Siegfried Aufhäuser. Gewerkschafter, Politiker und jüdischer Sozialist

Siegfried Aufhäuser was one of the most prominent actors in the employee unions in the Weimar Republic. As chairman of the Association of Independent Employees' Associations (AfA), he called for a general strike against the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in 1920. In the Reichstag, the left-wing SPD representative made a name for himself primarily in social policy and was significantly involved in the unemployment insurance law and the establishment of labor courts. After January 30, 1933, he tried in vain to convince his party and the trade unions to hold a general strike against the Nazi takeover. Aufhäuser, who as a Jew and a socialist had to expect arrest at any time, decided to flee Germany in May 1933. After exile in Paris, Prague and London, he came to New York in 1939, where he worked as a journalist and was involved in the German Labor Delegation and the Council for a Democratic Germany. In 1951 he returned to West Berlin, where at the age of 67 he took over the chairmanship of the regional association of the German Employees' Union.

The historian Christian Zech traces the various facets of Siegfried Aufhäuser's eventful political life and, with his biography, opens up new perspectives on the history of the employee unions, social democracy and the remigration of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution after 1945. Discussed after the presentation of his book the author with the historian Ernst Piper.

Free entry. Please register via [email protected] and at www.willy-brandt.de. The event will be made available to listen to as a podcast afterwards.

In cooperation with the Institute for Contemporary History Munich−Berlin
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