Red Zurich
As Red Zurich , the city is Zurich in the period from 1928 to 1938 (loss of SP-council majority), respectively, to 1,949 (loss of SP City Council majority) referred. In 1928 the Social Democratic Party (SP) won five seats in the nine-member city government (city council ) for the first time and provided Emil Klöti as city president. In the parliament (local council) it was the strongest party since 1900.
Social conditions
After the state strike of 1918, the idea of taking power in the state as a whole, which had been taken over from the German social democracy, was supplemented by the federalist strategy of community socialism . Socialism should now be realized through reforms at the local level, while at the same time improving the standard of living. When the social question came to a head during the global economic crisis , the SP won majorities in most of the larger Swiss cities. The Red Zurich made the beginning as the first big city. With the slogan "Conquer Zurich for socialism!" the Social Democratic Party advertised its candidates in the spring of 1928. On April 15, 1928, the voters elected for the first time a city government with an SP majority. Contrary to popular fears, the Red Zurich pursued a policy that was consistent but also aimed at balancing out. In 1934, with the second incorporation , Zurich became the first large Swiss city, which was a challenge for the new government.
In the municipal council elections of 1938, the SP fell back from 63 to 60 seats with a share of the vote of only 41.6% and lost the majority in the municipal council. In 1943, the then city president Ernst Nobs, a representative of the Zurich party line, was elected to the Federal Council as the first social democrat. In 1946 the SP majority in the Zurich city government was confirmed again. In addition to the five Social Democrats, Edgar Woog , a communist, took a seat on the city council. The newly founded Communist Labor Party (PdA) won almost twenty seats in parliament, half as many as the SP. With the economic upswing after the Second World War, the Red Zurich ended in 1949 : The SP lost its government majority and the PdA, which had fallen into disrepute due to the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, was thrown out of the government and broke into parliament.
Local political priorities
Economic policy
The main task of socialist economic policy was to alleviate the consequences of the world economic crisis . In addition to the expansion of communal services and the communal industrial operations, the aim was to improve the employment relationships of communal employees. In the period up to the global economic crisis, numerous reform measures could now be implemented. In 1929 the non-contributory old-age allowance was introduced and a savings and aid fund was created for the uninsured city support staff. The global economic crisis soon became noticeable in “red Zurich”. The number of unemployed jumped from 1795 in 1930 to 12415 in 1934.
The city government reacted with various socio-political and interventionist measures. In 1931 compulsory unemployment insurance, subsidized by the city treasury, was introduced. From 1933, the city granted export risk guarantees. When the Escher Wyss company was on the verge of bankruptcy, the city bought its property in 1935 and rented it back on favorable terms in order to save 1,000 jobs. Renovation work was supported by the city as a job creation measure. Despite massive tax increases, Red Zurich , which after the experience of the immediate post-war period did not want to become dependent on the capital market again, had to cut its employees' wages in 1934 .
Social policy
With the majority position in the community, important social goals should be achieved. The Red Zurich did not see itself as a socialist experimental field, but wanted to become a prime example of solid social-democratic administrative work and a role model for the expansion of public infrastructure. In 1929 the welfare office (today the social welfare office) was created. The child welfare office, which provided clothing and shoes for needy children, was integrated.
Urban housing
In view of the massive housing shortage, the SP pursued an active land and housing policy. The first urban housing estate Limmat 1 was built in 1907 on the initiative of the city council and doctor Friedrich Erismann . In 1924 a program to support housing cooperatives was introduced: the city of Zurich financed 95 percent of their construction costs with discounted mortgages. This promotion of communal and cooperative housing construction based on the example of Red Vienna led to a boom in cooperative settlements in 1928. All cooperatives were politically neutral due to their statutes. In the inter-war period in particular, however, they saw themselves as organizations of the political workers who wanted to build a social future in conjunction with the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions. In an annual report from 1924 it was said: The cooperative is the only weapon to put an end to the irresponsible system of exploitation of all kinds . The ultimate goal should be a society in which consumption, housing and production would be organized on a cooperative basis.
The building cooperative of working women was founded for single women . The Zurich architect Lux Guyer , who had worked on similar residential construction projects in England, was responsible for the project planning.
For financial reasons, the city limited itself to renovating the existing urban settlements.
At the beginning of 2007, 50,000 of the 200,000 apartments in the city of Zurich met the requirements of charitable status. They belong to building cooperatives or are urban apartments.
Cooperatives
The self-help organization form of the cooperative was used for the construction of affordable rental houses, the supply of food, books, newspapers and money as well as for craft collectives. The cooperative had a long tradition in the city of Zurich: in 1851 eight Grütlians founded the Konsumverein Zürich . It was the first to be called the consumer association and is considered the oldest really successful consumer cooperative in Switzerland and on the European continent.
The following cooperatives took part in the present film Das Genossenschaftliche Zürich from 1929: Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich (ABZ), non-profit building cooperative Waidberg, building cooperative for federal staff, non-profit building cooperative Zurich II, building cooperative of state, municipal and private employees, family cooperative Zurich III, community building cooperative Röntgenhof, non-profit tenant building cooperative Zurich, plastering and painting cooperative Zurich, tenant building cooperative Zurich, tramway cooperative Zurich, cooperative for plumber, roofing and installation workers, shoe cooperative Zurich, carpentry cooperative Zurich, food association Zurich, cooperative for people's pharmacies, cooperative bookstore Zurich, cooperative bookstore central bank.
Financial policy
In 1919/20, the city of Zurich was placed under the financial supervision of the canton after the banks had blocked loans. She then had to cut social spending from 6.4 to 4 million and lay off over a quarter of the city's employees. To solve the financial problems, the SP wanted to merge the suburban communities with different tax powers. With the Second Incorporation project , the suburbs, which had long been part of the city economically and had similar social problems, were to be merged to form “Greater Zurich” in order to increase the plannability of the Zurich economic region and to enable a financial balance between poor and rich neighborhoods. At the cantonal referendum of 1931, a revised bill was approved that excluded the rich communities of Kilchberg and Zollikon from incorporation. This doubled the area of the city and the number of inhabitants rose from 250,000 to 320,000. The financial shortage as a result of the global economic crisis meant that reform projects did not have to be implemented or had to be reduced again.
Transport policy
Three years after the first incorporation in 1893, the city of Zurich took over the tram network of the company Elektro Strassenbahn Zürich (ESB) (founded in 1893) and formed the first municipal tram network in Europe with the Städtische Strassenbahn Zürich (StStZ).
Extensive line extensions followed in the 1920s, including the routes to the zoo , Triemli , Wollishofen and Albisrieden . As a result of the financial shortage during the Great Depression, some routes were closed around 1930 when the city bought the last two private tram companies. Among other things, the Seebach - Glattbrugg and Oerlikon - Schwamendingen lines of the former Zurich – Oerlikon – Seebach (ZOS) tram, and the Schlieren – Weiningen line of the former Limmattal tram (LSB) were closed.
Health policy
Eye and hearing examinations were carried out in the city schools since 1882 and 1894 respectively. In 1904 the first school doctor was appointed. From 1922 iodine tablets were distributed to the pupils as part of goiter prophylaxis, 88% of whom were goiter wearers or had goiter systems. The school medical service was reorganized in 1928 and expanded to include four school doctors. They carried out series tests to combat tuberculosis. The first school dental clinic was opened as early as 1908. From 1929 the school dental service became independent and the clinics were decentralized.
Educational policy
In 1928, the SP politician Jean Briner , a long-time advocate of “school reform”, became the new school board member. The social democracy, together with the left-wing Grütliverein, took up the ideas of reform pedagogy from the new beginnings before the turn of the century and developed the term “social pedagogy”. The socio-educational school called for a new orientation and a new way of thinking in education. It should produce the "new, social" person who can only enable his personality to be liberated if he is bound to the interests of the community. This endeavor was mainly opposed by liberalism and the church, who saw their influence in the school in danger. The struggle for more influence in the field of education ignited with the new division of the school districts after the second incorporation . The fathers of the school reform included the German pedagogue Georg Kerschensteiner and, above all, Robert Seidel , a university lecturer at the University of Zurich , who campaigned for a work school instead of a pure learning and drill school. In 1908, in his well-known lecture at the Pestalozzi celebration in Zurich, Kerschensteiner described the work school as the school of the future.
The implementation of the comprehensive school modeled after the established in the twenties American high school did not get beyond the discussion stage. The planned comprehensive reorientation could not be implemented and turned into an internal reform, the “New School Spirit”. The schools in the city of Zurich performed pioneering work in the three areas of social pedagogy , health care and education, as well as curative and special education .
Arts and Culture
The workers built their own cultural, sports and leisure clubs, in which the organized in the 1930s lived as if in a cultural world.
At the beginning of the 1930s, numerous buildings in the style of the new building were built, including the arts and crafts museum , the Zett-Haus with the Roxy cinema on Badenerstrasse, the Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl , the Sihlporte and the new stock exchange building.
In 1939, the Swiss National Exhibition (Landi) took place in the city of Zurich . City President Emil Klöti was Vice-President of the Organizing Committee.
For the new districts, after the second incorporation, easily accessible district pools were created in addition to the previous lake and river pools. In 1939 Bad Allenmoos was built in Unterstrass . 1949 was by Max Frisch in the Landi style built pool Letzigraben opened; the outdoor swimming pool, also known as the Max-Frisch-Bad, is an important architectural and historical witness of the city.
Social film
Between the global economic crisis and the post-war boom, the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS), the trade unions affiliated with the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB) , the cooperatives and the youth, sports and cultural organizations of the labor movement commissioned around seventy social films . A number of the films were shot in Zurich and document the Red Zurich, such as: Demonstration of price increases in Zurich (1917), The Zurich Cooperative (1929), The Red Day (1934), The New City (1938), Zurich Builds (1938) , The city intervenes (1939) . The films differ significantly from the proletarian films of the Weimar Republic and the Russian films of the young Soviet Union. They reflect the political conditions in Switzerland ( direct democracy ) and were timed and thematically geared towards the next referendum, upcoming elections or member recruitment. The films were produced by the Zurich film production companies Praesens-Film AG, Central Film, Pro-Film, Turica-Film, Gloria-Film and by amateurs, and mainly lent and distributed by the Swiss Workers' Education Center in Zurich ( SABZ ). The SABZ tried to oppose the morally questionable entertainment film to the social film as part of the educational and propaganda efforts of the labor movement. The militant films made before 1935 were marked by material misery and social bitterness ( state strike in 1918), while the films after the peace agreement of 1937 were less confrontational.
Contemporaries
- Max Bill
- Fritz Brupbacher
- Hans Finsler
- Sigfried Giedion
- Wolfgang Langhoff
- Thomas Mann
- Werner Max Moser
- Flora Steiger-Crawford
See also
Film and literature
- Development of the schools in the city of Zurich in the 20th century. In: 150 Years of Zurich Elementary School. School and parental home, Zurich City Education Authority, 1982.
- Willy Nabholz: The 20s and 30s and their effects. In: 150 years of regression? VPOD Teachers Section Zurich, Gegenverlag, 1982, ISBN 3-85686-007-3 .
- The red Zurich 1928–1938. A dramatic decade . Documentary by Beat Renggli (Schweizer Fernsehen DRS DOK series), 1992.
- Deborah Holmes: Ignazio Silone and «the red Zurich». Writing and Internationalism in Antifascist Exile 1929-1939. Dissertation . Oxford University, 2001.
- Christian Koller : In: Rote Revue - magazine for politics, economy and culture. 81/2, 2003.
- Christian Koller: Sport, Urbanity and Communal Socialism: The Case of "Red Zurich" (1928–1949). In: International Journal of the History of Sport. 29/14, 2012, pp. 2013-2029.
- Christian Koller: 85 years ago: The »election battle« for »Greater Zurich« , in: Sozialarchiv Info 6 (2017). Pp. 9-22.
- Steffen Lindig: The decision is at the polls: Social Democracy and Workers in Red Zurich 1928 to 1938. Eco Verlag, Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-85637-021-8 .
- Walter Akeret: The second Zurich incorporation from 1934. Peter Lang, Bern 1977, ISBN 3-261-02155-1 .
- Peter Huber : Communists and Social Democrats in Switzerland 1918–1935: The dispute over the united front in the Zurich and Basel workers. Limmat, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-85791-104-2 .
- Paul Schmid-Ammann: Emil Klöti : Mayor of Zurich: A Swiss statesman. Gutenberg Book Guild, Zurich 1965.
Individual evidence
- ^ [1] Christian Koller: Socialism in a City? Red Zurich came into being 75 years ago. Rote Revue, magazine for politics, economy and culture, volume 81, issue 2 2003
- ^ Paul Schmid-Ammann: Emil Klöti : Mayor of Zurich: A Swiss statesman. Gutenberg Book Guild, Zurich 1965
- ↑ Walter Akeret: The second Zurich incorporation from 1934. Peter Lang, Bern 1977, ISBN 3-261-02155-1
- ^ Development of the schools in the city of Zurich in the 20th century. In: 150 Years of Zurich Elementary School. School and Parents, Education Authority of the City of Zurich, 1982
- ↑ Stefan Länzlinger, Thomas Schärer: Let's put this weapon in our service. Film and Labor Movement in Switzerland. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-0340-0971-3 .