- Fritz Kater
Fritz Kater (
December 12 ,1861 -May 20 ,1945 ) was a Germantrade union ist active in theFree Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG) and its successor organization, theFree Workers' Union of Germany . He was the editor of the FVdG's organ "Einigkeit " and—afterWorld War I —owner of thepublishing house sFritz Kater Verlag andSyndikalist .The son of a
farmhand , Kater was born in 1861 inBarleben . His mother died when he was two years old. From the age of five, he had to work on the farm or at home in order to support his family. During his final two years in school, he also worked in a localsugar factory during the winter. Even after Kater started anapprenticeship as amason , he still had to help his father on the farm as the elderly man was frequently ill. Only during the winter did Kater have spare time to read and educate himself.Fritz Reuter , a humorous poet who wrote inLow German , was his favorite writer.Kater joined the mason's
trade union inMagdeburg in 1883 at a time when theAnti-Socialist Laws forbade most union activities. He came into contact with socialists fromBerlin andHamburg soon becoming a socialist himself under their influence. Kater soon began spending much of his spare time reading illegal socialist literature, and became active in the union's clandestine activities.In 1887, Kater joined the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the same year he also founded a masons' union in Barleben, becoming the organization's first chairman. His unionist activities, which included trying to organize workers from the sugar factory he had worked in in his youth, attracted resentment from the local authorities, especially from the head of the district authority, an extremely conservative "Junker ". In 1889 he was sentenced to a two-month prison term for holding an illegal meeting and in the following year he served even more time in jail for giving a speech held to be seditious.After the expiration of the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890, Kater had close contacts with the opposition political movement "Die Jungen", which was influenced by anarchist ideas. Kater was one of the founders of the "
Magdeburger Volksstimme ," a social democratic newspaper started soon after the sunset of the Anti-Socialist Laws. The editors of the newspaper included several adherents of "Die Jungen." At the 1891 Social Democratic Party (SPD) congress, Kater voted against the expelling "Die Jungen" movement from the party. Nevertheless, he remained in the party and did not join the new organization formed by "Die Jungen", theAssociation of Independent Socialists .In 1892, Kater moved to
Berlin . There he worked as a mason, was elected a delegate for the city masons' union, and became anagitator . During the debates over the organisational structure of the union, he supported the "localist" concept as well as the creation of the Representatives Centralization of Germany in 1897 (which renamed itself the FVdG in 1903). He became the first chairman of the federation's Business Commission.In 1907, after Kater refused a staff job with the centralized trade unions and declined to run as a delegate to the Reichstag delegate, he left the SPD. Though critical toward anarchism and syndicalism at first, Kater soon became a leading
anarchosyndicalist figure in Germany. During a speech at the 1908 FVdG congress, Kater openly professed syndicalism for the first time. In 1913, he was a delegate at theFirst International Syndicalist Congress atHolborn Town Hall ,London .Fritz Kater was instrumental in sustaining the FVdG's structures during World War I and was one of the founders of the
Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) after the war. He worked for the FAUD as a speaker and author, representing the trade union at various congresses of theInternational Workers Association . In 1930, he resigned as chairman of the FAUD because of his age.On
May 8 ,1945 , Kater attempted to defuse adud bazooka shell. The shell exploded, causing burns to his face and chest. Kater died twelve days later in the hospital.References
*Citation
last=Rocker
first=Rudolf
author-link=Rudolf Rocker
publication-date=1948
contribution=Fritz Kater - Ein Lebensbild
title=Rudolf Rocker: Aufsatzsammlung
publication-place=Frankfurt
publisher=Verlag Freie Gesellschaft
volume=2
isbn =3-88215-037-8
* [http://www.uni-magdeburg.de/mbl/Biografien/1787.htm Fritz Kater] in "Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon ". Retrieved July 24, 2007.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.