Bjorn Engholm

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Björn Engholm (2019)

Björn Engholm (born November 9, 1939 in Lübeck-Moisling ) is a German politician ( SPD ).

Engholm was Federal Minister for Education and Science from 1981 to 1982, and in 1982 also Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Forests . From 1988 to 1993 he was Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein . From 1991 to 1993 he was federal chairman of the SPD and until his resignation from all offices in May 1993 the designated candidate for chancellor of the SPD.

Life and work

Björn Engholm - the second child of a forwarding agent - visited the Johanneum in Lübeck , which he left in 1958 with secondary school leaving certificate. He completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter at the publishing house of the social democratic daily Lübeck Free Press . Until 1962 he worked as a butcher and typesetter. In 1959 Engholm became a member of the IG Druck und Papier .

At the same time he studied on the second educational path at the University of Economics and Politics in Hamburg . In 1962 he began studying politics, economics and sociology at the University of Hamburg , which he graduated with a diploma in political science. Then he worked as a lecturer in youth and adult education.

After his political career, Engholm signed a consulting contract in 1994 with the energy company PreussenElektra , which was involved in the Brokdorf and Brunsbüttel nuclear power plants in Schleswig-Holstein . He caused outrage, especially in his own party, because as an active politician he had always distinguished himself with his negative attitude towards nuclear power - and especially these nuclear power plants.

Engholm was also a curator at St. Petri Church in Lübeck for ten years and also served on the board of the Overbeck Society .

Björn Engholm has been married to the painter Barbara Engholm (* 1940) since 1964 and has two daughters.

Political party

Björn Engholm joined the SPD in 1962. From 1965 to 1969 he was chairman of the Jusos Lübeck. In the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein in 1983 , 1987 , 1988 and 1992 , he stood as the top candidate of his party.

In May 1984 he was elected to the federal executive committee of the SPD, in 1988 to the SPD presidium. On May 29, 1991, Engholm was elected federal chairman of the SPD at the SPD federal party conference in Bremen as the successor to Hans-Jochen Vogel , who was no longer running for reasons of age. Björn Engholm was thus also the SPD's designated candidate for Chancellor for the 1994 federal election . In May 1993 Engholm resigned from his post as Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein because of the drawer affair and resigned all party offices, including the SPD chairmanship.

MP

From 1969 to 1983 Engholm was a member of the German Bundestag . He has always entered the Bundestag as a directly elected member of the Lübeck constituency .

After the state elections in 1983 he became a member of the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. Here he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and thus led the opposition until he was elected Prime Minister in 1988 . He resigned prematurely from the state parliament on November 7, 1994.

Public offices

Björn Engholm, 1989

On May 18, 1977, Engholm was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Science in the federal government led by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . After Jürgen Schmude changed to the office of Federal Minister of Justice in January 1981, Engholm took over the office of Federal Minister of Education and Science himself on January 28, 1981.

After the FDP federal ministers left the federal government, Engholm was also federal minister for food, agriculture and forestry from September 17 to October 1, 1982. With the election of Helmut Kohl ( CDU ) as Federal Chancellor on October 1, 1982, Engholm's term of office as Federal Minister ended.

In 1983 he was the top candidate of the Schleswig-Holstein SPD for the first time . However, the CDU under Prime Minister Uwe Barschel was able to defend and expand its absolute majority .

The Schleswig-Holstein state elections in 1987 were already overshadowed by the so-called Barschel affair surrounding media officer Reiner Pfeiffer . The CDU lost its absolute majority and Uwe Barschel resigned as Prime Minister. On October 11, 1987, Barschel committed suicide, one day before he was to be questioned before a committee of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament. The formation of a government failed because of the stalemate in the state parliament and the unresolved affair. On May 8, 1988 there were new elections , in which the SPD was able to win an absolute majority with 54.8 percent of the votes and an increase of 9.6 percentage points, while the CDU lost 9.3 percentage points to 33.3 percent who had to accept voices.

Engholm was elected Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein on May 31, 1988. In accordance with his schedule, he was also President of the Federal Council from November 1, 1988 to October 31, 1989 .

Resignation from all political offices

Björn Engholm resigned from all political offices on May 3, 1993 after uncertainties arose again in the course of the Barschel affair . Above all, he was accused of making false statements before the first committee of inquiry ( drawer affair ). Engholm had untruthfully declared there that he had not known anything about Pfeiffer's spying before the state elections in 1987. The resignation also meant that an SPD candidate for Chancellor in the 1994 federal election , which had meanwhile been promised, did not materialize.

Social offices

Bjorn Engholm

In 1997 Engholm became a board member of the Pro Baltica Forum association . In this capacity he represented the idea of ​​a New Hanseatic League as a cooperation between the Baltic Sea countries. On June 13, 2005 he was awarded the Willy Brandt Prize for his services to the promotion of German-Scandinavian relations . From 2001 to 2010 he was chairman of the Kulturforum (social democracy) Schleswig-Holstein e. V. In 2002 he became chairman of the university advisory board of the University of Lübeck . In 2014 Engholm received the “Schleswig-Holstein Milestone” award from the Association of German Sinti and Roma e. V. - Schleswig-Holstein State Association for its many years of commitment to the Sinti and Roma minority.

See also

Activity as chairman of the advisory board

  • in the EAP company CarpeDiem24
  • at the ALP Academic Training Institute for Psychology GmbH. Master’s degree in communication and industrial psychology MSc.

Works

  • On the public use of reason. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-426-77008-3 .
  • Think with your heart, feel with your head? University of Applied Sciences, Pforzheim 1997.

literature

Web links

Commons : Björn Engholm  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Living Museum Online: Biography Björn Engholm
  2. ^ Susann Hellwig and Ludwig Rademacher: Affair "Brisante Kiste" . Nuclear power opponent Engholm as a nuclear consultant: The Kiel SPD fears for its reputation. Ed .: Focus. 1994 ( focus.de [accessed April 4, 2012]).
  3. ^ Searching for Truth in the Coastal Fog , article from May 7, 1993 on Zeit Online
  4. ↑ spd-geschichtswerkstatt.de
  5. ↑ www.uni-luebeck.de
  6. ^ Schleswig-Holstein milestone - Association of German Sinti and Roma e. V.
personal data
SURNAME Engholm, Björn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL, MdB
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck