Walter Freitag

Walter Freitag (14 August 1889 – 7 June 1958) was a German trade union leader and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served in the Landtag of Prussia from 1932 to 1933 until ousted after the Nazi seizure of power. Imprisoned until 1935, he was kept under police surveillance and remained largely unemployed throughout the Nazi period.

German revolution and the Weimar Republic After the November Revolution, he became a trade union secretary in Remscheid and, from 1920, district leader of the German Metalworkers' Association in Hagen. He belonged to the faction of the USPD that rejected a merger with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and he rejoined the SPD in 1922. In 1931, he was elected SPD chairman of the Hagen-Schwelm district. At the 1932 Prussian state election, he was elected as an SPD deputy to the Landtag of Prussia, serving until that body was dissolved by the Nazis in October 1933.

Freitag also returned to the trade union movement, becoming one of the co-founders of the metalworkers' union (IG Metall), and serving as union chairman of the Siegerland region in 1946. From 1949, he was national co-chairman of IG Metall in the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and was re-elected to this position in 1952. In October 1952, Freitag became the chairman of the DGB, serving until his resignation in June 1956. From November 1955 to June 1958, he was a member of the administrative board of the German Federal Railway. He died on 7 June 1958, from the effects of a stroke. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer attended his funeral.