Working group of democratic circles

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The Working Group Democratic Circles (ADK) was an association initiated in 1951 by the German government at the time ( Cabinet Adenauer I ) and financed with taxpayers' money, which was supposed to propagate its politics in public opinion . In 1969 the ADK was dissolved at the federal level, in individual federal states regional associations existed for a long time. Today only the Bavarian Working Group on Democratic Circles (BADK) still exists .

assignment

The ADK should conduct so-called “civic education work” in the pre-political and pre-parliamentary area, especially with regard to security policy , which in view of the global post-war situation (including the Cold War , many refugees from the Soviet-occupied GDR ) has close ties to the West (“Westbind “) Should ensure. It was "officially an independent and non-partisan association, in reality a dubious CDU apron organization that soon spanned a network of 17,000 volunteers and 500 speakers across the republic." From 1951 to 1963 the ADK held over 50,000 conferences and discussion events.

history

The association was founded in December 1951. In addition to the then State Secretary Otto Lenz , Konrad Adenauer's PR advisor Hans Edgar Jahn played a key role. Jahn was head of the ADK until 1957 and then its president until the organization was dissolved in 1969.

In the mid-1950s, the ADK was heavily involved in political public relations work on rearming :

“They drummed for ties to the West, brought brochures among the people, invited people to lecture evenings or showed films. Traveling exhibitions that were less aimed at individual visitors and were more intended to give the local press an opportunity to report were particularly successful. […] In 1955, the association sent 300,000 letters in which a 'Margot from Essen' addressed all the 'women and mothers' of the republic, warning of the dangers from the East and, in doing so, subtly pointing out the end of the Second World War and the mass rapes at Alluded to the invasion of the Red Army . "

During a lecture in Nuremberg in 1962, ADK President Jahn described the South African apartheid regime as a "model for all of Africa" ​​and claimed: "In no other country are the Negroes doing so well".

In 1957 the Defense Committee also dealt with the ADK as a committee of inquiry in the German Bundestag .

In 1963 the ADK had around 104,000 voluntary employees. The SPD was involved in the federal government from 1966 ( Kiesinger cabinet ) and had the dissolution of this de facto preliminary organization of the CDU / CSU stipulated in the coalition agreement. In 1968 the ADK decided to dissolve it at the federal level. In some Union-governed countries, legally independent regional associations continued to exist for some time; the ADK regional association of Bavaria still exists today.

Bavarian Working Group for Democratic Circles (BADK)

The Bavarian Working Group on Democratic Circles (BADK) was established as a registered association in 1954. Its headquarters are in Munich , the office is in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm .

Founding chairman was Wilhelm Albrecht von Schoen (1886–1960), who was German ambassador to Chile from 1935 to 1943. After his death, the Rodingen CSU district administrator and later Bavarian State Secretary for Economic Affairs Franz Sackmann ( CSU ) took over the chairmanship for 39 years, his deputy was the armaments manager Sepp Hort (CSU). In 1999 Sackmann's son Markus (CSU) became BADK chairman. The non-partisan educational work was partially financed by the Bavarian State Center for Political Education . Its head Peter März (CSU) was suspended in August 2011 after the Bavarian Supreme Court of Auditors found irregularities in a report in 2008/2009 and discussed the annual donations to the BADK in the amount of EUR 35,100.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gabriele Metzler : West link. In: The European Lexicon. Federal Agency for Civic Education , 2013, accessed on March 5, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Tim Schanetzky : Adenauerzeit (part 4): When the journalists got cheeky. In: Die Zeit 44/2009. October 22, 2009, accessed March 5, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Personal details : Hans-Edgar Jahn. In: Der Spiegel . July 18, 1962, p. 68 , accessed March 5, 2019 .
  4. ^ Articles of Association. (pdf, 130 kB) Bavarian Working Group for Democratic Circles, August 9, 2011, accessed on March 5, 2019 .
  5. ^ Otto von Loewenstern: Bavaria: All power for Franz Sackmann. In: The time . October 27, 1961. Retrieved March 5, 2019 .