Kurt Schumacher
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Curt Ernst Carl Schumacher, better known as Kurt Schumacher (13 October 1895 – 20 August 1952), was a German politician who became chairman of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...
from 1946 and the first
Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
in the
West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
in 1949; he served in both positions until his death. An opponent of Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...
's government but an even stronger opponent of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
in
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, he was one of the founding fathers of postwar German democracy. He was an opponent of
reactionary In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the ''status quo ante'', the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics abse ...
and revolutionary forces, the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
and the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(KPD) during the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
and described the KPD as "red-painted
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
".


Early life and career

Schumacher was born in Kulm in
West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (german: Provinz Westpreußen; csb, Zôpadné Prësë; pl, Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1920. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 177 ...
(now Chełmno in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
), the son of a small businessman who was a member of the liberal
German Free-minded Party The German Free-minded Party (german: Deutsche Freisinnige Partei, DFP) or German Radical Party was a short-lived liberal party in the German Empire, founded on 5 March 1884 as a result of the merger of the German Progress Party and the Liberal ...
and deputy in the municipal assembly. The young man was a brilliant student, but when the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
broke out in 1914, he immediately abandoned his studies and joined the
German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
. In December, at Bielawy west of
Łowicz Łowicz is a town in central Poland with 27,896 inhabitants (2020). It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship (since 1999); previously, it was in Skierniewice Voivodeship (1975–1998). Together with a nearby station of Bednary, Łowicz is a ma ...
in Poland, he was so badly wounded that his right arm had to be amputated. After contracting
dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
, he was finally discharged from the army and was decorated with the
Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...
Second class. Schumacher returned to his law and political studies in Halle,
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and
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
from which he graduated in 1919. Inspired by
Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedric ...
, Schumacher became a dedicated
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
and in 1918 joined the
Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...
(SPD). He led ex-servicemen in forming Workers and Soldiers Councils in Berlin during the revolutionary days following the fall of the
German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
but opposed attempts by revolutionary left-wing groups to seize power. In 1920, the SPD sent him to
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
to edit the party's newspaper there, the ''Schwäbische Tagwacht''. Schumacher was elected to the state legislature, the
Free People's State of Württemberg The Free People's State of Württemberg (german: Freier Volksstaat Württemberg) was a state in Württemberg, Germany, during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. 1918 revolution With the German revolution near the end of World War I, the Ki ...
Landtag in 1924. In 1928, he became the SPD leader in the state. To oppose the emerging
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, Schumacher helped organise socialist militias to oppose them. In 1930, he was elected to the national legislature, the Reichstag. In August 1932, he was elected to the SPD leadership group. At 38, he was youngest SPD member of the Reichstag.


Nazi regime

Schumacher was staunchly
anti-Nazi Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
. In a Reichstag speech on 23 February 1932, he excoriated
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
as "a continuous appeal to the inner swine in human beings" and stated the movement had been uniquely successful in "ceaselessly mobilizing human stupidity". 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, but unlike
Fritz Bauer Fritz Bauer (16 July 1903 – 1 July 1968) was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He was instrumental in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and played an essential role in beginning the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials ...
and seven other political prisoners, he refused to sign it. He spent the next ten years in
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
at Heuberg, Kuhberg, Flossenbürg, and Dachau. The camps were initially intended for exploitation of those deemed by the Nazis to be undesirable people, such as socialists,
communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
, and criminals. Beginning in 1940, the prison camps were overcrowded with transports from the eastern front, leading to disease outbreaks and starvation. Beginning in 1941, the Nazis initiated
Action 14f13 Action 14f13, also called '' Sonderbehandlung'' (special treatment) 14f13 and Aktion 14f13, was a campaign by Nazi Germany to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called ''invalid'' or ''prisoner euthanasia'', the sick, the elderly and ...
to mass execute prisoners who were deemed unfit to work, and Schumacher and some other disabled veterans were granted leniency from the executions 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 in Neuengamme of 106,000 inmates almost half died. 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 arrested again in late 1944 and was in Neuengamme when the British arrived in April 1945.


Postwar

Schumacher wanted to lead the SPD and bring Germany to socialism. By May 1945, he was already reorganising the SPD in
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
without the permission of the occupation authorities. He soon found himself in a battle with
Otto Grotewohl Otto Emil Franz Grotewohl (; 11 March 1894 – 21 September 1964) was a German politician who served as the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) from its foundation in October 1949 until his death in Septembe ...
, the leader of the SPD in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, who argued the SPD should merge with the KPD to form a united socialist party. Schumacher rejected Grotewohl's proposal and in August called an SPD convention in Hanover, which elected him as the Western leader of the party. 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 his right to lead Germany would be recognised by both the Allies and the German electorate. Schumacher met his match in
Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...
, the former mayor of
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, 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, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). Schumacher campaigned throughout 1948 and 1949 for a united socialist Germany and particularly for the
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of heavy industry, whose owners he blamed for funding the Nazis' rise to power. When the occupying powers opposed his ideas, he denounced them. Adenauer opposed socialism on principle and also argued that the quickest way to get the Allies to restore self-government to Germany was to co-operate with them. Schumacher wanted a new constitution with a strong national presidency since he was confident that he would occupy that post. The first draft of the 1949 ''
Grundgesetz The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 and came in ...
'' 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, conceded some of Schumacher's demands. The new federal government would be dominant over the states, although the president would have limited powers.


1949 federal election

The Federal Republic's first national elections were held in August 1949. Schumacher was convinced he would win, and most observers agreed with him. But Adenauer's new CDU had several advantages over the SPD. Much of the SPD's prewar power base was now part of the Soviet Zone, and the most conservative parts of prewar Germany, such as
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
and the
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
, 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. Further, the onset of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, particularly the behaviour of the Soviets and the German communists in the Soviet Zone, produced an antisocialist 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 new East 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 of "democratic socialism" and the realities in East Germany but still found his party partially damaged by association. Another factor was the recovery of the German economy, mainly because of the currency reform of the CDU's
Ludwig Erhard Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard (; 4 February 1897 – 5 May 1977) was a German politician affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is known for leading the West German postwar economic ...
. Matters were further complicated by Schumacher's declining health. In September 1948, he had one of his legs amputated. Germans admired Schumacher's courage but doubted that he could carry out the duties of chancellor. Although Schumacher's SPD won the most seats of any single party in the election (though the CDU and its sister party, the CSU, together won more seats), the CDU was able to form a centre-right coalition government with the Free Democratic Party, the Christian Social Union, and the German 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: the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
, the
European Coal and Steel Community The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to regulate the coal and steel industries. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembo ...
and the European Defence Community. He saw them as devices to strengthen capitalism 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.


Death and legacy

During the remainder of Adenauer's first term in office, Schumacher continued to oppose his government, but the rapid rise in German prosperity, the intensification of the Cold 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. They were spared having to deal with this dilemma when Schumacher died suddenly in August 1952.


References


Sources

* *


Further reading

* Peter Merseburger: ''Kurt Schumacher: Patriot, Volkstribun, Sozialdemokrat''. Munich: Pantheon, 2010, . * Maxwell, John Allen. "Social Democracy in a Divided Germany: Kurt Schumacher and the German Question, 1945-1952." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, Department of History, Morgantown, West Virginia, 1969.


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schumacher, Kurt Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians German Protestants Protestants in the German Resistance German anti-communists German amputees Candidates for President of Germany People from Chełmno People from West Prussia German politicians with disabilities Leipzig University alumni 1895 births 1952 deaths Dachau concentration camp survivors Flossenbürg concentration camp survivors Neuengamme concentration camp survivors Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 2nd class German Army personnel of World War I