Gustav Noske

Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske in 1933.
Defence Minister  Germany
In office February 1919 – March 1920
Succeeded by	Otto Gessler
Personal details
Born	9 July 1868 Brandenburg an der Havel, Prussia
Died	30 November 1946(1946-11-30) (aged 78) Hanover, Germany
Nationality	Prussian German
Political party	Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
Religion	Christianity

Gustav Noske (9 July 1868 – 30 November 1946) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He served as the first Minister of Defence (Reichswehrminister) of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1920. Noske has been a controversial figure because, although he was a member of the socialist movement, he used army and paramilitary forces to bloodily suppress the socialist/communist uprisings of 1919.

Noske was born on 9 July 1868 in Brandenburg an der Havel, Prussia. He was the son of the weaver Karl Noske (born 1838) and the manual labourer Emma Noske (née Herwig, born 1843). From 1874 to 1882 he went to primary and secondary school (Volks- and Bürgerschule). In 1882 to 1886 he was apprenticed as a basket maker at the Reichsteinische Kinderwagenfabrik and travelled to Halle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Liegnitz as a journeyman. In 1884, Noske joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and he also became a union member. In 1892, Noske was elected chairman of the Brandenburg SPD.

He married Martha Thiel (1872-1949) at Brandenburg in 1891. They had one son and two daughters.

From 1897 to 1902 Noske was politically active at the local level and worked as an editor at social democratic newspapers in Brandenburg and Königsberg (Volkstribüne). From 1902 to 1918 he was chief editor at the paper Volksstimme in Chemnitz. In 1906, Noske was elected to the German Parliament for the SPD where he remained through 1918 as representative of the Chemnitz constituency.

Within the SPD he was an expert on military, navy and colonial issues. After 1912, Noske was Koreferent of the Reichstag for the Navy budget. In 1914, he published a book Kolonialpolitik und Sozialdemokratie in which he argued in favour of German colonialism. He was known as a reformist (i.e. one of those in the SPD who wanted to achieve their political goals within the existing system) and as someone who was not much interested in fundamental theoretical debates.