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Kurt Schumacher | |
|---|---|
 Schumacher between 1945 and 1948 | |
| Leader of the Social Democratic Party | |
| In office 10 May 1946 – 20 August 1952 | |
| Deputy | Erich Ollenhauer Wilhelm Knothe |
| Preceded by | Hans Vogel |
| Succeeded by | Erich Ollenhauer |
| Leader of the Opposition | |
| In office 7 September 1949 – 20 August 1952 | |
| Chancellor | Konrad Adenauer |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Erich Ollenhauer |
| Leader of theSocial Democratic Party in theBundestag | |
| In office 7 September 1949 – 20 August 1952 | |
| Deputy | Erich Ollenhauer Carlo Schmid |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Erich Ollenhauer |
| Member of theBundestag forHannover South | |
| In office 7 September 1949 – 20 August 1952 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Ernst Winter |
| Member of theReichstag forWürttemberg | |
| In office 13 October 1930 – 22 June 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member constituency |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Member of theLandtag of Württemberg forStuttgart | |
| In office 4 May 1924 – 26 January 1931 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member constituency |
| Succeeded by | Erhard Schneckenburger |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Curt Ernst Carl Schumacher[1] (1895-10-13)13 October 1895 |
| Died | 20 August 1952(1952-08-20) (aged 56) |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party (from 1918) |
| Alma mater | University of Halle-Wittenberg |
| Occupation | Jurist,politician |
Curt Ernst Carl Schumacher, better known asKurt Schumacher (13 October 1895 – 20 August 1952), was a German politician andresistance fighter against theNazis. He was chairman of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany from 1946 and the firstLeader of the Opposition in theBundestag inWest Germany in 1949; he served in both positions until his death.
UponAdolf Hitler's seizure of power, Schumacher was imprisoned for ten years in variousNazi concentration camps. AfterWorld War II, he was one of the founding fathers of postwar German democracy. Throughout his life, he opposed far-right and far-left political movements, including theNazi Party and theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD). Referencing the concept ofred fascism, Schumacher described the KPD as "red-painted Nazis".[2]
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Schumacher was born inKulm, inWest Prussia (now Chełmno inPoland), the son of a small businessman who was a member of the liberalGerman Free-minded Party and deputy in the municipal assembly. As a young man, he was a brilliant student; when theFirst World War broke out in 1914, he immediately abandoned his studies and joined theImperial German Army. In December, atBielawy west ofŁowicz in Poland, he was so badly wounded that his right arm had to be amputated.[3] After contractingdysentery, he was finally discharged from the army and was decorated with theIron Cross Second class. Schumacher returned to his law andpolitical science inHalle,Leipzig, andBerlin, from which he graduated in 1919.[3]
Inspired byEduard Bernstein, Schumacher became a dedicatedsocialist and in 1918 joined theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He led ex-servicemen in formingworkers' and soldiers councils in Berlin during the revolutionary days following the fall of theGerman Empire but opposed attempts by revolutionary left-wing groups to seize power. In 1920, the SPD sent him toStuttgart to edit the party's newspaper there, theSchwäbische Tagwacht.[4]
Schumacher was elected to the state legislature, theFree People's State of Württemberg Landtag in 1924. He transferred to the local republican organisation "Schwabenland" in the newly founded organisation to defend Germany's parliamentary democracy, theReichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold. Schumacher became chairman of the Stuttgart Branch of Reichsbanner.[4]
In 1928, Schumacher became the SPD leader in the state of Württemberg. To oppose the emergingNazi Party, Schumacher helped organise socialist militias to oppose them. In 1930, he was elected to the national legislature, theReichstag.[3] In August 1932, he was elected to the SPD party leadership group (Parteivorstand). At 38, he was youngest SPD member of the Reichstag.[citation needed]
Schumacher was staunchlyanti-Nazi. In a Reichstag speech on 23 February 1932, he excoriated Nazism as "a continuous appeal to the inner swine in human beings" and stated the movement had been uniquely successful in "ceaselessly mobilizing human stupidity".[5] Schumacher was arrested in July 1933, two weeks before the SPD was banned, and was severely beaten in prison. Schumacher was given the opportunity to sign a declaration in which he renounced any political activity if released; unlikeFritz Bauer and seven other political prisoners, he refused to sign it.[6]
Schumacher spent the next ten years in Nazi concentration camps atHeuberg,Kuhberg,Flossenbürg, andDachau.[3] The camps were initially intended for exploitation of those deemed by the Nazis to be undesirable people, such as Jews, socialists,communists, and criminals. Beginning in 1940, the prison camps were overcrowded with transports from the eastern front, leading to disease outbreaks and starvation. UnderAction 14f13, beginning in 1941, the Nazis summarily murdered prisoners they deemed unfit for work but Schumacher and some other disabled veterans were spared after they proved with their war medals that they had been disabled in service of Germany during World War I. The conditions in the camps continued to worsen and by 1943, nearly half of the prisoners died, in particular almost half of the 106,000 inmates ofNeuengamme concentration camp.[7]
In 1943, when Schumacher was near death, his brother-in-law succeeded in persuading a Nazi official to have him released into his custody. Schumacher was re-arrested in late 1944 and was in Neuengamme when the British arrived in April 1945.[3]
Schumacher wanted to lead the SPD and bring Germany to socialism. By May 1945, he was already reorganising the SPD inHanover without the permission of the occupation authorities. He soon found himself in a battle withOtto Grotewohl, the leader of the SPD in theSoviet Zone of Occupation, who argued the SPD should merge with the KPD to form a unitedsocialist party. Grotewohl had initially opposed the idea but was persuaded that the rise of the Nazis would have never happened had the left presented a unified front. Schumacher was as ardently anti-Communist as he was anti-Nazi, and rejected the proposal. (In fact, as early as 1930, he had referred to Communists as "rotlackierte Doppelausgabe der Nationalsozialisten", i.e., red-painted doubles of the Nazis.[8] As it turned out, when the eastern SPD merged with the KPD to form theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), that party became for all intents and purposes the KPD under a new name. The few recalcitrants from the SPD half of the merger were branded "agents of Schumacher" and shunted aside.
In August 1946, Schumacher called an SPD convention in Hanover, which elected him as the Western leader of the party.[9] In January 1946, the British and the Americans allowed the SPD to reform itself as a national party with Schumacher as leader. As the only SPD leader who had spent the whole Nazi period in Germany without collaborating, he had enormous prestige. He was certain that he had earned the right to lead the new Germany; however, Schumacher met his match inKonrad Adenauer, the former mayor ofCologne, whom the Americans, not wanting to see socialism of any kind in Germany, were grooming for leadership. Adenauer united most of the prewar German conservatives into a new party, theChristian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). Schumacher campaigned throughout 1948 and 1949 for a united socialist Germany and particularly for thenationalisation of heavy industry, whose owners he blamed for funding the Nazis' rise to power. When theoccupying powers opposed his ideas, he denounced them. Adenauer opposed socialism on principle and also argued that the quickest way to get theAllies of World War II to restore self-government to Germany was to co-operate with them.[citation needed]
Schumacher wanted a new constitution with a strong national presidency, a post that he was confident he would win. The first draft of the 1949Grundgesetz provided for a federal system with a weak national government, as was favoured both by the Allies and the CDU. Schumacher refused to give way and eventually the Allies, keen to get the new German state functioning in the face of the Soviet challenge, acceded to some of Schumacher's demands. The new federal government would be dominant over the states, although the president would have limited powers.[citation needed] Despite his speeches against Nazism, Schumacher had a mixed record on the denazification program:
"Like his CDU rival, Schumacher spoke out against the sweeping nature of the Allied denazification program and the shortcomings of the Allied war crimes trials. He realized the need to incorporate 'small Nazis' – especially former members of theHitler Youth - into the state, going as far as to demand inclusion of members of theWaffen-SS. He also supported Adenauer's Law 131' from 1951, which granted pensions and voting rights to former NSDAP bureaucrats, policemen, and other officials. He even protested the execution of the last major Nazi war criminals in Landsberg in 1951."[10]
The Federal Republic's first national elections were held in August 1949. Schumacher was convinced he would win, and most observers agreed with him; however, Adenauer's new CDU had several advantages over the SPD in the1949 West German federal election. Much of the SPD's prewar power base was now part of the Soviet Zone, and the most conservative parts of prewar Germany, such asBavaria and theRhineland, were in the new Federal Republic of Germany. In addition, the American and the French occupying powers favoured Adenauer and did all they could to assist his campaign though the British remained neutral.[citation needed]
The onset of theCold War, particularly the behaviour of the Soviets and the German communists in the Soviet Zone, produced an anti-socialist reaction in Germany as elsewhere. The SPD could very plausibly have won an election in 1945 but the tide had turned against it by 1949. That came even as the SPD became increasingly critical of the newEast German government. Schumacher was especially critical and once called the communists "red-painted fascists". Schumacher attempted a heavy distinction in the public consciousness between his vision ofdemocratic socialism and the realities in East Germany but still found his party partially damaged by association.[11] Another factor was the recovery of the German economy, mainly because of the currency reform of the CDU'sLudwig Erhard. Matters were further complicated by Schumacher's declining health. In September 1948, he had his left leg amputated.[12]
Although Schumacher's SPD won the most seats of any single party in the election (the CDU and its sister party, theChristian Social Union in Bavaria or CSU, together won more seats), the CDU was able to form acentre-right coalition government with the CSU, the liberalFree Democratic Party, and the national-conservativeGerman Party. Adenauer was elected chancellor, a shock for Schumacher. He refused to co-operate in parliamentary matters and denounced the CDU as agents of the capitalists and foreign powers. Schumacher opposed the emerging new organisations of European co-operation: theCouncil of Europe, theEuropean Coal and Steel Community, and theEuropean Defence Community. He saw them as devices to strengthencapitalism and to extend Allied control over Germany. That stand aroused the opposition of the other Western European socialist parties and eventually the SPD overruled him and sent delegates to the Council of Europe.
During the remainder of Adenauer's first term in office, Schumacher continued to oppose his government; the rapid rise in prosperity as part of theGerman economic miracle, the intensification of theCold War, and Adenauer's success in gaining Germany's acceptance in the international community all worked to undermine Schumacher's position. The SPD began to have serious doubts about going into another election with Schumacher as leader, particularly after he had a stroke in December 1951.[13] They were spared having to deal with this dilemma when Schumacher died suddenly in August 1952.[14] Schumacher had formulated the preamble of SPD program for the party convention inDortmund in September 1952. He wrote: "Only a Germany, supported by civic consciousness and social justice, can be successful in fending off totalitarian tendencies."[15]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)In all, more than 50,000 prisoners, almost half of those imprisoned in the camp during its existence, died in Neuengamme before liberation.
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| Preceded by | Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1946–1952 | Succeeded by |
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