Werner Krause (historian)

Werner Krause (born January 17, 1934 in Wanne-Eickel ; † June 30, 2014 in Bonn ) was a German historian and academic archivist who headed the archive of social democracy at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung for many years .

life and work

Werner Krause was born the son of a miner and graduated from high school in Wanne-Eickel in spring 1954 . He studied history, philosophy and public law first in Cologne , then in Saarbrücken and from the summer semester 1955 at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In Münster he joined the SDS and since his second semester in Münster has been the second chairman of the left-wing student organization, which has gradually alienated itself from the SPD.

The Münster professor Werner Hahlweg initially supervised Krause's dissertation “The Swiss Social Democrat Robert Grimm and the Zimmerwald Movement”. For his doctoral thesis he collected a. a. Material in the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam . In 1959, the Ford Foundation granted the IISG Amsterdam substantial funding to include a. to organize and record the bequests from the former archive of the SPD . The emigrated party executive of the SPD had sold these materials to the Amsterdam Institute in 1938. Krause accepted the IISG Amsterdam's offer to list these holdings without completing his dissertation.

After his temporary contract expired (end of 1964), Krause initially earned his living in Amsterdam as a freelancer. Among other things, he published a large source edition on the history of early socialism together with Frits Kool .

In 1969 Werner Krause joined the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. In 1965, the foundation's board of directors decided to set a course for its own “archive of social democracy” and to combine a large research library and the “actual” archive under this roof. From 1970, Krause headed the archive in the narrower sense as a sub-department head. The overall management of the Archives of Social Democracy had Kuno Bludau held. Krause led a very dynamic acquisition policy that soon made the Bonn archive one of the largest private archives in Germany. In 1973, together with Sheila Ochova (later: Sheila Och ), he presented the first large inventory of the archive. Krause had a long-term relationship with the co-author, who had been a board member of the exiled Czechoslovak party executive and later a prominent children's book author. In 1978 he and his colleagues began to create media-relevant exhibitions that significantly increased the archive's reputation. Presentations on the resistance of social democrats and trade unionists against the Nazi regime, on the history of the Socialist International , as well as on the life and work of Kurt Schumacher , Gustav Heinemann , August Bebel and Willy Brandt were among Krause's greatest achievements.

In 1983, the management reorganized the historical work of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation . The common roof "Archive of Social Democracy" was dissolved and the library and archive were subordinated to the research institute of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation as independent departments. Werner Krause was promoted to senior management. With the so-called “Bundestag project” he faced further tasks: The development of parliamentary estates and deposits as well as the registry of the SPD parliamentary group was promoted through grants. All party-affiliated political foundations benefited from these funding measures by the German Bundestag. With the help of project funds were u. a. the personal papers of Willy Brandt , Herbert Wehner , Annemarie Renger and many other personalities are indexed and made accessible for research. After 1989 Werner Krause took part in the first exploratory talks to merge the historical holdings of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism in East Berlin with those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. However, these ideas, strongly pushed by Werner Krause, were quickly doomed to failure due to political and economic conditions.

In 1992 a new management reorganized the historical work of the political foundation. The archive of social democracy became part of the newly created Historical Research Center of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung under the direction of Dieter Dowe . Central administrative powers were transferred to the new institute management. In the future, Werner Krause and his own team focused on exhibition projects and the edition of the “Socialist Messages”. For almost two decades, the head of the Archives of Social Democracy had emphatically demanded the publication of the “Socialist Messages”, the information sheet that the SPD's exile executive published for ten years between 1939 and 1948 in London , as one of the most important sources of German social democracy in exile . In the last years of his career he dealt intensively with this project. Due to illness, however, he was unable to complete the project. The long-standing director of the publishing house JHW Dietz Nachf. Heiner Lindner was responsible for the completion .

After reaching the age limit, Werner Krause retired on January 31, 1999. He died on June 30, 2014 in a Bonn hospice.

Works

• Kurt Schumacher and the rebirth of a democratic party . An exhibition of the archive of social democracy. Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn 1986.
• August Bebel 1840–1913. A great man in the German labor movement. Catalog for an exhibition of the Archives of Social Democracy, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (together with Ilse Fischer). Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn 1988.
• Gustav Heinemann. Christian, patriot and social democrat. An exhibition of the archive of social democracy. Booklet accompanying the exhibition . Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn 1986.
• Willy Brandt. A political life. 1913-1992. Catalog for an exhibition of the archive of social democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung . Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn, 2004.
• Image documentation on the history of the International and Willy Brandt's SI presidency. Booklet to the exhibition . Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn 1986.

literature

Rüdiger Zimmermann : Werner Krause. In: Preserve-Spread-Enlighten. Archivists, librarians and collectors of the sources of the German-speaking labor movement. Supplement band. Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn 2017, pp. 37–48. ISBN 978-3-95861-591-5 . Online (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Willy Albrecht: The Socialist German Student Union (SDS). From party-conforming student association to representative of the new left . Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn 1994, p. 488. ISBN 3-8012-4053-3 ( Politics and Society History series , Bd. 35).
2. ↑ Götz Langkau: The "Ford Project" of the IISG (1959–1964) In: Marx 'Sechs-Bücher-Plan. A debate . Argument-Verl., Hamburg 2015, pp. 189–209 ISBN 978-3-86754-681-2 ( contributions to Marx-Engels research. New series , 2013)
3. ↑ Frits Kool, Werner Krause (ed.): The early socialists . Walter, Olten 1967. ( Documents of the World Revolution , Vol. 1).
4. ↑ Werner Krause, Sheila Ochova: Overview of the archive holdings . Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn 1973
5. ↑ [1] . Socialist communications. News for German Socialists in England. Newsletter, published by the exile executive of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SOPADE) 1939–1948 . Unabridged original edition. Edited by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Editing and annotation by Werner Krause with the assistance of Mario Bungert and Wolfgang Starkcke. Final version and introduction Heiner Lindner. Internet editors: Ruth Großgart and Walter Wimmer. Bonn 2003.