Richard Lipinski


Robert Richard Lipinski was a German unionist, politician and writer active in Germany's Social Democratic Party.

Life

Lipinski was born in Danzig, the third of four children of the bar-cutter and model champion Heinrich Johann Lipinski and Christina Charlotte Henriette nee Schroeder. Early on, Richard had to contribute to the livelihood of his family. The separation of his parents and the early death of the father as well as material poverty overshadowed his youth. As a child he worked in a shipyard, and did not receive an education after elementary school. Lipinski the primary school at Danzig attended from 1874 to 1881. At the age of 14 he was offered a short-term contract as gardener, followed by the end of 1881 as a shop assistant in a teaching material goods store with an associated liquor store. Lipinski broke off the apprenticeship in early 1882 because of maltreatment by his instructor. In April 1882 he moved with his mother to Leipzig, where he started a job in the distilling business, and later worked as a bookkeeper in the mirror and frame factory of his brother. From September 1882 to 1894 he was a rapporteur for the Socialist Leipziger Zeitung. During this period he was convicted several times for offenses against the press legal regulations, receiving fines and imprisonment.
In 1886, he joined the union and four years later the Social Democratic Party. In the following years he co-founded several smaller unions: the Free Association of Merchants in 1890, the Association of Commercial Employees in 1897, the Association of Workers Press in 1900, and the Association of Modern Labour Movement Staff in 1901. In 1900 he was co-founder of the association of the workers' press. A year later he was co-founder of the "Association of the support on the floor of the modern labor movement staff." From 1894 to 1901 he worked for "passing" as editor of the newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung.
Lipinski married Selma, nee Böttger, in Kleinmiltiz. They had eight children. His daughter Margaret married socialist politician Stanislaw Trabalski in 1921.