Theodor Lohmann

Theodor Christian Lohmann

Theodor Christian Lohmann (born October 18, 1831 in Winsen an der Aller , † August 31, 1905 in Tabarz ) was a German administrative lawyer and social reformer of the 19th century. He is seen as one of the driving forces behind legislation to protect workers , as a co-architect of Bismarck's social insurance and as a key figure in the relationship between diaconia and social policy .

Life

Theodor Lohmann grew up as the seventh of eight children in an Evangelical Lutheran home that was close to the revival of Louis Harms in Hermannsburg . His father was the merchant and brickworks owner Ernst Heinrich Lohmann (1797-1856). His mother, Johanna Juliana Lohmann née Hardegen, died early. Theodor Lohmann attended grammar school in Celle from 1847 and studied law and political science at the University of Göttingen from 1850 . There he was co-founder of the fraternity Germania zu Göttingen in 1851 and met Gerhard Uhlhorn . In 1854 Theodor Lohmann passed the first state examination in law and entered the administrative service of the Kingdom of Hanover . On January 12, 1855, Lohmann was sworn in as an auditor. In 1858 he passed his second state examination in law. His time as an auditor and assessor took Lohmann to Bleckede , Hanover, where he also worked as a journalist, Göttingen, Hameln and Bruchhausen. In February 1861 he was assessor in the Lehe office , where Lohmann paved the way for the formation of a parish founded by Lutheran house fathers ( Kreuzkirche Bremerhaven ) through an opinion against the Bremen Senate . From April 1861 Lohmann worked as an unskilled worker (employee) in the Landdrosterei in Osnabrück. In 1862 Lohmann became an unskilled worker in the Ministry of Culture in Hanover, from February 1863 in the role of government assessor and civil administration officer.

In 1862 Theodor Lohmann married Louise Wyneken (1839–1879), who was eight years his junior. From this marriage there were three children. In his private life he was involved in setting up the Inner Mission in Hanover. Together with the theologian Gerhard Uhlhorn and others, he was instrumental in founding the Evangelical Association in 1865 , the main association for internal mission in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and in 1868/69 of the St. Stephen's Foundation , on whose board of trustees he was also a member. Lohmann worked on the church council and synodal order of the Hanoverian regional church from 1864.

In 1869 Theodor Lohmann was part-time general secretary of the first Hanover regional synod . From 1866 to 1870 Lohmann was also a secular member of the regional consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Hanover.

From October 1866, Theodor Lohmann worked as a government assessor and advisor in the cultural department of the Hanover State Consistory. During the German War , the Kingdom of Hanover was occupied and annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 . Hanover was now a Prussian province. For the administrative lawyer Theodor Lohmann, this meant - with a time lag - a career leap: After a brief activity as a government assessor in Minden in 1870/71, Lohmann was transferred to Berlin. From October 1871 he worked there in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce as a consultant for the industrial workers issue, initially as a government councilor, from 1877 as a secret senior government councilor. As such, he participated in various draft laws , including the amendment to the industrial code , with which the factory inspection, today's trade supervisory authority , was brought into being.

In 1880 Lohmann moved to the Reich Office of the Interior . From April 1881 Lohmann worked as a lecturer in the department for economic legislation of the Reich Office and part-time as a consultant for occupational safety and factory supervision. There he supported Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in legislating for the development of German social security . Lohmann, however, pursued other goals than Bismarck: while the Reich Chancellor was striving for a social security system that would degrade workers to dependent "state pensioners", his speaker tried to give workers self-determination and participation rights. Bismarck's intended close bond between workers and the state in the sense of state socialism contradicted Lohmann's image of the "responsible worker". Ultimately, the two concepts were incompatible. As recently as 1881, Lohmann was appointed a full Prussian Federal Councilor, where he held the presidium (chair) in the committees for trade and commerce. From 1883 he was also examiner for finance and economics for the diplomatic exam and a member of Gustav von Schmöller's political society .

Lohmann was at least partially able to assert himself in the design of statutory health insurance : The workers were involved in the financing and self-administration of the health insurance funds . The relief funds were also strengthened against Bismarck's will . In 1883, however, there was a break between Lohmann and Bismarck. The reason was the different views on the structure of the statutory accident insurance . While Lohmann advocated the workers' participation in accident insurance, Bismarck sought a compulsory insurance system that was to be supported by employers in the form of professional associations and subsidized by the state. Lohmann tried to thwart Bismarck's plans. In September 1883 there was a discussion between Bismarck and Lohmann, as a result of which Lohmann was excluded from the further course of social legislation. The director of the Reich Office of the Interior, Robert Bosse , noted in his memoir: “Lohmann put his office and his future at risk. All respect for him. Another question is whether he was factually right. I don't think so. ”The success of the Accident Insurance Act, which came into force in 1884, and the triumph of the employers' liability insurance association confirmed this assessment of Bosses and at least partially refuted Lohmann's reservations. Lohmann himself was relieved that in the future he no longer had to stand up for things that he considered "wrong" and "completely unworkable".

After the break with Bismarck, Lohmann remained employed in the Reich Office of the Interior and was Deputy Federal Councilor of Prussia from 1884 (after he was 1st Commissioner from 1881) and remained an auditor for finance and economics.

In the period that followed, Lohmann became increasingly involved in the Inner Mission, including in the Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews , of which he was president from 1876 to 1898, and in the Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Missions among the Gentiles . Theodor Lohmann had already joined the Central Committee for the Internal Mission of the German Evangelical Church in 1880 , of which he was a member until his death in 1905.

After Bismarck's departure in 1890, Lohmann was recalled by the new Trade Minister Hans Hermann von Berlepsch as head and ministerial director of the trade department from 1891 to employers' legislation and to the Prussian Ministry of Trade and Trade (from 1891 in the rank of Privy Senior Councilor, from 1899 real Secret senior government councilor with the title of excellence ). One of his first tasks was the planning and implementation of the International Workers Protection Conference that took place in Berlin that same year. He was then involved in the renewed amendment of the trade regulations, which brought further improvements for the workers, for example the ban on night work for women and young people. From May 4, 1892 until his death, Theodor Lohmann held the post of Undersecretary of State (highest civil servant, corresponds to today's State Secretaries ) in the Ministry of Commerce and was in charge of its overall management, from 1900 onwards at the same time as head of the Commerce Department in the Ministry of Commerce. In these offices he played a leading role in various committees, such as the newly formed commission for workers' statistics , the technical deputation for trade and the commission for reforming housing . From 1892 he was chairman of the Central Association for the Welfare of the Working Class . In 1904, on the occasion of his fiftieth service anniversary, he was awarded the Wilhelm Order for special socio-political merits.

In 1901 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Theological Faculty in Kiel.

Theodor Lohmann died in Tabarz in 1905 at the age of 73. He found his final resting place in the Old Twelve Apostles Cemetery in Schöneberg near Berlin. The grave has not been preserved.

Despite great services to workers protection and social security, the social reformer Lohmann is still in the shadow of Bismarck.

Fonts (selection)

• Communism, socialism, Christianity. In: Quarterly magazine for theology and the church. 1853, pp. 1-33.
• About civil and ecclesiastical poor relief with regard to Hanoverian conditions. Hanover 1855.
• Church laws of the evg.-luth. Church of the former Kingdom of Hanover along with the ordinances, notices and invitations to tender issued to implement them. 1st part, Hanover 1871.
• as publisher: The factory legislation of the states of the European continent. Kortkampf. Berlin 1878.
• Courage for morals. From the private correspondence of the social reformer Theodor Lohmann. Edited by Lothar Machtan . Edition Temmen, 2001, ISBN 3-86108-281-0 .

literature

• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 100 f. ( Online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
• Peter Koch:  Lohmann, Theodor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Lothar Machtan: The social reformer Theodor Lohmann. Basic view and program. In: Social Democracy and Socialist Theory. Festschrift for Hans-Josef Steinberg. Bremen 1995, pp. 30-38.
• Hans Otte : Giving shape to ideas. The social politician Theodor Lohmann in the Central Committee for Inner Mission. In: Wilfried Loth, Jochen-Christoph Kaiser (Ed.): Social reform in the Kaiserreich. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1997, pp. 32-55.
• Florian Tennstedt: Social reform as a mission. Comments on Theodor Lohmann's political action. In: From the labor movement to the modern welfare state. Saur, Munich 1994, pp. 538-559.
• Renate Zitt: Lohmann, Theodor , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 368-370
• Renate Zitt: Between Internal Mission and State Social Policy. The Protestant social reformer Theodor Lohmann (1831–1905). A Study of Social Protestantism in the 19th Century. (= Publications of the Diaconal Science Institute. Volume 10). Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8253-7065-8 .
• Renate Zitt:  Theodor Lohmann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 20, Bautz, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 3-88309-091-3 , Sp. 937-943.
• Lothar Machtan (Hrsg.): Courage to Moral: from the private correspondence of the social reformer Theodor Lohmann. Volume 1: 1850-1883. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-281-0 .
• Hans Joachim Schliep: Theodor Lohmann - a Lutheran social reformer, in: Yearbook of the Society for Lower Saxony Church History (JGNKG 114. Vol. 2016 / ISSN 0072-4238), pp. 173–226.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 8: Supplement L – Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 38-40.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On Lohmann's advocacy of factory inspection cf. Wolfgang Ayaß (edit.): Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 . I. Department: From the time when the Empire was founded to the Imperial Social Embassy (1867–1881). Volume 3: worker protection. Stuttgart / New York 1996.
2. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918. First volume: The world of work and civil spirit. CH Beck. Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34453-4 , p. 341 f.
3. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918. First volume: The world of work and civil spirit. CH Beck. Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34453-4 , p. 346 f.
4. ↑ Florian Tennstedt , Heidi Winter (edit.): Collection of sources on the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914. Section II: From the Imperial Social Message to the February decrees of Wilhelm II. Volume 2, Part 1: From the second accident insurance draft to the Accident Insurance Act of July 6, 1884. Darmstadt 1995, p. 377.
5. ↑ Florian Tennstedt , Heidi Winter (edit.) :: Collection of sources for the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914. Section II: From the Imperial Social Message to the February decrees of Wilhelm II. Volume 2, Part 1: From the second accident insurance submission to Accident Insurance Act of 6 July 1884. Darmstadt 1995, p. 382.
6. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 754.