Wilhelm Hoegner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Wilhelm Hoegner | |
|
|
|
| In office 1945 – 1946 |
|
| Preceded by | Fritz Schäffer |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Hans Ehard |
| In office 1954 – 1957 |
|
| Preceded by | Hans Ehard |
| Succeeded by | Hanns Seidel |
|
|
|
| In office 1945 – 1947 |
|
|
|
|
| In office 1950 – 1954 |
|
|
|
|
| Born | September 23, 1887 München |
| Died | March 5, 1980 München |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | SPD |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
Wilhelm Hoegner (September 23, 1887 in München - March 5, 1980 in München) was the second Bavarian prime minister (SPD) after World War II (1945-46 and 1954–57) and father of the Bavarian constitution. He has been the only Social Democrat to hold this office.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Wilhelm Hoegner was born in München in 1887, the son of Michael Georg Hoegner and Therese Engelhardt. Growing up in Burghausen, he studied law in Munich, Berlin and Erlangen. After graduation, he worked as a lawyer, then Staatsanwalt, a state prosecutor, and in 1919 he also became a member of the SPD. He married Anna Woock in 1918, who he had two children with. From 1924 to 1930, he was a member of the Landtag of Bavaria, the state parliament, for his party.
He was involved in the investigation into Hitlers Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and through this became part of the opposition to the Nazis. He published, anonymously, a paper on the findings of the investigation, which is considered an important historical document due to the fact that the Nazis destroyed all official reports from the inquest after 1933[1]. He actively opposed Hitler in his time as a member of the German Reichstag from 1930 to 1933. For this reason, he was dismissed from government service after the Nazi takeover in 1933 and had to escape to Austria, and from there, in 1934, to Switzerland, where he worked as a free lance writer. He was in contact there with other German refugees from the Nazis and worked with them in an organisation called Demokratisches Deutschland, aimed against the Nazis.
Upon his return to Bavaria in June 1945, he served at the court in Munich. He became prime minister of Bavaria from 1945 to 1946, after the sudden dismissal of Fritz Schäffer[2], also holding the post of Minister of Justice until 1947. He became known in this time as the father of the new Bavarian constitution. After losing the elections in December 1946, he was replaced as Bavarian prime minister by Hans Ehard but remained as Minister of Justice. When his party decided to leave the coalition with the CSU, he opposed this move and temporarily lost influence within the SPD, resigning from his ministerial post.
From 1946 to 1970 he was again a member of the Bavarian parliament, the Landtag, leading the SPD fraction there from 1958 to 1962. He held the post of Minister of the Interior from 1950 to 1954, when Bavaria was ruled by a CSU-SPD coalition. During this time, he devoted a large amount of effort towards the reunion of the Palatinate with the rest of Bavaria, but ultimately failed, with only 7.6 percent of all eligible voters in the Palatinate opting for a reunion[3].
He became prime minister of Bavaria for a second time in 1954, when he lead a four-party coalition of conservative and liberal parties until 1957. The coalition fell apart before the end of its term after the 1957 federal elections and, as of 2008, Wilhelm Hoegner is still the last non-CSU prime minister of Bavaria.
He was also a member of the German Bundestag from 1961 to 1962.
While being a social democrat, Hoegner was not a socialist and preferred a common-sense approach to politics and the economy rather than radical theory's and inaction. He considered being a social democrat not to be incompatible to christian ethics and values, an important factor in the traditionally conservative-catholic dominated state of Bavaria[4].
Hoegner died, aged 92, almost blind but mentally still in full capacity, on 5 March 1980 in Munich[5].
[edit] Honors
- Honorary doctorate at the University of Munich
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Der Volksbetrug der Nationalsozialisten (in German), by Wilhelm Hoegner
- Der Schwierige Aussenseiter: Erinnerungen eines Abgeordneten, Emigranten und Ministerpräsidenten (in German), by Wilhelm Hoegner, München, publisher: Isar Verlag, 1959
[edit] Sources
- Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg - Boisls bayrische Biography - Wilhelm Hoegner (in German), page 356-357
- Institut für Zeitgeschichte - Wilhelm Hoegner (in German)
- Bavarian government website: Wilhelm Hoeger biography (in German)
[edit] References
- ^ Anonym (= Wilhelm Hoegner): Hitler und Kahr. Die bayerischen Napoleonsgrößen von 1923, 1928 (in German) Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, accessed: 9 May 2008
- ^ "You Don't Know What You Want" Time Magazine, 8 October 1945, accessed: 9 May 2008
- ^ Pfalz (19./20. Jahrhundert) (in German) Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, accessed: 9 May 2008
- ^ Freedom with Responsibility: The Social Market Economy in Germany, 1918-1963 google book review, author: Anthony James Nicholls, publisher: Oxford University Press, page 251, accessed: 9 May 2008
- ^ Wilhelm Hoegner (in German), author: Hildegard Kronawitter, accessed: 9 May 2008
| Preceded by Fritz Schäffer |
Prime Minister of Bavaria 1945 – 1946 |
Succeeded by Hans Ehard |
| Preceded by Hans Ehard |
Prime Minister of Bavaria 1954 – 1957 |
Succeeded by Hanns Seidel |
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||
