Wilhelm Bruhn (politician)

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Wilhelm Bruhn

Wilhelm Bruhn (born January 18, 1869 in Saal , Pomerania , † October 20, 1951 in Berlin ) was a politician of the DNVP and publisher and editor of the Staatsbürger-Zeitung .

Life and work

After attending school, Bruhn, who was of Protestant faith, attended the teachers' seminar in Franzburg from 1886 to 1889 . He then worked as a teacher in Moordorf and Putbus until 1894 . In 1895 he took over a printing company in Neuweißensee near Berlin and started his own business as a publisher of a newly founded daily local newspaper. In 1898 he took part in the publishing house of the Berliner Staatsbürger-Zeitung , which he took over as publisher and editor.

Wilhelm Bruhn built Walter Graf Pückler (1860–1924) over several years as an anti-Semitic speaker. In 1899 he was fined, along with others, for printing a speech by Pückler for sedition . The judgment paved the way for a legal prosecution of anti-Semitic agitation with the help of Section 130 StGB .

He became known nationwide when he declared the murder of the high school student Ernst Winter on March 11, 1900 in Konitz to be a Jewish ritual murder and accused the butcher Adolph Lewy of the act. The publications in the Staatsbürger-Zeitung and other papers resulted in serious anti-Jewish riots in Konitz. Bruhn and his editor in charge, Paul Bötticher, were charged with libel in September 1900. After a trial that lasted more than two years, Bruhn was sentenced to six months' imprisonment by Regional Court I in 1902 and Bötticher to one year in prison. The Reichsgericht upheld the judgment. The request for clemency supported by Justice Minister Karl Heinrich Schönstedt was rejected by Kaiser Wilhelm II , as was a later request for remission of the remaining sentence.

During the First World War he worked as a senior military officer.

Political party

Bruhn initially belonged to the anti-Semitic German Reform Party . In 1918 he helped found the DNVP , which he left in October 1929.

MP

From 1903 to 1918 Bruhn was a member of the Reichstag of the Empire for the constituency of Frankfurt an der Oder ( Arnswalde - Friedeberg ). In 1919/20 he was a member of the Weimar National Assembly . Then he was again a member of the Reichstag until 1930 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Jahr: Anti-Semitism in front of the court: Debates on the legal punishment of anti-Jewish agitation in Germany (1879-1960). (= Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Volume 16), Campus Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3593390581 , pp. 188-193 ( Google Books ).
  2. ↑ Christoph Jahr: Anti-Semitism in front of the court: Debates on the legal punishment of anti-Jewish agitation in Germany (1879-1960). (= Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Volume 16), Campus Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3593390581 , pp. 141–144 ( Google Books ).
  3. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 38; Imperial Statistical Office (Ed.): The Reichstag elections of 1912 . Issue 2. Berlin: Verlag von Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, 1913, p. 85 (Statistics of the German Reich, Vol. 250)

literature

On the alleged ritual murder in Konitz and Bruhn's role:

  • Christoph Nonn: A city is looking for a murderer. Rumor, violence and anti-Semitism in the empire . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-5253-6267-6 .
  • Helmut Walser Smith: The story of the butcher. Murder and anti-Semitism in a small German town . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-8924-4612-1 .
  • Marion Neiss: Bruhn, Wilhelm , in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 2/1, 2009, p. 104f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bruhn, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (DNVP), Member of the Bundestag and publisher of the Staatsbürger-Zeitung
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Hall , Pomerania
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1951
Place of death Berlin