Richard Hansen (politician)

Richard Hansen (* 2. August 1887 in Kiel , † 5. September 1976 ibid ) was a German politician and party functionary of the SPD . Hansen was a member of the Provincial Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein from 1925 to 1933 and a deputy member of the Prussian State Council from 1930 to 1933 . From 1947 to 1959 he was managing director of the SPD parliamentary group in Schleswig-Holstein .

Life

Empire up to the Weimar Republic

Hansen initially worked as a shipyard worker at the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel. In 1906, at the age of 19, he became a union member and a year later a member of the SPD, where he worked as a cashier until 1914 . He experienced the First World War as a medic at the front. In 1918 he became a member of the workers' council in Kiel.

Hansen was actively involved in the suppression of the Kapp Putsch in 1920 as head of the workers' armed forces and in the same year was elected full - time sub - district secretary for the second district of Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel and a member of the district executive committee of the SPD. In 1924, Hansen was one of the co-founders of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , having previously been a member of the social democratic protection formation Vereinigung Republik and later of the Iron Front . For the Reichsbanner he himself took over the leadership in Schleswig-Holstein until 1933. At the beginning of 1933 he was also elected to the Reich Executive Committee.

From 1925 to 1933 Hansen was a city ​​councilor for Kiel and was elected as such in the provincial parliament of Schleswig-Holstein in 1925, to which he belonged until 1933. In 1928 he was also appointed deputy member of the Prussian State Council, but was not re-elected in the April 10, 1933 elections. At the SPD party congress in Leipzig in 1931 , he was a delegate from Schleswig-Holstein. At the beginning of 1933 he was elected deputy to the local SPD chairman Otto Eggerstedt .

National Socialism and Exile

In the elections on March 12, 1933 for the Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Parliament, Hansen was elected a further eleven SPD members, and they no longer took part in the constituent meeting on April 10. After the National Socialists came to power, Hansen tried to maintain the work of the SPD with other party members from Hamburg . In Flensburg , presumably on the run to Denmark , he was recognized by SA men , but was able to escape. At the end of May and beginning of June he emigrated to Denmark, where Hansen, as head of the Sopade border secretariat, enabled numerous party friends to flee to Scandinavia. Since then he has had close ties with the Danish Social Democrats.

From Denmark, Hansen took over the coordination of the resistance in Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Pomerania, including the distribution of printed matter such as the party newspaper Vorwärts . Hans Schröder and Emil Sandholz were among his contacts in Kiel . At the beginning of April 1937 he lost his German citizenship , which Germany revoked from him. During the occupation of Denmark by German troops on April 9, 1940, he narrowly escaped to neutral Sweden . In Sweden he was in contact with the British secret service through the International Transport Workers' Federation . Presumably under pressure from the German authorities demanding his extradition, the Swedish government was induced to leave Hansen in 1941 via Vladivostok and Manila to Los Angeles in the USA . He first lived in the Midwest and later, from 1943, worked as a shipbuilder in New York City . Hansen was a member of the German Labor delegation in the USA, whose secretary was his party comrade Rudolf Katz . At Easter 1945 he was a co-signer of the declaration on the German question of the German Labor Delegation What was done with Germany .

Return to Germany

After the end of the Second World War , Hansen returned to Stockholm in early 1946 , where his family now also lived. There he became a member of the board of directors of the aid committee for German and stateless victims of the concentration camps. His return to Germany was difficult, however. Not only was the lack of the old networks a hindrance, there were also allegations by some SPD emigrants from Scandinavia that he had been unprepared for the German attack on Denmark and had left the emigrants there to their fate. His attitude towards the policies of the SPD during the Weimar Republic , which was perceived as uncritical, was also criticized. In the summer of 1946 he succeeded in writing to the local executive committee in Kiel. He was planned to return but was unable to find a job.

After the local association in Rendsburg submitted an application to the SPD's district party conference, which took place in Bad Segeberg in early June 1947, he was able to return. In September 1947 he arrived in Kiel, initially with a residence permit for half a year. But even the Lord Mayor of Kiel and SPD member Andreas Gayk was unable to convince his party to elect Hansen as the Kiel party secretary.

It was not until 1948 that Richard Hansen and his family finally returned to Kiel. He now worked as managing director of the SPD parliamentary group in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament , mediated speakers and organized party meetings. He was also active as a consultant for the regional association, the working group of formerly persecuted social democrats , which he was able to support successfully in numerous reparation proceedings until 1959. Later he himself took over the district chairmanship of the AG, as successor to Hans Schröder. At the end of 1958 at the age of 71, he retired. In 1963 he received the Federal Cross of Merit .

Richard Hansen died on September 5, 1976, at the age of 89, in his hometown of Kiel. He had been married to Lisa Meitmann (1902–1976), Karl Meitmann's sister, since 1923 . His wife herself was active at the municipal level, including several times a member of the Kiel council assembly and head of the Stadtkloster Kiel , a non-profit association for the operation of old people's and nursing homes. The couple had two children, daughter Sonja (* 1924) and son Richard (* 1925).

literature

• Anne E. Dünzelmann : Stockholm walks. On the trail of German exiles 1933–1945. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3-7448-2995-3 , page 89.
• Ludwig Eiber : Richard Hansen, the border secretariat of Sopade in Copenhagen and the connections to Hamburg 1933–1939. In: Einhart Lorenz (Ed.): A very cloudy chapter? Hitler refugees in Northern European exile 1933 to 1950. Results-Verlag, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-87916-044-0 , pages 181–196.
• Institute for Contemporary History / Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. Volume 1, Saur, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , page 269.
• Joachim Lilla : The Prussian State Council 1921–1933. A biographical manual. With a documentation of the State Councilors appointed in the “Third Reich” (= manuals on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 13). Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-5271-4 , pages 63-64.

Web links

• Hansen, Richard in the German biography
• Article about Richard Hansen in a history workshop in the SPD Schleswig-Holstein
• Entry about Hansen, Richard (1887−1976) in annual reports for German history

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Joachim Lilla : The Prussian State Council 1921-1933. A biographical manual. With a documentation of the State Councilors appointed in the “Third Reich” (= manuals on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 13). Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-5271-4 , pages 63-64.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Institute for Contemporary History / Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration (ed.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. Volume 1, Saur, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , page 269.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Richard Hansen in history workshop in the SPD
4. ^ Anne E. Dünzelmann : Stockholm walks. On the trail of German exiles 1933-1945. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3-7448-2995-3 , page 89.
5. ^ Lisa Hansen in the history workshop in the SPD