Albrecht Beckel

Albrecht Beckel (born February 3, 1925 in Emmerich ; † January 20, 1993 in Münster ) was a German lawyer , academy director and politician ( CDU ). From 1964 to 1972 he was Lord Mayor of Münster.

Life and work

Beckel had lived in Münster since he was five. In 1943, after graduating from high school, he first had to do labor service and was later assigned to the Navy. After the end of the war Beckel began studying law in the winter semester of 1946/1947. He received his doctorate in 1952. Since the founding of the Catholic Academy Franz-Wärme-Haus of the Diocese of Münster in 1952, Beckel was initially an employee (head of the social seminars in the Diocese of Münster) and took over its management in 1954, which he carried out until 1988 in addition to his political commitments. In 1959 he was able to take over the new building on the Kardinal-von-Galen-Ring in Münster, which he had largely designed, and where the academy is housed to this day. With the combination of elements of political and social adult education in decentralized "social seminars" with those of the evangelical and catholic academies with their focus on philosophical, theological and cultural topics, he set the model. His successor as director of the academy was Thomas Sternberg in 1988 .

Beckel was from 1954 to 1964 chairman of the state working group for Catholic adult education. From 1967 to 1987 he was a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics , for four years (1968–1972) also its president.

One of his main concerns was understanding between Poland and Germany. Here he was particularly involved in the church rapprochement of the 1970s, not least as a co-founder of the Maximilian Kolbe factory , of which he was president from 1973 to 1984.

politics

Beckel joined the CDU in 1953 . From 1960 to 1963 he was district chairman of the Münster CDU. Between 1961 and 1984 Beckel was an uninterrupted member of the City Council of Münster, of which he was mayor from 1964 to 1972. From 1970 to 1990 he was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament .

Works

• The Franz Heat House Academy. Prehistory and first generation (1950–1988) , Münster 1990, ISBN 3-9802204-2-7
• The new social encyclical and social education. In: adult education. 8th vol. (1962), H. 2, pp. 55-62

Web links

• Albrecht Beckel at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia
• Literature by and about Albrecht Beckel in the catalog of the German National Library

predecessor	Office	successor
Busso Peus	Lord Mayor of Münster in Westphalia 1964 - 1972	Werner Pierchalla