Ernst Reuter

The social democrat Ernst Reuter had been a member of the SPD since 1912. In 1918 he joined the "Bolsheviks" as a prisoner of war in Russia during the First World War and worked as a people's commissar in the Volga German Republic. In 1922, Reuter switched to the KPD, which was later banned by the National Socialists in Hitler's Germany. Here he built up the Berlin KPD organization and became its general secretary from 1921 to 1922. From 1922, Reuter was again a member of the SPD and entered the Berlin magistrate. From 1926 to 1931 he was appointed head of the city's traffic department in the Berlin city council. In February 1928, their son Edzard was born from his marriage to Hanna Reuter, née Kleinert. In 1933, Reuters was elected mayor of Magdeburg. He was also a member of the Berlin Reichstag from 1932 to 1933. In 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of a national-conservative cabinet. On March 24, 1933, the enabling law was passed by all parties except the SPD and the already banned KPD. Now Ernst Reuter was considered a political opponent under the NSDAP rule. In the same year he traveled via Great Britain into exile in Ankara, Türkiye. From 1935 to 1939, Reuter was a professor of municipal sciences at the University of Ankara and an advisor to the Turkish government. After the end of the Second World War, he returned to Germany and was re-elected as a city councilor in the now occupied Berlin in 1946. In 1947, Ernst Reuter was elected the first mayor of West Berlin. However, his taking office was initially prevented by the Soviet military administration. On September 9, 1948, Ernst Reuter spoke to 300,000 Berliners on Republic Square in front of the Reichstag building: "You peoples of the world, you peoples in America, in England, in France, in Italy! Look at this city and recognize that you must not abandon this city and this people..." (Berlin Speech - Peoples of the World). His words were a protest against the "blockade of Berlin". At this time, Willy Brandt was already a close employee and advisor to Reuters. From 1948 to 1951, Reuter was the mayor of the three western sectors, Berlin. After the de facto division of the city and new elections, Ernst Reuter was elected as the first governing mayor of West Berlin in 1951.