Kurt Adams (politician)

Kurt Adams was born at the tail end of 1889. His father was a merchant. He attended two secondary schools, first the "Vor dem Lübeckertor Realschule" and then the "auf der Uhlenhorst Realschule", before progressing to university. His university level studies took him to universities in Göttingen, Freiburg, the Humboldt (Berlin) and Greifswald. Subjects studied were German, French and History.^[4] He received his doctorate in 1912 for a dissertation entitled "Otto Ludwig´s Theories on Drama".^[5] The next year he took a job with the Hamburg City Schools Service, also teaching at the Albrecht-Thaer School, and became committed to the cause of education reform.^[4] Adams remained an energetic member of the city Schools Service until 1929.^[4] In October 1928 he took over headship of the Hamburg People's Academy from Rudolf Roß.^[6]

Kurt Adams joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) while still a student. Between 1924 and 1933 he was a member of the Hamburg Parliament. More than once he stood for election to the national Reichstag, but his name was towards the bottom of the SPD party list and he was never elected.^[6]

He took a particular interest in education and was a member of various education related committees and groupings including the "Working Group of SPD Teachers" ("Arbeitsgemeinschaft sozialdemokratischer Lehrer") of which he was chairman locally,^[4] becoming known as one of the Hamburg SPD's leading education experts. He also headed up the Hamburg "Kinderfreundebewegung" (literally "Children's friends' movement").^[6]

Following Régime change in January 1933, the new government lost little time in moving towards one-party government. Adams was threatened with the loss of his position in the Schools Service as a result of the so-called Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed in April 1933. He therefore announced his resignation from the SPD to the local party leadership, but he nevertheless lost his job on 232 June 1933. He faced a call from the newly appointed Hamburg Nazi Gauleiter, Karl Kaufmann to renounce his political convictions, but did not do so. Kurt Adams was succeeded as head of the Hamburg People's Academy by Heinrich Haselmayer [de].^[7]

After losing his public service employment Adam worked briefly for a cinema news-sheet, before taking on a small coffee distribution business in Hamburg's Nikolaifleet (in the city's old harbour quarter). The coffee business brought him into contact with a number of politically like-minded individuals, and his little trading office quickly became a Hamburg meeting point for SPD and Communists, whose party activities had become illegal in 1933. Adams was able to help fellow victims of Nazi persecution, including Hermann Hoefer [de] and Rudolf Klug. In addition to coffee, the little business became a distribution point for illegal political leaflets, some of which Adams himself distributed, using his bicycle.^[1]