Kurt Schumacher

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Kurt Schumacher bigraphy, stories - leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1945 to 1952

Kurt Schumacher : biography

13 October 1895 – 20 August 1952

Kurt Schumacher (13 October 1895 – 20 August 1952), was a German social democratic politician, who served as chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1946 and was the first Leader of the Opposition in the West German Bundestag from 1949 until his death. An opponent of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s government, but an even stronger opponent of the East German Socialist Unity Party and communism in general, he was one of the founding fathers of post-war German democracy. He was also a noted opponent of the far-right and the far-left, i.e. the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of Germany, during the Weimar Republic, and is famous for his description of the communists as "red-painted Nazis."Mike Schmeitzner: Totalitarismuskritik von links: deutsche Diskurse im 20. Jahrhundert. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 3525369107, p. 255 He spent over ten years in Nazi concentration camps, where he was severely mistreated.

Early career

Kurt Schumacher was born in Kulm in West Prussia (now Chełmno in Poland), the son of a small businessman, member of the liberal German Free-minded Party and deputy in the municipal assembly. The young man was a brilliant student, but when the First World War broke out in 1914 he immediately abandoned his studies and joined the German Army. In December, at Bielawy west of Łowicz in Poland, he was so badly wounded that his right arm had to be amputated. After contracting dysentery, he was finally discharged from the army and was decorated with the Iron Cross 2nd class. He returned to his law and politics studies in Halle, Leipzig and Berlin, where he graduated in 1919.

Inspired by Eduard Bernstein, Schumacher became a dedicated socialist and in 1918 joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) leading ex-servicemen in forming Workers and Soldiers Councils in Berlin during the revolutionary days following the fall of the German monarchy. He opposed various attempts by Communist groups to seize power. In 1920 the SPD sent him to Stuttgart to edit the party newspaper there, the Schwäbische Tagwacht.

Schumacher was elected to the Württemberg Landtag (state legislature) in 1924 and in 1928 became the SPD leader in the state. When the National Socialists rose to prominence, Schumacher helped organize 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 age 38 he was youngest SPD member of the legislature.

Schumacher versus Adenauer

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 Adenauder’s new CDU had several advantages over the SPD. Some of the SPD’s strongest areas in pre-war Germany were now in the Soviet Zone, while the most conservative parts of the country – Bavaria and the Rhineland – were in the new Federal Republic of Germany. In addition both the American and French occupying powers favoured Adenauer and did all they could to assist his campaign; the British remained neutral.

Further, the onset of the Cold War, and particularly the behavior of the Soviets and the German Communists in the Soviet Zone, produced an anti-socialist reaction in Germany as elsewhere. The SPD would very plausibly have won an election in 1945; by 1949 the tide had turned. The social democrats themselves were extremely critical of the Eastern German governments, including Schumacher who once labeled the Communists "red-painted fascists". He had therefore problems to point out to the public opinion the differences in his vision of "democratic socialism" and the realities in East Germany.Ulla Plener: Kurt Schumacher 1949-1952 – Die innere Gestaltung der BRD im Schatten seines Antikommunismus, in: Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, No. III/2002. Another thing was the recovery of German economy, thanks mainly to the currency reform of the CDU’s Ludwig Erhard. Matters were complicated by Schumacher’s ill-health: in September 1948 he had one of his legs amputated. Germans admired Schumacher’s courage, but they doubted that he could carry out the duties of federal Chancellor.