Aloys Georg "Ludwig Wiener" Rink was born into a working-class family in Vienna.[1][2] or Urberach[3] (near Darmstadt). Sources differ. Georg Rink, his father, worked as a "rabbit/hare fur cutter"("Hasenhaareschneider")[3][2] and was a member of the "Clothing Workers' [Trades] Union" ("Bekleidungsarbeitverband ").[1] After leaving school Aloys Rink trained as an industrial metal worker.[1]
Supporting himself as a skilled metal worker and living in Urberach, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1896. The government had allowed Bismarck's "Anti-Socialist Laws" to lapse in 1890, meaning the party was no longer outlawed,[4] but at the time when Rink joined it the SPD was still regarded by most commentators as something from outside the political mainstream.[3][2] He would resign from the party in 1919, but rejoined in 1922.[2] As a young man, hungry for education, he attended the Trades Union Academy in Berlin as well as the Party and Commercial Academy in Frankfurt am Main.[2] Sources mention but do not identify other colleges where he attended courses. Rink also became a noted autodidact, informing himself in particular depth about Politics and Economics.[2] On 26 June 1905 Aloys Rink married Regina Groh at Urberach.[2] The marriage produced four recorded children.
Between 1919 and 1933 Aloys Rink served as a member of the Urberach town council.[3] On 27 November 1921 he was elected as one of just two Communist members of the 70 seat Hessestate parliament.[2] However, during the aftermath of the so-called March Action he backed the former party leader Paul Levi, whose political differences with the newly powerful hardliner faction continued to intensify. Levi was then, in the context of a further party split, expelled from the mainstream communist party. Rink's own position as a Communist Landtag member became untenable and he resigned his seat on 19 July 1922.[2] His seat was taken by Katharina Roth.[5][6] Aloys Rink resumed his membership of the SPD and returned to his work as a skilled metal worker, while still continuing to serve on the town council.[1]
Between 1933 and 1945 Aloys Rink survived several periods in state detention. In October 1933 he was taken into the concentration camp at Osthofen (near Worms).[2] Later on he was held at the prison in Darmstadt for slightly under half a year, starting in December 1939.[2] Later he was detained at Dachau for several months during 1944.[3]
With the fall of the National Socialists in 1945, non-Nazi party membership ceased to be illegal, and Aloys Rink, by now aged 64, resumed his SPD membership, becoming a co-refounder of the party in Hesse.[3] While resuming his long-standing former role as a town councillor in Urberach, he took a senior post with the welfare department for Dieburg District.[2]
Aloys Rink died at Groß-Umstadt (in the Darmstadt-Dieburg region) on 21 June 1971.[1][2] Sources asserting that he died in nearby Urberach[3] are incorrect.[7] Interviewed forty years later, Klaus-Joachim Rink described his grandfather as "a very balanced man, with a great sense of justice" ("...ein ausgeglichener Mann mit großem Gerechtigkeitsempfinden.").[7] A memory which the grandson particularly treasured was the time that Aloys Rink had given him a bicycle, which in the context of the post-war austerity had been an exceptionally generous present.[7]
Notes
^Several sources give the place of his birth, instead, as Vienna, Austria.[1][2]
References
^ abcdefghijk"Georg Aloys Rink". Personendaten, Ausbildung und politische Karriere, Lebenslauf. Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften in Mannheim (gesis - Biographien deutscher Parlamentarier 1848 bis heute (BIOPARL)). 30 March 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
^"Roth, Anna Katharina". Hessische Biografie. Hessisches Landesamt für geschichtliche Landeskunde, Marburg. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
^ abcNina Lenhardt (19 July 2011). "Der vergessene Sohn". Klaus-Joachim Rink forscht über seinen Großvater und Ehrenbürger Aloys Georg Rink. Der hatte nach dem Krieg mehrere SPD-Ortsvereine ins Leben gerufen und war Mitglied im ersten Landtag. Frankfurter Rundschau GmbH. Retrieved 25 December 2019.