To the German workers. An appeal by the government (with Otto Braun and Emil Barth ), Berlin 1919.
• Law on the formation of a new municipality in Berlin. From April 27, 1920. With introduction and explanations. Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Berlin 1920. Digitized by: Central and State Library Berlin, 2020. urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-1-15397255
• Community politics. Explanations of the Görlitz program. Dietz Nachf., Berlin 1922.
• Community Socialism. A course disposition. Berlin 1924.
• The way of social democracy to power in Prussia. Stolberg Verlag, Berlin 1929.

Web links

Commons : Paul Hirsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

• Klaus Malettke :  Hirsch, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 217 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wilhelm Heinz Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1867-1933. Biographies, chronicles and election documentation. A manual . Düsseldorf, 1995. ISBN 3-7700-5192-0 , p. 509.
• Hirsch, Paul. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 11: Hein – Hirs. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-22691-8 , pp. 393-397.
• Renate Karnowsky: Paul Hirsch, a Prussian Prime Minister from Prenzlau. In: Prenzlau, capital of the Uckermark, 1234–1984, a bourgeois reader. Editor: Heimatkreis Prenzlau, 1984, pp. 301–321, online.
• Renate Karnowsky: Paul Hirsch. In: Biographies of important Dortmund residents, people in, from and for Dortmund. published by Hans Bohrmann, Verlag des Historisches Verein Dortmund, 1994, pp. 41–43, online.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west . Volume 1: German history from the end of the Old Reich to the fall of the Weimar Republic. Beck, Munich 2000, p. 388.
2. ^ Renate Karnowsky: Paul Hirsch, a Prussian Prime Minister from Prenzlau in Prenzlau. In: Prenzlau. Capital of Uckermark, 1234 - 1984, a bourgeois reader , publisher: Heimatkreis Prenzlau, 1984, p. 314f.
3. ^ Renate Karnowsky: Paul Hirsch. in: Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . Vol. 1 Dortmund, 1994, p. 42f.
4. ↑ Renate Karnowsky: Paul Hirsch, a Prussian Prime Minister from Prenzlau in Prenzlau, capital of the Uckermark, 1234-1984, a bourgeois reader , editor: Heimatkreis Prenzlau, 1984, pp. 301–321, online.