German regional politician Paul Hirsch in history reversals

Abstract

Paul Hirsch was born when Bismarck sought to unite Germany by all means – by ‘iron and blood’. In the era of Kaiser's Germany, he could receive a university degree, with a solid profile in the field of journalism, to participate actively in the activity of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and to have a successful career as a city councilor in Charlottenburg and Berlin. The glory hour for Hirsch as a politician and a statesman came after the November Revolution of 1918 in Germany. Being head of the highest body of executive power in Prussia in the crucial period for his fatherland, he tried to solve the equation with many unknowns. However, on 30 January 1933 there came a day of ‘political Chernobyl’ in Germany. The National Socialists who came on that day to power did everything to alienate the German Jews from the society. The Jew Paul Hirsch fully experienced that fate. He lived in the racist ‘Third Reich’ for seven years and passed away in huge financial struggles. The article shows in detail how each of these four eras in the German history is reflected in Paul Hirsch’s fate.

Keywords

• burgomaster
• germany
• city councilor
• deputy
• jew
• journalism
• landtag
• paul hirsch
• prime minister
• prussia
• the social democratic party of germany