| Jürgen Linden | |
|---|---|
| Juergen Linden at a laudatio for the "Médaille Charlemagne pour les Médias Européens" | |
| Lord Mayor of Aachen | |
| Preceded by | Kurt Malangré |
| Succeeded by | Marcel Philipp |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 13, 1947 Aachen, Germany |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Spouse(s) | Maria Linden |
| Children | Boris, Kolja, Laura |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn (J.D.) |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Religion | Catholic |
Jürgen Linden (born January 13, 1947) is a German politician (Social Democratic Party of Germany) and was Lord Mayor of Aachen from 1989 to 2009.
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Linden was born in Aachen, Germany.
Linden received High School education at the Einhard-Gymnasium in Aachen and finished schooling in 1966.[1] Linden studied law until 1974 and obtained an approval for the occupation of lawyer in the same year. In 1975 he became a Juris Doctor PhD.
From 2007 to 12 June 2010 Linden was Chairman of Alemannia Aachen GmbH, the company of the league playing soccer club TSV Alemannia Aachen.
Linden is the speaker of the board of directors of the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen which is awarded since 60 years to people who extraordinarily contributed to the unification of Europe. Famous prize winners were Winston Churchill, Konrad Adenauer, Juan Carlos I of Spain, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel and others.[2]
Linden is married and father of three children.
1970 Linden joined the SPD. In 1977 he was elected to the council of his hometown and served from 1984 to 1989 the office of the Honorary Mayor of Aachen.
After the local elections in 1989 a Red-Green coalition came to power and elected Linden on October 18, 1989 as the successor to Kurt Malangré (CDU). After the change of the electoral rules in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Linden for the first time in Aachen held the post of a full-time and paid Lord Mayor from October 12, 1995 to October 21, 2009. On April 25, 2008 Linden publicly declared, not to compete at the local elections in 2009. He was succeeded by Marcel Philipp (CDU).[3]
Linden has contributed for the reconstruction of the Jewish Synagogue in Aachen which was destroyed at the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) on November 9, 1938,[4] and was reinaugurated on May 18, 1995.[5] Linden called into life the Aachen Cultural Summer, a series of events including classical and rock concerts, readings and dance performances. Linden contributed to the economic development of the city of Aachen due to contacts with industry and trade and important German policy makers. A political defeat he suffered due to a Referendum in the project "Bauhaus Europe", a planned cultural center on one of the central squares of Aachen which was not built after the negative Referendum.[6]