Hans Staudinger

Last updated
Hans Staudinger Dr. Hans Staudinger by Emil Stumpp, 1932.jpg
Hans Staudinger

Hans Staudinger (born 16 August 1889 in Worms, Germany; died 25 February 1980 in New York City, NY) was a politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and an economist, as well as a secretary of state in the Prussian trade ministry from 1929 to 1932. From November 1932 to June 1933 he was a Social Democrat member of the Reichstag.

Contents

Youth

Staudinger was born to the gymnasium (high school) teacher Franz Staudinger and his wife Auguste Staudinger, née Wenck, and was baptised as a Protestant. He had two brothers and one sister. His father was a leading theorist of the cooperative movement and was connected to prominent Social Democrats such as August Bebel and Eduard Bernstein. His friendship with the latter lasted his whole life.

Hans Staudinger acquired his Abitur at the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt. He started an apprenticeship as a carpenter while still at school, but did not pursue this. He also temporarily worked as an engine stoker. The incentive for this came from his father, who wanted his son to have insight into the world of the working classes. His brother Hermann Staudinger, who received the 1953 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, followed a similar path at the request of his father.

Studies and World War I

From 1907 to 1908, Staudinger studied at literature and German philology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1908 he transferred to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Here he studied economics and sociology. His most significant university teachers were the brothers Alfred and Max Weber. In 1913 he received his Dr. phil. for a thesis on entitled Individuum und Gemeinschaft in der Kulturorganisation des Vereins (The Individual and the Community in the Cultural Organisation of the Society), being supervised by Alfred Weber. In this thesis, Staudinger investigated the change in musical societies from the Middle Ages to the middle-class community choirs of his time. The underlying claim was that the alienation of the individual would in the near future be overcome by the community life of the workers. What Staudinger saw as the natural form of community life in the Middle Ages would thus be renewed.

In his first semester as a student, Staudinger joined the SPD. Until 1914 he also took on a leading role in the Südwestdeutscher Wandervogelbund, and was the leader of a Wandervogelgruppe . From 1913 to 1914 he was the secretary of the Revisionsverband Südwestdeutscher Konsumvereine. He served as an officer in World War I, and received the Iron Cross Second Class in 1916. In the last year of the war Staudinger was severely wounded and lost his sight in one eye.

Administrative career

After his recovery, in Spring 1918 he was made a head of division in the Kriegsernährungsamt (War Office of Food, based in Berlin), where he remained until July 1919. He then moved to the Ministry of Economics, where he stayed until 1927. From 1920 he was a Vortragender Rat (Expert Councillor). With some economy ministers, he served as their personal advisor. In addition, he functioned as the liaison with the Reichswirtschaftsrat (Economy Council). In the 1920s Staudinger aspired to drive forward the cartelisation of the extractive and energy industries under state control. This policy would make possible a form of social economy, which was supported in the ministry by Rudolf Wissell (SPD) and Wichard von Moellendorff. However, hardly any state direction of these industries came about. The only result of Staudinger's efforts was the publication of a comprehensive study of structural problems of the German economy after the First World War, which was presented by a corresponding committee of inquiry, as proposed by Staudinger in 1925.

In 1927 Staudinger became a civil servant in the Prussian trade ministry. There he was responsible for port, transport and electricity industries, from 1929 as a secretary of state. The political situation in the democratic Prussia under Otto Braun and the tradition of state-directed economy in this state offered better chances for social economic plans to be realized. The Preußenschlag of the German government under Franz von Papen in 1932 put an end to Staudinger's government career; he was put on leave whilst his salary continued to be paid.

In the government bureaucracy, Staudinger was known since the end of the 1920s as a leading specialist in matters of social economy, and is seen by historians as one of the few distinguished senior civil servants with republican sympathies. In 1932 he published a text in which he presented his thoughts on the economy to a wider audience. This underlined his reputation as an expert on public enterprise.

Staudinger held posts in the boards of directors of various state-run businesses. He was for example chairman of the board of the company Preussag, the creation of which he had instigated, and held the same position at VEBA, which he had also worked towards creating. He was deputy chairman of the boards of the Aktiengesellschaft für deutsche Elektrizitätswirtschaft in Berlin and Obere Saale AG in Weimar. He was a member of the board of Elektrowerke AG in Berlin, Duisburg-Ruhrorter Hafen AG, the Thüringische Gasgesellschaft, and the Hamburgisch-Preußischen Hafengemeinschaft GmbH. He also taught at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik.

After the Preußenschlag, Staudinger intensified his contacts with the Social Democrats Carlo Mierendorff and Theodor Haubach, who were determined to answer the increasing political violence in the early 1930s with strong social-democratic fighting units for the defence of the Republic. In this context Staudinger was invited by Hamburg Social Democrats around Hans Carl Podeyn and Karl Meitmann to succeed Peter Graßmann in the Hamburg Reichstag constituency as candidate for the elections in November 1932. After initially hesitating, Staudinger agreed, and won the seat for the SPD. He was not able to exert any great influence in the Reichstag, however, as the National Socialists came to power on 30 January 1933. In the following weeks, Staudinger worked hard to organise the Social-Democratic resistance, particularly in Hamburg. In Berlin, he got Fritz Naphtali and Fritz Tarnow released from Gestapo arrest. He did this by impersonating a senior Prussian official, and ordering their release. Hermann Göring tried to persuade him to take a coordinating role of the integrated economy in the Third Reich, but Staudinger rejected this.

On 16 June 1933 Staudinger was arrested in Hamburg, along with leading Social Democrats of the city. He remained in "protective custody" until 22 July 1933. Then he fled to Belgium, where he remained until September 1933. Danny Heinemann, the head of the Belgian energy group Sofina, employed him as an adviser. Staudinger's reasons for fleeing Germany were his opposition to National Socialism, his experience of being arrested and his concern for his Jewish wife. After he was forced to return to Germany, he finally emigrated to the United States via Belgium, France and Britain. At the same time, he was offered a post in Ankara advising the Turkish government on matters of economic policy; this he rejected, however.

New School for Social Research

In spring 1934, he was made a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Many emigrants who were either friends or acquaintances of his also worked at this institution, such as Eduard Heimann, Arnold Brecht and Emil Lederer. He received American citizenship in 1940.

Staudinger's political and writing experiences in the field of the social economy found an interested specialist audience in the United States. President Roosevelt was trying to overcome the effects of the Great Depression with his New Deal policy. Some of the largest projects were for example the creation of an authority for energy production and regional development, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was to develop the use of the water power of the Tennessee River as well as the development of the extensive Tennessee Valley. Staudinger was able to show in his publications what kind of employment stimulus could be expected from large electrification programmes, the new room for manoeuvre the government could gain against regional electricity monopolies by setting up public energy suppliers, and what social effects electrification would have on rural areas that had hitherto been overlooked by the electricity suppliers for reasons of costs.

In his new academic post, however, his time was spent less on research and publications than on academic administration and teaching. Over several years he influenced the work of the Graduate Faculty of Political und Social Science as its dean, by turning the "University in Exile" into an American academic institution. He became dean in 1939 [ citation needed ] after the death of economist and sociologist Emil Lederer. Staudinger's wife Else, whom he had married in 1912, had taken her Ph.D. under Lederer's supervision, being the first woman to do so in Heidelberg. Staudinger also worked as dean from 1941 to 1943, from 1950 to 1951 and from 1953 to 1959. He was also active in fundraising, as his faculty was one that frequently suffered under a lack of resources.

Hans and Else Staudinger founded a committee to support persecuted scientists and intellectuals, the American Council for Émigrés in the Professions, in the New School for Social Research. In this they co-operated with the prominent religious socialist Paul Tillich and Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the US President. Until the end of the 1950s, the Council helped more than 3,000 refugees to find jobs.

In the United States, Staudinger was in close contact with exiled Social Democrats from Germany, many of whom he had known personally before he emigrated. He belonged to the founders of the German Labour Delegation who included Max Brauer, formerly the mayor of the Prussian town of Altona, his friend Rudolf Katz and the former Prussian Minister of the Interior Albert Grzesinski. In the second half of World War II he turned away from this group however, when they started vehemently arguing against plans for an Allied occupation of Germany, under the influence of Friedrich Stampfer, a member of the SPD leadership. In 1943 Staudinger, Tillich, Paul Hertz and Carl Zuckmayer formed the core of the Council for a Democratic Germany that was officially founded in 1944.

In January 1947 Staudinger was amongst the signatories of a declaration by former Social Democratic Reichstag members that was printed in Time and in the Neue Volkszeitung , the leading German-language newspaper in the United States. This declaration argued against mass expulsions, dismantlement of German industry and an occupation of Germany, and demanded a peace treaty, with reference to the Atlantic Charter.

After the Second World War, Staudinger became an important link between the United States and Germany in the academic world. On his initiative, on the occasion of Theodor Heuss' visit to the United States in the early 1960s, the Theodor Heuss Chair was created at the New School for Social Research. This was to give young social scientists the opportunity to teach in New York for one year. After 1959, Staudinger worked as editor of the political science journal Social Research.

After his retirement, along with his wife Else Staudinger he donated the endowment for a professorial chair at the New School for Social Research in 1965. After Else died, he married Elisabeth Todd in 1967.

Honours

In 1959 Theodor Heuss awarded honours to German emigrants in New York on the occasion of his 75th birthday. In this context Hans Staudinger received the Großes Verdienstkreuz (Great Cross of Merit), as did his wife Else and Hans Simons and Arnold Brecht, two of his colleagues at the New School. On 16 August 1969 the Federal Republic of Germany honoured him again, this time with the Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern (Great Cross of Merit with star). This award of an even higher honour was justified by Staudinger's continuing achievements in furthering American understanding of Germany.

The Großkrotzenburg Staudinger Power Station is also named after him.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social Democratic Party of Germany</span> Centre-left political party in Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Democratic Party</span> Former liberal political party in Germany

The German Democratic Party was a liberal political party in the Weimar Republic, considered centrist or centre-left. Along with the right-liberal German People's Party, it represented political liberalism in Germany between 1918 and 1933. It was formed in 1918 from the Progressive People's Party and the liberal wing of the National Liberal Party, both of which had been active in the German Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodor Heuss</span> German politician and president of West Germany from 1949 to 1959

Theodor Heuss was a German liberal politician who served as the first president of West Germany from 1949 to 1959. His cordial nature – something of a contrast to the stern character of chancellor Konrad Adenauer – largely contributed to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. Before beginning his career as a politician, Heuss had been a political journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philipp Scheidemann</span> German politician (1865–1939)

Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar Republic. During the German Revolution of 1918–1919 that broke out after Germany's defeat in World War I, Scheidemann proclaimed a German Republic from a balcony of the Reichstag building. In 1919 he was elected Reich Minister President by the National Assembly meeting in Weimar to write a constitution for the republic. He resigned the office the same year due to a lack of unanimity in the cabinet on whether or not to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Braun</span> German Social Democratic politician

Otto Braun was a politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the Weimar Republic. From 1920 to 1932, with only two brief interruptions, Braun was Minister President of the Free State of Prussia. The continuity of personnel in high office resulted in a largely stable government in Prussia, in contrast to the sometimes turbulent politics of the Reich. During his term of office, Prussia's public administration was reorganized along democratic lines. He replaced many monarchist officials with supporters of the Weimar Republic, strengthened and democratized the Prussian police, and made attempts to fight the rise of the Nazi Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Wels</span> German politician (1873–1939)

Otto Wels was a German politician who served as a member of the Reichstag from 1912 to 1933 and as the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1919 until his death in 1939. He was military commander of Berlin in the turbulent early days of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, and during the 1920 Kapp Putsch he was instrumental in organizing the general strike that helped defeat the anti-republican putschists. Near the end of the Weimar Republic's life, however, he saw the futility of calling a general strike against the 1932 Prussian coup d'état because of the mass unemployment of the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1930 German federal election</span>

Federal elections were held in Germany on 14 September 1930. Despite losing ten seats, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) remained the largest party in the Reichstag, winning 143 of the 577 seats, while the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dramatically increased its number of seats from 12 to 107. The Communists also increased their parliamentary representation, gaining 23 seats and becoming the third-largest party in the Reichstag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Löbe</span> German politician

Paul Gustav Emil Löbe was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), a member and president of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, and member of the Bundestag of West Germany. He died in Bonn in 1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhold Maier</span> German politician (1889–1971)

Reinhold Maier was a German politician and the leader of the FDP from 1957–1960. From 1946 to 1952 he was Minister President of Württemberg-Baden and then the 1st Minister President of the new state of Baden-Württemberg until 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free State of Prussia</span> Successor state of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1918 to 1947

The Free State of Prussia was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the dominant state in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as it had been during the empire, even though most of Germany's post-war territorial losses in Europe had come from its lands. It was home to the federal capital Berlin and had 62% of Germany's territory and 61% of its population. Prussia changed from the authoritarian state it had been in the past and became a parliamentary democracy under its 1920 constitution. During the Weimar period it was governed almost entirely by pro-democratic parties and proved more politically stable than the Republic itself. With only brief interruptions, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) provided the Minister President. Its Ministers of the Interior, also from the SPD, pushed republican reform of the administration and police, with the result that Prussia was considered a bulwark of democracy within the Weimar Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Severing</span> German politician (1875–1953)

Carl Wilhelm Severing was a German union organizer and Social Democratic politician during the German Empire, Weimar Republic and the early post-World War II years in West Germany. He served as a Reichstag member and as interior minister in both Prussia and at the Reich level where he fought against the rise of extremism on both the left and the right. He remained in Germany during the Third Reich but had only minimal influence on reshaping the Social Democratic Party after World War II.

Fritz Tarnow was a Social Democrat trade unionist and Reichstag deputy during the Weimar Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich Koch-Weser</span> German politician (1875–1944)

Erich Koch-Weser was a German lawyer and liberal politician. One of the founders (1918) and later chairman (1924–1930) of the liberal German Democratic Party, he served as minister of the Interior (1919–1921), vice-chancellor of Germany (1920) and minister of Justice (1928–1929).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Wissell</span> German politician (1869–1962)

Rudolf Wissell was a German politician in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). During the Weimar Republic, he held office as the Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister for Labour.

Altona Bloody Sunday is the name given to the events of 17 July 1932 when a recruitment march by the Nazi SA led to violent clashes between the police, the SA and supporters of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Altona, which at the time belonged to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein but is now part of Hamburg. Eighteen people were killed. The national government under Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen and Reich President Paul von Hindenburg used the incident as a rationale to depose the acting government of the Free State of Prussia by means of an emergency decree in what came to be known as the Prussian coup d'état of 20 July 1932.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Henke</span> German politician

Alfred Henke was a German politician, serving as a member of a number of national and regional parliaments during the early 20th century who played a major role in the establishment of the Bremen Soviet Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papen cabinet</span> 1932 cabinet of Weimar Germany

The Papen cabinet, headed by the independent Franz von Papen, was the nineteenth government of the Weimar Republic. It took office on 1 June 1932 when it replaced the second Brüning cabinet, which had resigned the same day after it lost the confidence of President Paul von Hindenburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ignaz Auer</span>

Ignaz Auer was a Bavarian Social Democratic politician who served as a member of the German Reichstag for the Glauchau-Meerane Reichstag constituency intermittently between 1884 and 1906.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1932 Prussian state election</span>

State elections were held in the Free State of Prussia on 24 April 1932 to elect all 423 members of the Landtag of Prussia. They were the last free election in Prussia, as the next election in 1933 took place under the Nazi regime, and Prussia was then abolished after World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SPD Hamburg</span> Regional state association of the SPD in Hamburg, Germany

The SPD Hamburg, officially "SPD State Organisation Hamburg", is the state organisation of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Hamburg and is the state association with the largest membership of any party in the city state.