Max Brauer
| Max Brauer link Powerbase (Politician, deep state operative?) | |
|---|---|
| File:Max Brauer.jpg | |
| Born | 3 September 1887 Ottensen, Germany |
| Died | 2 February 1973 Hamburg, Germany |
| Nationality | German, US |
| Party | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
Mayor of Hamburg. One of a dozen men whom Józef Retinger consulted when setting up the Bilderberg | |
Max Julius Friedrich Brauer was a German politician. In 1923, Brauer became mayor for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the independent city of Altona. After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Brauer fled Germany and spent the following years in exile, becoming a German expert for the American Federation of Labor and a US citizen. In 1946 he returned to Germany and became the first Mayor of Hamburg after the Second World War, during the British occupation. He held this position – with an interruption from the end of 1953 to the end of 1957 – until 1960. Of transatlantic orientation, he was one of a dozen men whom Józef Retinger consulted when setting up the Bilderberg group.[1]
Early Career
In 1923, Brauer became mayor of the independent city of Altona, Prussia, incorporated into Hamburg after 1937.
Exile
In 1933, Brauer fled the Nazi government, to Austria, China and France, ending up in the United States in 1936. In 1934 Brauer's German citizenship was revoked. He took a US citizenship in 1943, reverting to a German one in 1946.
In mid-March 1936, at the invitation of the American Jewish Congress, Brauer undertook a lecture tour of the USA and gave a speech in New York at a banquet of this association, in which he analyzed "anti-Semitism" as a mainstay of Nazi ideology. He did this more forcefully than was usually the case with Social Democrats at the time. Brauer was influenced by his friendship with the long-time Altona and later Hamburg Chief Rabbi Joseph Carlebach. He also demanded that the struggle of the Jews in Germany against their increasing disenfranchisement should be supported internationally, preferably by a World Jewish congress. In Germany, Brauer saw the potential for an broad coalition of resistance against Hitler, ranging from the working class to Catholicism and Protestantism. He did not support Zionist calls for emigration to Palestine.[2]
Brauer developed a lively lecture activity, which made him one of the more prominent opponents of the Third Reich in his new environment. In the meantime, it was even considered to make him part of a German government in exile together with Heinrich Brüning and Arnold Brecht.[3]
In 1939 he joined the German Labor Delegation (GLD), which was chaired by the former Prussian Interior Minister Albert Grzesinski. At the beginning of 1943 he took over the chairmanship. Although this organization was small in number, it had a German–language press organ with a high reach for the publication of its views. It acquired the status of a special committee of the influential conservative trade union American Federation of Labor (AFL). Its advisory board also included politicians with close ties to the US State Department. The Jewish Labor Committee supported the GLD with monetary donations.
The GLD adhered to the idea that a change in Germany would come from the working class, which was only waiting for an opportunity to eliminate National Socialist rule. In addition, the GLD, like Brauer, adhered to strict opposition to communist organizations. Associations in which communists worked also fell under this. The GLD maintained this position even in the second half of the Second World War, when the USA and the Soviet Union were cornerstones of the anti-Hitler coalition and organizations such as the Council for a Democratic Germany were formed as cross-party anti-National Socialist groups in American exile. By its strict refusal to make any kind of pact with communists, the GLD became increasingly isolated.
Post war career
In July 1946 he came back to Hamburg working for the American Federation of Labor.[4] In October 1946 after the election of the Hamburg Parliament, Brauer was elected as the First Mayor of Hamburg.
Brauer welcomed the establishment of a state made from the Western occupation zones. He also welcomed the Marshall Plan.[5] At the Rittersturz Conference, at which the eleven prime ministers of the Western occupation zones decided to establish a Western state in July 1948, he took an active part.
On 16 October 1949, the second Hamburg Parliament election took place, where Brauer's party, the SPD, received 65 of the 120 seats. His new Hamburg government started in February 1950. In October 1953, the next election took place. The SPD received 58 of the 120 seats; an alliance including the CDU received the other 62 seats. Kurt Sieveking (CDU) became Brauer's successor.
The CIA case officer John Hadden was appointed inaugural Chief of Base for Hamburg in 1954 under diplomatic cover at the US consulate. Hamburg was then in the British Occupation Zone of West Germany. He developed good liaison with all the Germans in the area, and in his memoirs as good as admits recruiting, Max Brauer, then "a very powerful fellow - chief of police in Hamburg and outlying sectors." [6]
The representatives of the occupying power liked his transatlantic orientation. In their opinion, he shared the Anglo-American view of things. The fact that Max Brauer came into conflict with Kurt Schumacher and the majority of the post-war SPD with these positions did not bother him.[7] After 1949, this contrast was also evident in the European question. In addition to Ernst Reuter (Berlin) and Wilhelm Kaisen (Bremen), Brauer was a member of the so-called mayor wing of the SPD. In contrast to the majority in the party leadership bodies, all three wanted a more positive and active EEC policy for the party.[8]
On 10 November 1957, the SPD received 69 of the 120 seats, and Brauer took power again. Brauer had promised to Paul Nevermann (born 1902) that he would transfer power to him before the end of the term. The 'era Brauer' ended 20 December 1960 with extensive ceremonies.
During these years, he maintained exclusive friendships with influential Hamburg entrepreneurs such as the brothers Hermann and Philipp Reemtsma, Kurt A. Körber, Alfred Toepfer and Albert Schäfer. In addition, he took part in the Milan Conference The Future of Freedom in 1955, financed by the CIA cutout Congress for Cultural Freedom. During these years attended the exclusive discussion rounds of the Bilderberg Conference.
He became a leader in the campaign against nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr. While the federal Konrad Adenauer (CDU) government was striving for this capacity – Adenauer downplayed it as a mere further development of artillery -the rejection was widespread among the population.[9] Also the US was decidedly against independent German nuclear weapons.[10]
By the West German federal election in September 1961, Brauer was elected as member of the German Bundestag[4]. He was not a candidate for the next federal election in 1965; his successor in his electoral ward Hans Apel (1932–2011) became an important SPD politician and minister (finance, defence).
References
- ↑ The Bilderberg Group, August 1956, Józef Retinger
- ↑ Axel Schildt: Max Brauer, p. 63–65
- ↑ Arnold Brecht: Mit der Kraft des Geistes. Lebenserinnerungen 1927–1967, Stuttgart 1967, p. 334.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Koplitzsch, Franklin (2005), "Brauer, Max", Hamburg Lexikon (in German) (3 ed.), Ellert&Richter, pp. 82–83, ISBN 3-8319-0179-1
- ↑ Arnold Sywottek: Max Brauer, p. 154.
- ↑ Written by his son John Hadden Jr., Conversations with a masked man _ my father, the CIA, and me, page 83
- ↑ Siehe dazu Axel Schildt: Max Brauer, p. 88
- ↑ Siehe hierzu Arnold Sywottek: Max Brauer, p. 159 and Axel Schildt: Max Brauer, p. 90.
- ↑ https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronologie/Goettinger-Appell-Forscher-protestieren-gegen-Adenauers-Atomplaene,kampfdematomtod2.html
- ↑ https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-02-02/german-nuclear-question-nonproliferation-treaty