Otto Suhr | |
|---|---|
 Stamp of Suhr | |
| Governing Mayor of Berlin (West Berlin) | |
| In office 11 January 1955 – 30 August 1957 | |
| President | Theodor Heuss |
| Chancellor | Konrad Adenauer |
| Preceded by | Walther Schreiber |
| Succeeded by | Willy Brandt |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1894-08-17)17 August 1894 Oldenburg,Duchy of Oldenburg, German Empire |
| Died | 30 August 1957(1957-08-30) (aged 63) West Berlin |
| Political party | Social Democrats |
Otto Ernst Heinrich Hermann Suhr (17 August 1894 – 30 August 1957) was a Germanpolitician as a member of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He served as theGoverning Mayor of Berlin (i.e.West Berlin) from 1955 until his death.[1]
He was born 1894 inOldenburg and went with his family toOsnabrück when he was nine years old; four years later the family went toLeipzig, where Suhr studiedeconomics,history and publishing science at theuniversity, interrupted by his service in theGerman Army inWorld War I.[2]
Suhr joined the SPD in 1919[3] and from 1922 worked as a secretary at theAllgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund trade unions' association inKassel and was a member of the local SPD executive committee underPhilipp Scheidemann. He received his doctorate in 1923 and from 1925 taught economics at theUniversity of Jena.[4] In 1926 he joined the board of theAllgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund (General Free Federation of Employees) inBerlin, which had to dissolve in the course of theNazi seizure of power in 1933 and the succeedingGleichschaltung process.
From 1935 on, Suhr worked as a journalist at theFrankfurter Zeitung and other newspapers.[5] He remained in contact with Social Democratic members of theGerman resistance likeAdolf Grimme and had to face several interrogations by theGestapo.
AfterWorld War II he played a vital role in re-organizing the Berlin SPD chapter as chairman of the party's state association. From 1946 Suhr was president of the BerlinStadtverordnetenversammlung city assembly,[6] and from 1951 until 1954 also of its successor, theAbgeordnetenhaus of Berlin.[7] He had to cope with the forcefulSED merger of Social Democrats andCommunists in theSoviet occupation zone andEast Berlin, theBerlin Blockade and the final division of the city, when the assembly was compelled to move into theRathaus Schöneberg in the American sector.
In 1948/49 Suhr was a deputy at theHerrenchiemsee convention and theParlamentarischer Rat (parliamentary council) to draft a new German constitution. After ratification of theBasic Law (Grundgesetz) in 1949 he was elected as a deputy to theBundestag federal parliament ofWest Germany inBonn, until he resigned his seat in 1952. Suhr lectured as an honorary professor at theFree University of Berlin (FU) and re-established the privateDeutsche Hochschule für Politik academy, the biggest and one of the most important institute forpolitical science in Germany, which he led from 1948 to 1955. In 1958 it was integrated into the FU and namedOtto-Suhr-Institut in his honour.
In the West Berlin election of December 1954, thecoalition government ofChristian Democrats (CDU) andFree Democrats (FDP) under Governing MayorWalther Schreiber lost its plurality, with the SPD reaching a one-seat absolute majority in the Abgeordnetenhaus assembly. Suhr nevertheless decided to form a coalition with the CDU and was electedRegierender Bürgermeister on 11 January 1955.[1] His incumbency was driven by the efforts to rebuild the city, marked by the 1957Interbau exhibition. On 19 July 1957 Suhr also asserted his regular appointment asPresident of the Bundesrat despiteAllied reservations, however he did not step into office as he died fromleukemia six weeks later and was succeeded byWilly Brandt.
Beside theOtto-Suhr-Institut, a street in his birthplace Oldenburg (in the district Eversten) andOtto-Suhr-Allee in the Berlin district ofCharlottenburg are named after him.
| Preceded by | Mayor of West Berlin 1955–1957 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by - | President of the Abgeordnetenhaus of West Berlin 1951–1955 | Succeeded by |
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