Activities and affiliations

What people did, and whom they served in that activity.

Activity

All 10 Political and party leadership 7 Legislature and state representation 2 Social movements and organizing 2

State, movement or organization

All 54 Hungary 14 Soviet Union 14 Germany state institutions 5 Czechoslovakia 2 Estonia state institutions 2 Ukrainian People's Republic 2 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 2 East Germany 2
All 19 affiliations by country

Austria

Austria state institutions 1

Belarus

Belarus state institutions 1

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia 2

East Germany

East Germany 2

Estonia

Estonia state institutions 2

France

France state institutions 1 French monarchy 1

Germany

Germany state institutions 5 Communist Party of Germany (KPD) 1 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 2

Hungary

Hungary 14

Italy

Italy state institutions 1

Laos

Laos 1

Latvia

Latvia state institutions 1

Russia

Russian Federation state institutions 1

Soviet Union

Soviet Union 14

Ukraine

Ukrainian People's Republic 2

United Kingdom

United Kingdom state institutions 1

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia 1

Legislature and state representation · Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) people 2

Clear all

Gustav Bauer

Gustav Bauer
Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists Germany Germany 1870–1944 ○ Natural death

Social Democratic chancellor whose government accepted the Treaty of Versailles under an Allied ultimatum

Born in Darkehmen in the Province of Prussia, he worked as a lawyer’s clerk, co-founded the office employees’ union and was second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions from 1908 to 1918. Elected to the Reichstag for the SPD in 1912, he became labour secretary in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. When Scheidemann resigned in protest at the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, Bauer, until then a vocal critic of the treaty, succeeded him and got it through the National Assembly. His government carried out tax reform and extended social insurance, but was forced out in March 1920 over the negotiations conducted with the Kapp putschists. He was later vice-chancellor and treasury minister, and the Barmat corruption scandal cost him his seat in 1925. He died in Berlin in 1944.

Career timeline
  • 1908–1918Second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions
  • 1912Reichstag deputy (SPD)
  • 1918Labour secretary
  • 1919–1920Chancellor of Germany
  • 1921–1922Vice-chancellor and treasury minister

Max Fechner

Max Fechner
East Germany Communism East Germany Germany 1892–1973 ○ Natural death

First East German justice minister, dismissed and imprisoned in 1953 after opposing the prosecution of striking workers

A toolmaker from Berlin, he joined the SPD in 1910 and sat in the Prussian Landtag from 1928 to 1933. Under the Nazis he took part in a resistance group and was twice imprisoned. After the war he supported the forced merger of the SPD and KPD, sat on the SED’s Central Committee, and in October 1949 became the GDR’s first Minister of Justice. In the trial of the Gladow gang he had adult criminal law applied unlawfully so that a death sentence was possible. In an interview with Neues Deutschland on 30 June 1953 he said that members of the 17 June strike leadership would not be punished on mere suspicion; denounced as an “enemy of the state and the party”, he was dismissed, expelled and arrested, and sentenced to eight years. Released and pardoned in 1956, readmitted to the party in 1958, he died in 1973.

Career timeline
  • 1910Joined the SPD
  • 1928–1933Member of the Prussian Landtag
  • 1949–1953GDR Minister of Justice
  • 1953Dismissed, expelled and arrested
  • 1956Released and pardoned
  • 1958Readmitted to the SED