Legien, Carl

(1861-1920)

   labor leader; organized the strike that thwarted the Kapp* Putsch. Born in Marienburg (now Malbork in Poland*), he was raised in an orphanage. He was apprenticed in 1875 to a lathe operator and remained with the man until 1881. After three years in the army, he worked as an itinerant journeyman before settling in Hamburg in 1886. Legien joined the SPD in 1885. Engaged in trade-union* activities in Ham-burg, he entered a local for lathe operators and gained a reputation as an agitator. When the Association of German Lathe Operators was founded in 1887, Legien was elected to its central committee. An organizational prodigy, he became chairman in 1890 of the new Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutsch-lands (General Commission of German Trade Unions); he retained the office, first in Hamburg and then in Berlin,* for three decades. By 1920 he was leading an organization of 8.5 million members, and his success at coordinating the interests of diverse local unions had left a permanent mark on Germany.

   Legien successfully combined politics with his weighty union activities. Dur-ing 1893-1898 and 1903-1918 he served with the SPD's Reichstag* faction. Gaining the Generalkommission a strong voice in Party affairs, he advanced revisionism by crafting such measures as unemployment insurance. He also helped turn the labor movement into an extranational affair, developing an in-ternational secretariat in 1903 and becoming president of the International Trade-Union Federation in 1913. Legien, who aimed to reform Wilhelmine society, was a champion of Germany's war effort. In the war's revolutionary aftermath he held no sympathy for the council movement.

   Legien's name is forever linked with that of Hugo Stinnes* in the pact that heralded the Central Working Association.* During the Armistice* the Stinnes-Legien pact of 15 November 1918 fostered compromise between the opposing interests of management and labor, ensuring that the masses would accommo-date Berlin's new Republic during a difficult demobilization. At the Trade-Union Congress of July 1919 Legien became chairman of the new General German Trade-Union Federation (ADGB). His career climaxed in March 1920 when, combining prudence and courage, he called the general strike that foiled the Kapp Putsch and saved the Republic (he had earlier opposed general strikes). Although he was already quite ill, he participated in the November 1920 Inter-national Trade Union Congress in London. His death in December left a void in the German labor movement.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Braunthal, Socialist Labor and Politics; Feldman, "German Business" and "Origins"; John Moses, Trade Unionism; NDB, vol. 14; Patch, Christian Trade Unions.