Peter Schlack (politician)

Peter Schlack

Peter Schlack (born March 3, 1875 in Kreuzau ; † February 4, 1957 in Cologne ) was a leading figure in the consumer cooperative movement of the "Cologne direction" and German politician ( center , CDU ).

Life, job

Peter Schlack comes from a family of small traders. After attending primary school in Kreuzau, Schlack learned the carpentry trade. He completed courses at the Volksverein for Catholic Germany and attended the commercial college in Cologne. He joined the Hirsch-Duncker trade union of metalworkers in Mülheim am Rhein and then switched to the Christian Metalworkers' Association , of which he became district chairman. From 1903 to 1906 he was secretary of the district association of Catholic workers' associations in Cologne for three years.

Consumer cooperative movement

From 1902 to 1903 and then again from 1906 to 1912 he was managing director of the consumer cooperative “Eintracht” in Mülheim am Rhein.

As an opponent of the trade union consumer associations, he energetically promoted the development of the Christian consumer cooperative movement under the aspect of absolute political neutrality, whereby the recognition of Christian motives was important to him.

On December 27, 1909, the Association of West German Consumers (later Reichsverband deutscher Konsumvereine eV ) was founded by 48 consumer associations . Peter Schlack became chairman of the association, whose membership rose to 101 consumer associations by January 1, 1912. On March 10, 1912, it was decided to found the large purchasing center of German consumer associations (GEZ) . Peter Schlack was elected managing director. In 1923, the GEZ into a corporation was converted to "Gepag" Großeinkaufs- and production corporation German cooperatives whose Director General he to the DC circuit was the 1,933th Peter Schlack was released on May 19, 1933.

Schlack was editor of the association journals Konsumgenossenschaftliche Praxis and Der Konsumverein .

Political persecution under National Socialism

On August 22, 1944, after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, he was arrested as part of the Grid Action , and one day later he was admitted to the Cologne Gestapo prison EL-DE-Haus and from there as a prisoner together with friends such as Konrad Adenauer , Thomas Eßer , Josef Baumhoff , Otto Gerig , Joseph Roth , Peter Paffenholz , Peter Knab and Hubert Peffeköver transferred to the work education camp in the exhibition halls in Cologne-Deutz. On September 16, 1944, he, Father Alef , Baumhoff, Gerig, Knab, Peffeköver and Roth were deported with other former politicians to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar and housed in cell block 45. His concentration camp number in Buchenwald was 81593. He was released on October 28, 1944.

When, after the Second World War, the socialist and Christian consumer associations were united on the basis of a unity movement in the Central Association of German Consumer Cooperatives , Schlack became chairman of the supervisory board of the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Konsumgenossenschaften (GEG) in March 1947 .

Political party

Schlack already joined the center during the Empire. On June 17, 1945, he took part in the conference of leading center politicians of the Weimar Republic, who spoke out against a re-establishment of the purely Catholic party and wanted to bring into being a cross-denominational Christian-Democratic party, today's CDU. He then also belonged to the commission under Leo Schwering , which began deliberations on a first party program on June 23 in Walberberg , which was published on July 1, 1945 as the "Preliminary Draft for a Program of Christian Democrats in Germany" and later as Cologne Principles became known.

MP

Schlack was a member of the Weimar National Assembly in 1919/20 . He was then a member of the Reichstag until 1933 . From 1947 to 1949 he was a member of the Economic Council of the Bizone .

Honors

• 1952: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Peter-Schlack-Straße in Kreuzau is named after him. There is also a Peter-Schlack-Straße named after him in Cologne (Longerich).
• A fish steamer owned by Gemeinwirtschaftliche Hochseefischerei GmbH, Bremerhaven, (GHG) was named Peter Schlack . It was built in 1949 at the Howaldtswerke shipyard in Hamburg. His data: 396 GRT, 3260 basket, length 43.82 m, width 8.04 m. (Registered under the name HH 289)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Internationales Rotes Kreuz Bad Arolsen, archive: Extract from the block relocations of the Buchenwald concentration camp, relocations on September 29, 1944 from the tent camp. Sheet 659
2. ^ Fritz Klein: Self-help out of Christian responsibility , Kommunal-Verlag Recklinghausen, 1967, p. 142.
3. ↑ Internationales Red Cross Bad Arolsen, archive: Change report from October 28, 1944. Sheet 102.
4. ↑ DIE ZEIT, June 23, 1949 No. 25
5. ↑ HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, April 30, 1949 No. 50, p. 15.
6. ↑ http://www.ralf-thorein.de/assets/applets/HWH_Bauliste.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 12, 2012.  

literature

• G. Letter, B. Kaff, H.-O. Kleinmann: Christian Democrats against Hitler . Published on behalf of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. Verlag Herder Freiburg im Breisgau, 2004, ISBN 3-451-20805-9 , p. 456
• Wilhelm Fischer: 60 years versus 60 years of service to consumers. 1894-1954. Festschrift Hamburg 1954. 362 pages.
• Winfried Herbers:  Schlack, Peter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 19 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Fritz Klein: Self-help out of Christian responsibility , Kommunal-Verlag Recklinghausen, 1967, 208 pages
• Walther G. Oschilewski : Will and Action. The way of the German consumer cooperative movement . Hamburg 1953

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Schlack in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Schlack in the database of members of the Reichstag