portrait, 1924 After his studies, Heuss worked as a political journalist in
Berlin and from 1905 until 1912 presided over the magazine
Die Hilfe ("The Aid") published by
Friedrich Naumann. From 1912 to 1918, he was editor in chief of the liberal
Neckarzeitung (
Neckar Newspaper) in Heilbronn. In Berlin, he worked as editor for the weekly newsletter
Deutsche Politik ("German Politics") and the magazine
Die Deutsche Nation ("The German Nation"). With Naumann, Heuss in 1903 joined the liberal
Free-minded Union, which in 1910 merged into the
Progressive People's Party (
Fortschrittliche Volkspartei), in which he was engaged until its dissolution in 1918. After
World War I, Heuss became a member of the
left liberal German Democratic Party (
Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP), from 1930 renamed
German State Party (
Deutsche Staatspartei, DStP), the political heir of the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei in 1918 and was a member of the
Reichstag from 1924 to 1928 and again from 1930 to 1933. He also taught as a lecturer at the
Deutsche Hochschule für Politik ("German Academy for Politics") in Berlin. From 1918 to 1924, Heuss was managing director of
Deutscher Werkbund, a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists which became an important element in the development of
modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the
Bauhaus school of design.
Nazi Germany During the 1920s and early 1930s, Heuss was a staunch supporter of the democratic
Weimar Republic and an opponent of
Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, about which he published one of the first comprehensive analyses in 1932 with the book
Hitlers Weg ("Hitler's Way"). However, on 23 March 1933, along with his four fellow DStP parliamentarians, Heuss voted in favour of the
Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), granting Chancellor
Adolf Hitler quasi-dictatorial powers. He had set out to abstain, but after
Heinrich Brüning indicated that with regard to the
Reichskonkordat the
Centre Party MPs would assent, ultimately subordinated to party discipline. Alternative views of
Hermann Dietrich, Weimar Republic finance minister, claim that he was part of the majority in favour of voting for the enabling law. When Germany became a
one-party state, the DStP was dissolved on 28 June 1933 and Heuss was divested of his Reichstag mandate by decree of Minister of the Interior
Wilhelm Frick with effect from 8 July. He also lost his positions at the
Deutsche Hochschule für Politik and at the
Deutscher Werkbund. Several of his books were banned and burned during the
Nazi book burnings. Following the end of his term, he returned to private life. During the
Nazi era, he stayed in contact with a network of liberals, leading to contacts with the
German resistance towards the end of the war, though he was not an active resister. In 1936, Heuss faced a publication ban; nevertheless in 1941 he became an employee of the
Frankfurter Zeitung, one of the few remaining liberal newspapers at that time. Heuss wrote under
pseudonyms until the publishing of the paper was finally prohibited in 1943. He spent the following years writing a biography of
Robert Bosch. In 1940–1941, Heuss was a contributor to the Nazi newspaper
Das Reich, launched by
Joseph Goebbels as a more intellectual version of the crude antisemitism spread by Nazi publications. His eight articles were of a rather apolitical nature focussing on classical
literature.
Postwar After World War II, the
US Office of Military Government gave Heuss the licence for one of the first post-war newspapers, the
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung in
Heidelberg and on 24 September 1945 appointed him the first Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs in the
German state of
Württemberg-Baden under his fellow party member Minister-President
Reinhold Maier. In this position, he was now able to drive forward the democratic re-education process. After poor results in the 1946 Württemberg-Baden state election, he resigned from his post so that Maier could stay on as Minister-President. In 1946, Heuss also took part in the constitutional consultations in Württemberg-Baden. As a co-founder of the
Democratic People's Party (
Demokratische Volkspartei, DVP), the predecessor of the German
Free Democratic Party (
Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP) in the southwestern German states, he was a member of the Württemberg-Baden state parliament (
Landtag) from 1946 to 1949, together with his wife
Elly Heuss-Knapp. In 1947, he had to justify himself before a committee of enquiry of the Württemberg-Baden state assembly for having voted in favour of Hitler's Enabling Act in 1933. In his testimony, Heuss argued that the law was ultimately irrelevant to the Nazi tyranny. Heuss also taught
history at the
Stuttgart Institute of Technology in 1946 and 1947, receiving the title of an honorary
professor in 1948. After plans elaborated with
Wilhelm Külz to build up an all-German liberal party, known as
Democratic Party of Germany, had failed, Heuss in December 1948 was elected head of the West German and Berlin sections of the newly founded
Free Democratic Party. He advocated uniting all liberal parties in the Western occupation zones in one
centrist party, overcoming the split between right liberals and left liberals that had existed in the
Weimar Republic. In 1948, he was a member of the
Parlamentarischer Rat (Parliamentary Council) at
Bonn with considerable influence in the drafting of West Germany's constitution, the
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. == Presidency ==