Haenisch, Konrad

Publicist, Prussian Member of Parliament, Minister of Culture, District President

Born: 14.03.1876 in Greifswald

Died: 28.04.1925 in Wiesbaden

The payment of his father's inheritance enabled Haenisch to attend lectures on history and national economics at Leipzig University as a guest student. From 1895, he was a contributor to the "Leipziger Volkszeitung" and was also a keen rally speaker on the radical left wing of the SPD. His lifelong friendship with the Russian revolutionary and later German Social Democrat Dr. Alexander Helphand, known as Parvus, was established during those years. Haenisch was also strongly influenced by Dr. Franz Mehring, Dr. Rosa Luxemburg and other party leftists. Until the First World War, he worked as an editor and freelance publicist for various social democratic press organs, including in Ludwigshafen, Dresden, Dortmund and finally in Berlin. From 1911, he headed the central office for leaflet and agitation brochure literature for the SPD party executive committee and taught at the workers' education school there.

In 1913, he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives, entrusted with editing the "Mitteilungen des Vereins Arbeiterpresse" and appointed secretary of this association. After rejecting the war credits in August 1914, he radically changed course the following fall - by his own admission after "difficult internal struggles" - to the SPD majority's policy of peace. In November 1918, Haenisch was entrusted with the Ministry of Science, Art and National Education in the first Prussian state government led by Social Democrats. Until his departure from this office in 1921, the democratization of the education system was one of his primary concerns, as was the promotion of an appropriate theater culture, the adult education movement and political education in general. Despite the implementation of some significant improvements, the school and university reform Haenisch had announced two years earlier was ultimately not as successful as he had hoped.

At the beginning of 1923, he was appointed District President in Wiesbaden at the suggestion of the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Carl Severing. As the Inter-Allied Rhineland Commission vetoed this, he was arrested on February 12 and expelled from the occupied territory. Haenisch then carried out his official duties from unoccupied Frankfurt am Main for almost a year and a half. Despite this, he continued to campaign resolutely for Franco-German understanding. He was extremely concerned about the hostility to the young democracy from radical right-wing forces and no less from extremists on the left, which is why he was one of the co-founders of the German Republican Reichsbund in 1921, and became its leader two years later. In the spring of 1924, he was elected to the federal committee of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Black-Red-Gold Banner of the Republic). The politician, who was awarded an honorary doctorate in political science by Frankfurt University in 1921 for his services to the promotion of economics and social sciences, was a member of the Prussian state parliament until his unexpectedly early death in Wiesbaden. A memorial plaque has commemorated him at his last residence at Taunusstrasse 63 in Wiesbaden since 1991.