Heinrich Eckstein

Heinrich Eckstein (born May 19, 1907 in Autenhausen ; † August 6, 1992 in Aschaffenburg ) was a German farmer , politician ( CDU ) and entrepreneur.

Life and work

The son of a restaurateur and farmer completed an agricultural training after attending school in order to take over his parents' business, but that never happened. He went to technical school and attended supplementary courses. Following this, he completed practical training in agriculture. He worked on farms in Saxony-Anhalt, Pomerania and on the Lower Rhine until he finally came to Altenlingen in the Emsland in the mid-1930s and joined Emanuel von Galen at Gut Beversundern. There he married a farmer's daughter. In 1940 he became the administrator of the Holsterfeld estate, then part of the Holsten community and now part of the Salzbergen community . There he also worked as an independent businessman. On the estate he introduced the latest methods and machines, as an avowed Catholic he gave shelter to a Polish slave laborer who had a liaison with a local resident and provided him with food, and he also took in many refugees after the end of the war. He also financially supported parishes in the area. In 1957 he decided not to be re-elected in order to work out a financially secure future.

In 1963 he founded Union Tank Eckstein GmbH & Co. KG in Aschaffenburg and became a successful entrepreneur.

MP

In October 1945 Eckstein was one of the initiators and, in December, one of the co-founders of the CDU in the Lingen district, where the Center Party was still strongly anchored and relied on the rural lower classes. Soon after the end of the war he had already become a member of the council of the Holsten community and from 1946 to 1948 belonged to the district council of the Lingen district . In 1947 constituted CDU board for the administrative district Lingen he also came to the board. He was also a leading member of agricultural organizations. The CDU nominated him for constituency 5 (Bersenbrück-Lingen) as a direct candidate for the election of the first Bundestag in August 1949. He was a member of the German Bundestag since the first Bundestag election from 1949 to 1957. He was directly elected to parliament in the constituency of Bersenbrück-Lingen in 1949 and 1953 . As a member of the Bundestag, Eckstein was instrumental in bringing about the Emsland Plan . On March 21, 1950, he submitted an application to promote the Emsland, which 20 other CDU members also signed. On May 5, 1950, the Bundestag unanimously approved Eckstein's motion to "open up the wastelands of the Emsland". Because he was a member of parliament, Eckstein moved his residence to Lohmar near Bonn. In Emsland, as in his party, Eckstein always advocated close cooperation and an agreement with the Center Party. During his time as a parliamentarian, Eckstein was active on the budget committee of the German Bundestag. He succeeded in pushing through the construction of the Emsland oil refinery in Holthausen , against the resistance of Federal Labor Minister Anton Storch (CDU) .

literature

• Karin Geerdes: Art. Eckstein, Heinrich, in: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (Ed.): Emsländische Geschichte 21, Haselünne 2014, pp. 498–515.
• Rudolf Vierhaus , Ludolf Herbst (eds.), Bruno Jahn (collaborators): Biographical manual of the members of the German Bundestag. 1949-2002. Vol. 1: A-M. KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-23782-0 , p. 165.