Charles Hueber

Charles Louis Hueber ( born August 21, 1883 in Guebwiller, then Reichsland Alsace- Lorraine, now Haut -Rhin; † August 18, 1943 in Strasbourg ) was a French politician, Member of Parliament (French: Député ) and Mayor of Strasbourg.

Trade unionists and German Social Democrat

Hueber worked as a locksmith in Guebwiller and engaged early political. In 1900 he founded the Alsatian section of the Metalworkers' Union and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( SPD) in, for in 1910 he served as party secretary then. During World War II, he fought in the German army and reached the rank of sergeant. In November 1918 he was in the course of the revolutionary movement Chairman of the Strasbourg Council soldiers and sat down temporarily for a largely independent ( autonomous ) Alsace one. As secretary of the metalworkers' union, he led strikes in 1918 and in 1920 a general strike in Alsace.

French communist and Alsatian Autonomist

After the Congress of Tours, the Section Française de l' International ouvrière ( SFIO, dt: French Section of the Workers' International ), Charles Hueber decided in 1920 to join the Section Française de l' International Communiste ( SFIC, Parti Communiste français later, PCF), was the party secretary in the department of Bas- Rhin and founded in the same year, the Communist Party newspaper the New World, which was continued from 1923 under the title L' Humanité d'Alsace - Lorraine as a regional edition of L' Humanité. Hueber 1923 took part in an international communist meeting in Essen, which had been organized as a protest against the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. He was therefore arrested by the French occupying forces and imprisoned in Paris prison La Santé. The thus -won reputation benefited him in the next election: 1924 to 1928 represented Hueber the Communists in the French Chamber of Deputies ( Chambre des députés ). Through its continued support of the Alsatian Autonomism took his cross-regional awareness even further. On December 8, 1927 Hueber attacked in the Chamber of Deputies in Alsatian dialect State preference of the French language in Alsace and Lorraine and the French government accused of suppressing the Alsatian working class and colonial methods of rule. The speech was seen as so offensive that large passages were deleted from the official minutes of the meeting.

1929 Hueber (also Popular Front ), a motley alliance of communists, ex-communists, the autonomist provincial party and the Union populaire républicaine (UPR; Alsatian successor organization of the Centre Party ) was obtained from the home front, the mayor ( maire ) of Strasbourg selected. On the Strasbourg city hall he had after his election victory, the tricolor of the French Republic replaced by the Alsatian white-red flag. Although Hueber represented to his coalition as a coalition of anti-imperialist forces, he was expelled in the fall of 1929 from the PCF. Together with other party dissidents he founded the Parti Communiste d' then opposition d'Alsace - Lorraine, the International Association of Communist opposition ( IVKO ) joined.

Approach to Nazism and collaboration

In the period from 1933 to 1936, Hueber and his followers approached gradually Nazi positions, on public occasions he always made ​​it a point not to be an anti-Semite. After Hueber lacked the support of the Communist Party ( PCF) and he was also in 1934 no longer supported by the Christian - Democrats, was defeated in 1935 at the Strasbourg mayoral his Republican opponent Charles Frey. However, he was a deputy in the General Council ( conseil général) of the Bas -Rhin and city council of Strasbourg. 1936 Hueber was the Christian- social-oriented list of Independants d'action populaire (IAP ) elected for the Bas- Rhin in the Chamber of Deputies and joined there the fraction of the socialist Parti d' unité prolétarienne (PUP ), which the Popular Front was close.

The Parti Communiste d' opposition d'Alsace - Lorraine was eventually renamed the Alsatian peasants and workers party and joined in 1939 with the now clearly pro -Nazi Alsatian country party to Karl Roos together. 1941 Hueber member of the NSDAP. On 14 February 1942 he was appointed by the German authorities as mayor of Strasbourg. After his death in 1943 Hueber was buried by the German occupying forces with official honors.