Paul Wittich (politician)
Paul Wittich (1877–1957) was a Carpathian German social democratic politician in Slovakia (then part of Austria-Hungary and later Czechoslovakia). He was a prominent labour leader in Pressburg (today known as Bratislava). During a few days around New Year's Eve 1919, he led a workers militia that vied for control of the city. After the integration of Pressburg into Czechoslovakia, he sat in the national parliament. Volkstimme editor Wittich emerged as the main leader of the social democratic movement in Pressburg following the departure of Heinrich Kalmár to Budapest. Wittich was the editor of the weekly newspaper Westungarische Volkstimme (a regional organ of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary) between July 1905 and May 1914, and then again from September 1914 to 1918. In 1907 Wittich was imprisoned after having called for reform of the electoral system. Town Council member In November 1914 Wittich was elected to the Pressburg town council, being the first social democrat to be able to win a seat in that body. His constituency was the Theresienstadt ward, an urban working class and multi-cultural district with a large Jewish population. Wittich's campaign had three main themes; the introduction of a progressive income and property tax, autonomy from