Who was Ludwig Rosenberg

Ludwig Rosenberg, born in 1903 into a middle-class, German-Jewish family in Berlin-Charlottenburg, served an apprenticeship as a merchant from 1921 to 1925 and then worked as a commercial clerk in his father's drapery shop. Early on, he turned to the workers' and employees' movement, among other things as a member of the Republican Youth League, the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and the SPD. In 1928 he became a member and full-time employee of the Trade Union Federation of Salaried Employees (GdA). In 1933 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he worked as a teacher in the Workers' Educational Society and was active politically and in trade unions against the Nazi regime.

In 1946 he returned to Germany at the request of Hans Böckler and in 1948 became trade union secretary in the British occupation zone. In 1949, he co-founded the DGB, of which he was a member of the federal executive committee for twenty years from the beginning until his retirement in 1969. As head of the foreign department, he was known as "Böckler's foreign minister." From the mid-1950s, he headed the DGB's main department for economic policy. From 1960 to 1962, he was president of the Economic and Social Committee of the European Economic Community. In 1962, he was elected as the first representative of the white-collar wing of the DGB, a post he filled with great commitment in the turbulent 1960s, the years of upheaval in the Federal Republic. Rosenberg was a pioneer of European unification and international understanding, especially in the trade union field - as President of the European and Vice President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. He championed German-Israeli relations and contributed to the cooperation and friendly contacts between the German and Israeli labor and trade union movements that are still deeply rooted in the DGB trade unions today.

Despite his conciliatory nature, Rosenberg held controversial views that were hotly disputed within the trade union framework. For example, he declared his support for the social market economy, launched the basic program of 1963, which meant a departure from class-antagonistic positions and a turn toward "social partnership," and led the DGB toward a constructive stance during the era of Ludwig Erhard and the Grand Coalition (Concerted Action). For him, co-determination was more than an instrument for settling internal conflicts: He saw it as a step toward more democracy and a "truly human order."

It is also remarkable that Rosenberg was one of the very few Jews in the old Federal Republic to be elected to a top social position at all. It is significant and of great interest that this was possible in the German Trade Union Federation of the 1960s.

Ludwig Rosenberg is suitable in many respects as the name patron for the college "Historical Relations between the Labor Movement and Judaism" of HBS and MMZ. Not only did he come from a German-Jewish family whose social consolidation is probably typical of the social dynamics of Judaism ("Verbürgerlichungs"-thesis) in the 19th and early 20th century, but he also stands for the turn of many Jews towards democracy and social justice, which led them into the ranks of the workers' movement. This democratic humanism is also part of the legacy of the Jewish Enlightenment in Central Europe ("Haskala"), as it began with Moses Mendelssohn. At the same time, Rosenberg was a champion of co-determination and, not least, a close companion of Hans Böckler.