Barthold C. Witte

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Barthold C. Witte with Irmgard Adam-Schwaetzer , 1988
The grave of Barthold C. Witte in the old cemetery in Bonn.

Barthold Carl Witte (born May 19, 1928 in Kirchberg (Hunsrück) ; † November 1, 2018 in Bonn ) was a German ministerial official and writer .

education and profession

Barthold C. Witte was a pastor's son and grew up in Solingen-Wald . He attended high schools in Solingen, Löwenberg (Silesia) and Dresden . After anti-aircraft war service in Dresden, two years as a farmhand in Merxheim (Nahe) and the Abitur in Sobernheim , he studied history, German and geography at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Zurich from 1947 . Before he finished his studies, he was appointed to Bonn in 1952 as assistant to the Bundestag Vice-President and FDP parliamentary group leader Hermann Schäfer . In 1957, he was with a thesis on power and land in the Rheingau at Mainz University doctorate . In 1958/59 he was press officer in the Saarland Ministry of Economics . In 1959 he became one of the leading editors of "Confidential Business Letters", a magazine published in Detmold .

In 1963 he became head of the international department of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Bonn, and from 1965 to 1971 he was its managing director. He was a member of the board of directors from 1961 to 1964 and deputy chairman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation from 1991 to 1995 ; From 1976–1991 he was a member of the foundation's board of trustees, was a member of the advisory board in 1959/60, and in 1960/61 and from 1978 to 1986 its chairman. From 1992 to 2002 Witte acted as publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine " liberal ". For many years and until his death he was a member of the board of trustees of the Wolf-Erich-Kellner-Gedächtnisstiftung for the awarding of the Wolf-Erich-Kellner Prize .

In 1971 Witte was appointed to the Bonn Foreign Office by Federal Foreign Minister Walter Scheel . Here he was head of the policy department, head of the planning staff and from 1983 to 1991 as head of the cultural department, he was involved in foreign cultural policy. In 1973/74 he was a member of the delegation of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Geneva . 1974/75 he worked as an envoy at the German embassy in Cairo .

politics

Member of the FDP since 1950 , Witte founded a liberal university group in Mainz and was involved in the establishment of the Liberal Student Union Germany (LSD) in Bonn in 1952 . From 1956 to 1958 he was managing director of the FDP / DPS parliamentary group in Saarbrücken . From 1959 to 1963 he was a member of the federal executive committee of the German Young Democrats . From 1960 to 1964 he worked as general secretary, later president of the World League of Liberal Youth . Witte was in the FDP a. a. Chairman of the Church Commission. Witte later became involved in Liberal International , u. a. as its vice-president from 1978 to 1986, as well as in the association of liberal academics .

Documents on Witte's work for the party and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation are in the Archives of Liberalism in Gummersbach .

Others

Witte, a member of the regional synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland since 1977 , was appointed to the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany in 1991.

From 1996 to 2001 he was chairman of the working group of independent cultural institutes (AsKI).

Witte had been married since 1952 and had an adoptive son.

Awards

Publications

  • Dominion and land in the Rheingau , Meisenheim 1959.
  • What is the German Fatherland? , Mainz 1967.
  • The Prussian Tacitus. Rise, fame and end of the historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr 1776–1831 , Düsseldorf 1979.
  • (Ed. Together with Heinz Commer) Bonn provocations. Background and practice of modern politics and economics , Munich 1982.
  • David's son. The Flight into Egypt , Pfullingen 1985.
  • Dialogue across borders. Contributions to foreign cultural policy , Pfullingen 1988.
  • From the freedom of the mind. Position determinations of a decade , St. Augustin 1998.
  • An alley for freedom. From the life of a liberal , Stuttgart / Leipzig 2003.
  • Freedom i mean. People, works, events from two centuries , Berlin 2008.
  • The exit. Detective novel , Bonn 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice Barthold C. Witte. In: Bonner General-Anzeiger . November 6, 2018, accessed November 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Jürgen Frölich : Barthold C. Witte died at the age of 90. An old friend has passed away. In: freiheit.org . November 7, 2018, accessed November 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ All information based on documents from the Archives of Liberalism (ADL) of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .
  4. ↑ Wolf-Erich-Kellner-Preis - WEK Memorial Foundation. In: archiv . Freiheit.org . Retrieved November 5, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Witte, Barthold C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Witte, Barthold Carl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ministerial official (FDP)
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
DATE OF DEATH 1st November 2018
Place of death Bonn