Alfred Kubel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred Kubel (left) 1975 with Federal Council Director Albert Pfitzer

Alfred Kubel (* 25. May 1909 in Braunschweig ; † 22. May 1999 in Bad Pyrmont ) was a German politician of the SPD .

In 1946 he was Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig , from 1946 to 1955 and from 1957 to 1970 Minister in various departments and from 1970 to 1976 Prime Minister of Lower Saxony .

Live and act

Childhood, education and work

Alfred Kubel was born on May 25, 1909 in Braunschweig. His father was a unionized plumber and Social Democrat, his mother, who came from West Prussia, worked in a jute mill. At the beginning of the 1910s the family left Braunschweig because the father was not given a job because of the participation and the organization of a strike. They then moved to Elbing , but returned as early as 1920 because they had no connection with the local labor movement, which they saw as backward.

Kubel continued his school career, which he had already started at the Elbingen Middle School , and now attended the middle school in Braunschweig. After graduating from school in 1924, he began a commercial apprenticeship in a canning factory in Braunschweig . However, when he no longer wanted to meet the extended working hours required by the instructor, he was fired and he had to find a new apprenticeship position. Shortly afterwards he completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist , which he successfully completed in 1927. He then worked for two years as a clerk in a wholesale drugstore articles in Rostock . He returned to his apprenticeship company in 1929 and was employed there as an industrial clerk before moving to Voigtländer as an unskilled worker in 1931 . After coming into conflict with the SA , he left Braunschweig again and moved to Berlin in February 1933 , where he worked as a traveling salesman until 1934. He then worked as a foreman, authorized representative and authorized signatory for the German inflatable boat factory until 1945.

Activity in the ISK, resistance and World War II

During his apprenticeship, Kubel was a member of the International Youth Association (IJB), a forerunner organization of the International Socialist Combat League . He came to the SPD both through the IJB and the Central Association of Employees (ZdA), but was expelled from the party in 1925, like all other IJB members. Following this he came into contact with the International Socialist Combat League (ISK), which he joined in 1926 together with Otto Bennemann . In the following period he attended several ISK training courses, for which he was also active in the anti-fascist resistance after 1933 . Because of these illegal activities, especially during the Summer Olympics in 1936 , he was arrested by the Gestapo on December 2, 1937 in the course of a wave of arrests and, after more than one year of “ protective custody ” or pre-trial detention, by the People's Court on December 10, 1938 for “preparation for high treason “Sentenced to one year in prison. The pre-trial detention counted towards the verdict.

After his release from prison, Kubel continued his work in the rubber processing industry, which mainly produced armaments during the Second World War . To avoid the air bombardment, his employer relocated the production facility to Upper Lusatia in 1944 . From there, Kubel tried to set up a new production facility in Goslar with other employees of the company , but this failed. After he was supposed to be drafted into the Volkssturm in the spring of 1945 , he deserted and went into hiding until the US troops occupied the Harz . He hid in the Gifhorn district , most recently with a farmer in Adenbüttel .

Post-war period and Prime Minister in Braunschweig

After the Allied occupation of West Germany, Kubel was appointed managing director of Braunschweig GmbH, an umbrella company for the administration of Braunschweig's industrial assets, in April 1945. Two months later he took over the management of Deutsche Asphalt AG, Limmer und Vorwohler Grubenfelder, in Braunschweig, which he held until 1946, as general director.

Together with former Social Democrats and Communists, he tried immediately after the end of the war as the head of the so-called “Kuh-Straßen-Club” to found a Socialist Unity Party (SEP) in Braunschweig, which included all socialist currents from the SPD, KPD , KPO , SAP and ISK should include. This project threatened to fail in August 1945 because the positions of the various camps were incompatible. After the Braunschweig SPD had joined the central committee of the SPD and an agreement had been reached between Willi Eichler , Otto Brenner and Kurt Schumacher in September on the inclusion of socialist organizations, Kubel Schumacher announced that the SEP would join the SPD . This led to further tensions between Schumacher and Otto Grotewohl at the Wennigs conference in early October. Kubel, who himself took part in the conference, was now a member of the Social Democrats and from October 31, 1945 to 1948, deputy chairman of the SPD district association in Braunschweig.

From February to November 1946 he was a member of the Appointed Braunschweig Landtag and chairman of the finance committee. From May 7th to June 26th 1946 he was President of the State Parliament. Together with his colleagues, he made the proposal to Grotewohl to accept the office of prime minister in Braunschweig, which Grotewohl refused. Thereupon Kubel was appointed Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig on May 7, 1946 by the British military government as the successor to Hubert Schlebusch .

On September 29, 1945, a state treaty was signed between the Free State of Oldenburg , the Free State of Braunschweig and the Province of Hanover , which provided for the establishment of a community ministry called the state government for imperial tasks in Lower Saxony . However, this was rejected by the British military government, which then refused its approval. Instead of it, the District Council of Hanover-Oldenburg-Braunschweig was constituted on November 15, 1945 and with Ordinance No. 46 of the Military Government of August 23, 1946, the short-lived state of Hanover emerged from the former province of the Free State of Prussia . Finally, on November 23, 1946, the British military government granted permission to unite the states of Oldenburg, Hanover and Braunschweig to form the new state of Lower Saxony. Braunschweig then lost its eastern territories, which were assigned to the Soviet zone of occupation . Kubel's term as prime minister ended.

Member of Parliament and Minister in Lower Saxony

After the formation of the state of Lower Saxony Kubel was on 9 December 1946 as the Lower Saxony Economics Minister in the Prime Minister Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf called run state government. Since June 11, 1947, he held the official title of "Minister of Economics and Transport", after the Ministry of Transport had previously been dissolved and incorporated into the economic department. During his tenure, he played a key role in the preparation and implementation of the first Hannover Messe . In addition, he was co-founder in 1947 and from 1951 to 1978 chairman of the supervisory board of the Deutsche Messe- und Ausstellung AG in Hanover . He was planned by the SPD as director for economics in the economic council of the United Economic Area . However, the proposal failed due to resistance from the bourgeois majority in the Economic Council.

In addition to his ministerial duties, Kubel took on parliamentary functions. He had been a member of the Appointed Lower Saxony State Parliament since December 1946 and, after its dissolution in April 1947, was elected to the Lower Saxony State Parliament via the state list , to which he was a member until 1955. In the state elections in 1951 , he won a direct mandate . From September 14, 1955, when he replaced the Member of Parliament August Wedekind , until his resignation on April 2, 1975, he was again a member of the state parliament in Lower Saxony. In the elections in 1959 , 1963 , 1967 and 1970 he won the constituency as a direct candidate, in the 1974 election he returned to parliament via the state list.

Kubel took over the management of the Ministry of Labor, Development and Health on June 9, 1948 , but was unable to set any major political accents in this function, as he saw himself primarily as an economic politician. After the CDU left the coalition, he was able to take over his desired department again and was appointed Minister for Economics and Labor on September 18, 1950. With the help of the Load Equalization Act , he mainly concentrated on reconstruction and implemented a bridge repair program. He was able to partially avert the dismantling in the industrial areas in Wolfsburg and around Salzgitter .

After the state elections in 1951 and the formation of a new coalition of the SPD, GB / BHE and the center , Kubel had to cede the Ministry of Economics to Hermann Ahrens and on June 13, 1951, moved to the head of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Finance . In this office he was able to balance the state budget as early as 1952 and improve it again in the following years. Nevertheless, Lower Saxony always remained dependent on the state financial equalization due to its structural poverty and financial weakness .

In the state elections in 1955, Kubel lost the Goslar-Stadt constituency that had been won four years earlier to his political opponent, the CDU candidate Otto Fricke . He himself could not move into parliament because the SPD won all mandates directly. As a result, Heinrich Hellwege was elected Prime Minister, who formed a four-party coalition of the “citizens' block”, consisting of the DP , CDU, GB / BHE and FDP . Kubel resigned from the state government on May 26, 1955 and was replaced in his ministerial office by Helmuth Andreas Koch . From 1955 to 1957 he was head of the Hanover press office of the Nuremberg Übersee-Post. As such, he traveled to various countries in South America and Africa , the Soviet Union , the United States , as well as Lebanon and Hungary .

After the premature end of the four-party coalition and the formation of a cabinet made up of the DP, SPD and CDU, Kubel returned to the state government on November 19, 1957 and was appointed Minister of Economics and Transport by Heinrich Hellwege. He was a member of the follow-up governments headed by Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf and Georg Diederichs as state minister. From May 12, 1959, he was Minister of Food, Agriculture and Forests , before he took over the management of the Ministry of Finance for another five years on May 19, 1965. As Minister of Agriculture, he spoke out against agricultural subsidies and particularly rejected the “milk penny”. Nevertheless, he carried out a step-by-step investment plan to increase the profitability of the Lower Saxony farms. As finance minister, he played a key role in the formation of the Norddeutsche Landesbank . He was one of the supporters of the Volkswagen Act passed in 1960 and was a member of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG from 1965 to 1970 .

Prime Minister in Lower Saxony

In November 1969, the state committee of the SPD Lower Saxony nominated Kubel as the top candidate for the state election in 1971. Diederichs had previously announced that he would soon retire from politics. Although his health was already in poor health, he was to remain in office until the end of the legislative period, but the break in the grand coalition led to early new elections, which were held in June 1970 .

In the elections, the SPD achieved 46.3% and the CDU 45.7% of the vote. Since the FDP failed to pass the five percent hurdle with a share of 4.4% of the vote , the Social Democrats surprisingly received an absolute majority of the seats in the state parliament. Despite the narrow lead - the SPD had 75, the CDU 74 seats - Alfred Kubel was elected Prime Minister of Lower Saxony on July 8, 1970 with 75 votes against 70 votes for the opposing candidate of the CDU, the previous Agriculture Minister Wilfried Hasselmann . He then formed a sole government made up of Social Democrats, which continued until the 1974 state election . During his tenure, Kubel's main tasks were the implementation of the administrative and territorial reform as well as the educational reform . Furthermore, he campaigned for the creation of the federal-state financial equalization . From November 1, 1974 to October 31, 1975, he served as President of the German Federal Council .

The 1974 state election led to a loss of votes in the SPD, which only received 43.1%, while the CDU was able to book 48.8% of the votes. The FDP had returned to the state parliament with a share of 7.0% of the vote. Subsequently, Kubel was re-elected Prime Minister in the state parliament with the votes of the liberals. His opponent was again Hasselmann.

Kubel continued to rule with the help of a social-liberal coalition and planned a generation change in the Prime Minister's office during the legislative period. In the coalition agreement it was determined that in the middle of the electoral period the SPD would propose a new prime minister in place of Kubel and the FDP committed to elect the SPD candidate, who would be either Helmut Greulich or Helmut Kasimier . The Social Democrats, however, did not yet make a decision and in the following two years wavered between Greulich, Kasimier and Karl Ravens in their selection of candidates . The latter, however, resigned due to his commitment as Federal Building Minister. After Greulich became seriously ill, the vote on the successor to Kubel fell to Finance Minister Kasimier. The coalition had a slim majority of one vote with 78 members. Kasimier's election failed because of votes against from the SPD / FDP coalition camp. No new head of government was elected in the second ballot either. Even the unceremoniously newly established SPD candidate Ravens was unable to prevail in the third ballot against the CDU candidate Ernst Albrecht , who was elected as new Prime Minister and successor to Kubels on February 6, 1976.

Kubel was a member of various state governments in Lower Saxony for 28 years, including six years as Prime Minister. No other state politician has achieved such a term of office to date.

Late years

Kubel gradually withdrew from political life. On January 5, 1976, the former Prime Minister officially bid farewell to the state capital and his office with his entry in the City of Hanover's Golden Book . On April 2, 1976, he resigned from his state parliament mandate; for him, Willi Arens entered the state parliament, which had recently lost his mandate due to an election review decision.

From 1976 to 1979 Kubel was still a member of the state committee of the SPD Lower Saxony. From 1977 to 1985 he also served as chairman of the board of trustees of the Georg Eckert Institute for international textbook research in Braunschweig.

In the 1960s he bought a piece of land in Braunlage and built a house there. He withdrew to this domicile and spent his retirement there.

Alfred Kubel was married twice and had two daughters from his first marriage. He had lived with his second wife, Hilde, in a senior citizens' home in Bad Pyrmont since the early 1990s, where he died on May 22, 1999 three days before his 90th birthday after suffering from Parkinson's for many years.

Honors

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Kubel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Klaus Wettig : Speech at the memorial event for Alfred Kubel in Braunschweig. (PDF; 120 kB) May 25, 2009, pp. 2, 23, 54, 76-77 , accessed on December 13, 2012 .
  2. ^ Matthias Uhl, The Division of Germany, Defeat, East-West Division and Reconstruction 1945 - 1949 , be.bra verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89809-411-5 , p. 136.
  3. ↑ a b My fair Daddy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1969, p. 128 ( online - 17 November 1969 ).
  4. ^ CDU Lower Saxony: History of the regional association. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , accessed on December 13, 2012 .
  5. ↑ They knew what they were doing . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1976, p. 19 ( Online - February 9, 1976 ).
  6. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein : 1976 , In: Hannover Chronik , p. 273ff.
  7. ^ Lower Saxony State Archives: Online Finding Aids. Retrieved December 13, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Alfred Kubel died. Spiegel Online , May 23, 1999, accessed December 13, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Vorwärts newspaper, June 2013 edition, obituary for Helmut Kasimier
personal data
SURNAME Kubel, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), Member of the State Parliament, Prime Minister of the states of Braunschweig and Lower Saxony
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1999
Place of death Bad Pyrmont