Kurt Schumacher

(b. Kulm, 13 Oct. 1895; d. 20 Aug. 1952) German; leader of SPD 1946 – 52 Many Germans felt ill at ease with Schumacher because he seemed to personify the valour and the suffering of the few anti-Nazi resisters, in contrast to the complacency and cowardice of the many fellow-travellers. He had lost an arm in the 1914 – 18 war fighting for the Kaiser, and a leg as a result of his incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp. Because he was well known and on the verge of death, he was released in 1943, but it seemed to be sheer will power and sense of mission which kept him alive until 1952. He wanted to build up the SPD as the majority party to constitute a bulwark against political extremism, and he wanted to keep Germany united in a democratic Europe. The Allies found him a difficult man to deal with as he opposed the idea of the collective guilt of the Germans and the expulsion of millions from their homes as German territories were transferred to the Soviet Union and Poland.

The Social Democrats had the best record as consistent democrats of any of the German parties. The Communists already banned, they alone had voted against Hitler's "Enabling Act" in the Reichstag in 1933. The Communists had stood for a Soviet Germany, the SPD for a democratic Germany. Schumacher and his colleagues had warned that Hitler would bring about another war. They had been proved correct and they expected to be rewarded for their courage and vision when Germany was returned to democracy. They were to be disappointed. In the East many of their bastions were under Soviet control; there democratic elections could not be held. In the West the confessional structure of the voters was against them being more Catholic than Germany as a whole. Moreover, Adenauer's Christian Democrats were ready to embrace integration with their neighbours, hoping that German reunification would come later. Schumacher urged that such integration should come after German unity had been restored. Strongly backed by the Catholic church and the Americans, Adenauer led his Christian Democrats to victory in 1949 and again in 1953 by which time Schumacher was dead. The jovial Rhinelander beat the austere Prussian.

Schumacher was born in Prussia beyond the Oder-Neisse line, and his home town became part of Poland after 1945. He grew up in a comfortable middle-class environment which was shattered by the outbreak of war in 1914. He volunteered for service but his wounds resulted in his discharge from the army in 1915. He took up the study of law and economics. His war experiences led him to side with the revolution in 1918. He joined the SPD and worked as a journalist for the party. By 1924 he was elected to the Württemberg parliament and in 1930 to the Reichstag. On a famous occasion in 1932 he interrupted Goebbels, shouting, "The entire National Socialist agitation is a constant appeal to the swine in man." He became a marked man and was arrested in 1933. He was released from Dachau in 1943 only to be rearrested after the July 1944 plot against Hitler. Released again, he was marked down for execution as the Allied advance in Germany continued. He went into hiding until the arrival of the British in Hanover. He immediately got to work building up the SPD and was elected chairman in 1946.

Kurt Schumacher (1895-1952) was the leading German socialist statesman during the period of recovery and reconstruction following World War II. Although his views on the future organization of Germany were not accepted, he continued to exercise an important influence on the political ideas of his countrymen decades after his death.

Born into a West Prussian merchant family of liberal political views, Schumacher shared the exhilaration followed by disillusionment which so many young men of his generation experienced during World War I. He volunteered for military service, but after being seriously wounded he returned to the study of law. He felt increasingly drawn to politics, however, and in 1918 he joined the Social Democratic Party. Active at first as a journalist and politician in the state of Württemberg, Schumacher was elected to the Reichstag in 1930. His vigorous opposition to National Socialism led not only to his banishment from public life in 1933, but to imprisonment in a succession of concentration camps and to brutal hardship which permanently impaired his health. Learning in the last weeks of the war that his name was on a Nazi execution list, he went underground until the collapse of the Third Reich in the spring of 1945.

Welcomed as one of the "good Germans" who had resisted the Hitler tyranny, he immediately plunged into the work of rebuilding the Social Democratic Party. Fearing that a union with the Communist Party, which the Soviets were encouraging in their zone of occupation, would lead to domination by the Communists, he concentrated on the creation of a vigorous independent socialist movement in the parts of Germany occupied by the Western allies. At the first postwar convention of the Social Democratic Party in May 1946, he rejected the theory of class conflict, emphasizing the importance of political freedom and economic justice for all groups in society. He hoped thereby to broaden the social base of his party and to attract democratic forces within the bourgeois camp. He defined his brand of socialism as the "economic liberation of the moral and political personality." Regarding the future organization of the German state, he favored a democratic federal union with a central government strong enough to maintain economic unity, financial independence, and social welfare. The administrative system, he insisted, should be "as centralistic as necessary, but as federalistic as possible."

His views soon brought him into conflict with the occupying powers. He charged, not without justice, that the Allied authorities (France, Great Britain, United States) opposed his socialist policies and that they therefore favored "candidates of the bourgeois parties" for key positions in politics, economics, and administration. Their disapproval was sharpened by his convictions regarding what the international position of the new Germany should be. Hoping to avoid the permanent division of his country into two hostile states, he advocated neutrality in the incipient Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. A believer in a united Europe, he nevertheless continued to cling to the concept of a strong German national state, embracing all four occupation zones (the Allies plus the Soviet Union), which could play an important role in the political affairs of the continent. Above all, he opposed the military alignment of his country with either East or West, maintaining that reunification could be achieved only by a policy of strict neutrality. His goal was a united, democratic, socialistic, and peaceful Germany acting as a diplomatic buffer between the two superpowers.

In the political battles of the early postwar years Schumacher was defeated by his opponent Konrad Adenauer, leader of the middle-of-the-road Christian Democratic Union. This was partly a result of the indirect support which the latter received from the Allied occupation authorities; partly it was due to Schumacher's own brusqueness and irritability, aggravated by his declining health. But the main reason was that most Germans, eager for American aid in the recovery of their ravaged economy and convinced that entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would hasten the political rehabilitation of their country, favored close ties to the West.

The German Federal Republic, as it developed in the period after its founding in 1949, did not follow the policies urged by Schumacher. While material prosperity and political respectability have been amply achieved, chances for the reunification of Germany seem as remote today as ever. Yet Schumacher's vision continues to appeal to many of his countrymen. The concept of a socialist Germany in which the rights of property are subordinated to society's collective welfare is still central to the program of the Social Democratic Party, and the longing for the union of all Germans - those in the German Democratic Republic in the East with those in the German Federal Republic - remains undiminished. The ideals Schumacher advocated have survived the political disappointments and defeats he suffered during his lifetime.

Further Reading

Although Schumacher's speeches and writings have been published in several editions, none, unfortunately, has been translated into English. There is, however, a first-rate study of his public career: Lewis J. Edinger, Kurt Schumacher: A Study in Personality and Political Behavior (1965). In addition, any book dealing with the recovery of Germany after World War II is bound to contain information about him. See, for example, Richard Hiseacks, Democracy in Western Germany (1957) or Harold Zink, The United States in Germany, 1944-1956 (1957). Finally, there are several contemporary articles by well-known journalists and scholars, among them Flora Lewis, "The Hard-Bitten Herr Schumacher," New York Times Magazine (July 31, 1949); Theodore H. White, "Kurt Schumacher: The Will to Power," The Reporter (December 11, 1951); and Felix Hirsch, "Adenauer or Schumacher?" Current History (February 1952).

Additional Sources

Kurt Schumacher, Dusseldorf; New York: ECON, 1988.

This article is about the German politician. For the American football player, see Kurt Schumacher (American football).

Kurt Schumacher

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Dr. Kurt Schumacher (13 October 1895 - 20 August 1952), was the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1945 to 1952.

Contents 1 Early career 2 Under the Nazis 3 Postwar politics 4 Schumacher versus Adenauer 5 External links

Early career

Kurt Schumacher was born in Kulm in West Prussia (now Chełmno in Poland), the son of a small businessman. He 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, west of Łowicz in Poland, he was so badly wounded that his right arm had to be amputated. He was severely disabled for life. He returned to his studies in Berlin, graduating in law and politics, and became a dedicated socialist.

In 1918 Schumacher joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and led militant ex-servicemen in forming Workers and Soldiers Councils in Berlin during the revolutionary days following the fall of the German monarchy. He was always a steadfast democratic socialist and opposed the 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 Nazi Party rose to prominence, Schumacher helped organize socialist militias to fight them in the streets as well as opposing them on the hustings. 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.

Under the Nazis

The inability of the SPD and the German Communist Party to form a united front meant that they couldn't prevent the Nazis coming to power in January 1933. Schumacher was arrested in July and was severely beaten in prison, making his disabilities even worse. He spent the next ten years in concentration camps at Heuberg, Kuhberg, Flossenbürg and Dachau. The camp at Dachau was intended for people whom the Nazis wanted to keep alive, and the fact that he was a disabled ex-service man gained Schumacher some leniency, but he risked his life through repeated defiance and hunger strikes.

In 1943, when Schumacher was near death, his brother-in-law succeeded in persuading a Nazi official to have him released into his custody. He was arrested again in late 1944, and he was still in Neuengamme concentration camp when the British arrived in April 1945. He emerged from the war an embittered man, in constant pain from his injuries, contemptuous not only of the Nazis but of everyone who had not opposed them as rigorously as he had.^{[citation needed]}

Postwar politics

Schumacher also had a burning conviction that he was destined to lead the SPD, and to lead Germany to socialism. By May he was already reorganising the SPD in Hanover, without the permission of the occupation authorities. He soon found himself in a battle with Otto Grotewohl, the self-appointed leader of the SPD in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, who was arguing that the SPD should merge with the Communists to form a united socialist party. Schumacher detested the Communists and rejected Grotewohl's plan. In August he called an SPD convention in Hanover, which elected him as "western leader" of the party.

In January 1946 the British and 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, despite his authoritarian style and bitter invective against everyone who opposed him. He was certain that his right to lead Germany would be recognised both by the Allies and by the German electorate.

But Schumacher met his match in Konrad Adenauer, the former mayor of Cologne, 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 (CDU). Schumacher campaigned through 1948 and 1949 for a united socialist Germany, and particularly for the nationalisation of heavy industry, whose owners he blamed for funding the Nazis' rise to power. When the occupying powers opposed his ideas, he denounced them in extravagant terms. 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 also wanted a new constitution with a strong national presidency, confident that he would soon occupy that post. But the first draft of the 1949 Grundgesetz provided for a federal system with a weak national government, as favoured both by the Allies and the CDU. Schumacher absolutely refused to give way on this, and eventually the Allies, keen to get the new German state functioning in the face of the Soviet challenge, conceded some of what Schumacher wanted. The new federal government would be dominant over the states, although there would be no strong presidency.

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 ruthless behaviour of the Soviets and the German Communists in the Soviet Zone, produced an anti-socialist reaction in Germany as elsewhere. The SPD would probably have won an election in 1945; by 1949 the tide had turned. The German economy was also reviving, thanks mainly to the currency reform of the CDU's Ludwig Erhard. Matters were complicated by Schumacher's grave 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.

The result was that the CDU won a plurality of seats, and was able to form a majority government with the support of some minor parties. This was a complete shock to Schumacher, and he never really recovered from it. In opposition he was totally intransigent, refusing to co-operate in parliamentary matters and denouncing the CDU as agents of the capitalists and of foreign powers. Although he also denounced the Communists, and in fact organised an underground SPD resistance network in eastern Germany, his anti-capitalist and anti-Western rhetoric sounded sufficiently similar to Communist propaganda to undermine his support.

Schumacher further damaged his standing by bitterly opposing the emerging new organisations of European co-operation, the Council of Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Defence Community, which he saw as devices for strengthening capitalism (which in a way they were), and for extending Allied control over Germany (which they were not). This stand aroused the opposition of the other west European socialist parties, and eventually the SPD overruled him and sent delegates to the Council of Europe.

During the rest of Adenauer's first term of office, Schumacher continued to oppose his government with his usual vehemence, but the rapid rise in German prosperity, the intensification of the Cold War and Adenauer's increasing success in getting Germany accepted 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 when he had a stroke in December 1951. They were spared having to deal with this dilemma when Schumacher died suddenly in August 1952.

Adenauer, like most Germans, had admired Schumacher's integrity, willpower and courage, even while opposing his policies, and was shocked at his death, although it cannot have been a real surprise. "Despite our differences", he said, "we were united in a common goal, to do everything possible for the benefit and well-being of our people." Schumacher would probably have dismissed this as sentimental nonsense. The only thing that would further the well-being of the people, in his view, was socialism. His rigid adherence to this principle probably cost him the chance of national leadership.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kurt Schumacher

• (German) SPD Schumacher tribute website
• German election results 1949-2002 from Adam Carr's Election Archives

Party political offices
Preceded by Hans Vogel	Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1946–1952	Succeeded by Erich Ollenhauer

v • d • e Chairmen of the Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD (1890–1933) Paul Singer / Alwin Gerisch · August Bebel / Paul Singer · August Bebel / Hugo Haase · Hugo Haase / Friedrich Ebert · Friedrich Ebert · Friedrich Ebert / Philipp Scheidemann · Otto Wels / Herman Müller · Arthur Crispien / Otto Wels / Herman Müller · Arthur Crispien / Otto Wels · Arthur Crispien / Otto Wels / Hans Vogel SPD-in-exile (1933–1945) Otto Wels / Hans Vogel · Hans Vogel SPD (since 1946) Kurt Schumacher · Erich Ollenhauer · Willy Brandt · Hans-Jochen Vogel · Björn Engholm · Rudolf Scharping · Oskar Lafontaine · Gerhard Schröder · Franz Müntefering · Matthias Platzeck · Kurt Beck · Franz Müntefering

Persondata
NAME	Schumacher, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Schumacher, Dr. Kurt
SHORT DESCRIPTION	leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1945 to 1952
DATE OF BIRTH	13 October 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kulm in West Prussia (now Chełmno in Poland)
DATE OF DEATH	20 August 1952
PLACE OF DEATH

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