Otto Ernst Heinrich Hermann Suhr (17 August 1894 – 30 August 1957) was a German
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
as a member 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 ...
(SPD). He served as the
Governing Mayor of Berlin (i.e.
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
) from 1955 until his death.
Life
He was born 1894 in
Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to:
Places
*Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
*Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany
**Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony
*Olde ...
and went with his family to
Osnabrück
Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...
when he was nine years old; four years later the family went to
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
, where Suhr studied
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
and publishing science at the
university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, interrupted by his service in 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
World War I
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 ...
.
Suhr joined the SPD and from 1922 worked as a secretary at the
Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
The General German Trade Union Federation (german: Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, ADGB) was a confederation of German trade unions in Germany founded during the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1919 and was initially powerful enough to ...
trade unions' association in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
and was a member of the local SPD executive committee under
Philipp Scheidemann
Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (26 July 1865 – 29 November 1939) 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 ...
. He received his doctorate in 1923 and from 1925 taught economics at the
University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
. In 1926 he joined the board of the ''
Allgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund
The General Federation of Free Employees (german: Allgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund, AfA-Bund) was an amalgamation of various socialist-oriented trade unions of technical and administrative employees in the Weimar Republic.
Member organizations ...
'' (General Free Federation of Employees) in
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 ...
, which had to dissolve in the course of the
Nazi seizure of power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
in 1933 and the succeeding ''
Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
'' process.
From 1935 on, Suhr worked as a journalist at the
Frankfurter Zeitung and other newspapers. He remained in contact with Social Democratic members of the
German resistance German resistance can refer to:
* Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government
* German resistance to Nazism
* Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...
like
Adolf Grimme
Adolf Berthold Ludwig Grimme (31 December 1889 – 27 August 1963) was a German politician, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was Cultural Minister during the later years of the Weimar Republic and after World War II, during the ...
and had to face several interrogations by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
he played a vital role in re-organizing the Berlin SPD chapter as chairman of the party's state association. From 1946 Suhr was president of the Berlin ''Stadtverordnetenversammlung'' city assembly, and from 1951 until 1954 also of its successor, the
Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin
The Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (House of Deputies) () is the state parliament (''Landtag'') of Berlin, Germany according to the city-state's constitution. In 1993 the parliament moved from Rathaus Schöneberg to its present house on Niederkirchne ...
. He had to cope with the forceful
SED
sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs,
and is available today for most operating systems.
sed w ...
merger of Social Democrats and
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 ...
in the
Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...
and
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
, the
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road ...
and the final division of the city, when the assembly was compelled to move into the
Rathaus Schöneberg
Rathaus Schöneberg is the city hall for the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg in Berlin. From 1949 until 1990 it served as the seat of the state senate of West Berlin and from 1949 until 1991 as the seat of the Governing Mayor.
History
The sa ...
in the American sector.
In 1948/49 Suhr was a deputy at the
Herrenchiemsee convention and the ''
Parlamentarischer Rat
The ''Parlamentarischer Rat'' (German for "Parliamentary Council") was the West German constituent assembly in Bonn that drafted and adopted the constitution of West Germany, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, promulgated on 23 Ma ...
'' (parliamentary council) to draft a new German constitution. After ratification of the
Basic Law (''Grundgesetz'') in 1949 he was elected as a deputy to the
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 ...
federal parliament of
West Germany
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 ...
in
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
, until he resigned his seat in 1952. Suhr lectured as an honorary professor at the
Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
(FU) and re-established the private ''
Deutsche Hochschule für Politik The Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHfP), or ''German Academy for Politics'', was a private academy in Berlin, founded in October 1920. It was integrated into the Faculty for Foreign Studies (''Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät'') of the Humbol ...
'' academy, the biggest and one of the most important institute for
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
in Germany, which he led from 1948 to 1955. In 1958 it was integrated into the FU and named ''
Otto-Suhr-Institut
The Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft (''Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science'', also ''OSI'') is a prestigious research institute of the Free University of Berlin. It is the leading political science institution in Germany and one ...
'' in his honour.
In the West Berlin election of December 1954, the
coalition government
A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
of
Christian Democrats
__NOTOC__
Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social ...
(CDU) and
Free Democrats (FDP) under Governing Mayor
Walther Schreiber
Walther Carl Rudolf Schreiber (10 June 1884 — 30 June 1958) was a German politician who served as the mayor of West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during ...
lost its plurality, with the SPD reaching a one-seat absolute majority in the Abgeordnetenhaus assembly. Suhr nevertheless decided to form a coalition with the CDU and was elected ''Regierender Bürgermeister'' on 11 January 1955. His incumbency was driven by the efforts to rebuild the city, marked by the 1957
Interbau
Interbau was a housing development, constructed as part of the 1957 International Building Exhibition in the Hansaviertel area of West Berlin. The overall plan was managed by Otto Bartning, and the urban design competition was won by Gerhard Job ...
exhibition. On 19 July 1957 Suhr also asserted his regular appointment as
President of the Bundesrat
In Germany, the President of the Bundesrat or President of the Federal Council (German: ''Bundesratspräsident'') is the chairperson (speaker) of the Bundesrat (Federal Council). The president is elected by the Bundesrat for a term of one year ...
despite
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
reservations, however he did not step into office as he died from
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
six weeks later and was succeeded by
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ge ...
.
Honours
Beside the ''Otto-Suhr-Institut'', a street in his birthplace Oldenburg (in the district Eversten) and ''Otto-Suhr-Allee'' in the Berlin district of
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...
are named after him.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suhr, Otto
1894 births
1957 deaths
People from Oldenburg (city)
People from Oldenburg (state)
Mayors of West Berlin
Members of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin
Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Burials at the Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf
German Army personnel of World War I