Peretz Naftali
Fritz Naphtali, in Israel: Perez or Peretz Naphtali ( born March 29, 1888 in Berlin, † April 30, 1961 in Tel Aviv, Israel ) was a German merchant, then a business journalist, social democrat and trade unionist. He represented the concept of economic democracy in the Weimar Republic. In Israel, he was a high school teacher and minister several times.
Life
He was the son of Hugo Naphtali and of Ida Troplowitz, both members of the Jewish Reform Congregation in Berlin.
Economist ADGB
Naphtali, member of the SPD, was business editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, then a member of the Temporary National Economic Council. In the years 1927-1933 he was the director of the Research Centre for Economic Policy of the General German Trade Union Federation ( ADGB ). In 1928, the ADGB convened a high-level commission which included, among other things beside Napthali Fritz Baade, Rudolf Hilferding, Erik Nolting and Hugo Sinzheimer. Task was the development of economic policy 'agenda. The results published in his book Napthali economic democracy. Her nature, path and goal (1928 ). He presented the achieved results before on the ADGB Federal Congress 1928. He proceeded from the fundamental premise that in 1918 reached political democratic rights of the complement and security provided by the democratization of the economy bedürften. In accordance with Hilferding's concept of "organized capitalism " Naphtali saw a democratic economy and a socialist society as the ultimate goal. But you would have to start in the present with a gradual democratization of the economy, this is also true because capitalism " before it is broken, be bent " could. The concept was based on the participation of the trade unions, the control of cartels and monopolies and business promotion measures. Important here were interventions in key economic processes, less in the corporate level. The trade union reformism of the formulated of Naphtali "Hamburg model ", came in ADGB widely supported. Instead, employers began as equal to a large-scale campaign against the alleged trade union fantasies of omnipotence. In sharp rejection of the concept also met with the Communists and it was not suitable to stop the divisive tendencies. During the Great Depression he was one of the internal union critics of the so-called WTB Plan had been prepared primarily by Vladimir Woytinsky.
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists Naphtali was arrested in May 1933. His friend Hans Staudinger, to Prussian coup government under Franz von Papen, Secretary of State in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce, succeeded with a Köpenickiade the release of Naphtali from Gestapo custody. Staudinger claimed to be a high Prussian official and ordered the dismissal of Naphtali. In July 1933 Naphtali emigrated to Palestine.
Politician and minister in Israel
In Israel, he was a lecturer in economics at the Universities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. From 1938 to 1949 he headed the Bank Hapoalim, the workers bank owned by the Israeli trade union federation Histadrut. The bank was founded in 1921 and aims of the labor movement obligated, they had great influence on the economy of the country.
From 1951 to 1959 he had for the Mapai party (Party of the Workers of the Land of Israel, 1930-1968 ) held several ministerial posts, including 1951, he was Minister without remit, in June 1952, Minister of Agriculture, dated January 7, 1958 he was up to the January 25, 1959 Minister again without the task pane, and then from January 25 to December 17, 1959 Welfare Minister in October.
Only a short time later Naphtali died in 1961 in Tel Aviv. At his state funeral languages among others the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben- Gurion, the then finance minister Levi Eshkol, and later successor, Ben -Gurion in the Prime Minister's Office, and Zalman Shazar, later third President of Israel. Naphtali grave is located in Kibbutz Alummot southwest of the Sea of Galilee.
In "Kaleidoscope Israel - tell German -speaking immigrants in Israel " is Naphtali - against all the odds in building Israel - as saying: He was an avowed Zionist "But despite all blessed the day that I entered the country 25 years ago. " and in the years 1956/1957 treasurer of the " Jewish Agency for Israel."
Afterlife
According to him, " Peretz Naphtali Prize for Economic and Social Sciences " and the " Peretz Naphtali Building" was named on the grounds of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In the 1980s, Naphtali name came in Germany in inglorious context in memory: At that time the Bonn public prosecutor's office investigated the suspicion that donations in the millions over the SPD - affiliated Friedrich -Ebert -Stiftung (FES ) to the also founded by the SPD Israeli " Fritz Naphtali Foundation " ( FNS ) had been forwarded about their Swiss bank accounts of the federal SPD. The prosecutor's office then confirmed that " from 1975 to 1980 approximately DM 19 million cash donations from the SPD have been paid, facing an almost equal amount of payments made by the FES to the FNS ".
Works
- Economic Democracy: Its nature, path and goal. Published on behalf of the General German Trade Union Federation of Fritz Naphtali. Berlin: Publishing Society of the General German Trade Union Federation, Inc., . 1928th edition European publishing house Frankfurt, 1966.
- With Ernst Kahn: How to read the trade section of a daily newspaper, Societäts- Verlag Frankfurt ( am Main ), 1921, 1922, 1930?
- Economy, working class and socialist economic policies, Dietz, Berlin 1928 ( Lecture delivered on 25 February 1920 in the Free Socialist University Berlin )