Botho Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein

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Botho zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein
Candidate poster for the 1965 federal election

Botho Eberhard Ernst August Chlodwig Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (born February 16, 1927 in Eisenach , † January 27, 2008 in Bad Reichenhall ) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was a member of the Bundestag from 1965 to 1980 . After leaving the Bundestag, he was President of the German Red Cross from 1982 to 1994 and then Honorary President of the DRK and Chairman of the Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

Life

Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein was the youngest of four children of Georg Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (1873-1960), from the Sayn-Wittgenstein family , and Marie Freiin von Freusburg, née Rühm (1892-1975), the daughter of a Princely Lippe Oberforstrate, born. On December 12, 1916, the mother was awarded the title of Freifrau von Freusburg by the Fürstlich Lippische award in Detmold. Due to the fact that the parents were not married according to house law at the time of the nobility and imperial era, the children received the civil and legal surname Freiherr von Freusburg or Freiin von Freusburg via the mother.

With the exception of Botho's eldest brother, Rolf Georg Freiherr von Freusburg, who was born in the imperial era in 1914, the siblings who were born in the Weimar Republic from 1919 applied for a change of name to their father Georg Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein to Princess or Prince zu Sayn- Wittgenstein-Hohenstein, which the district court in Eisenach with prior consent from August Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (1868-1948), the last prince of the Laaspher zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein line and eldest brother of Georg Prinz zu Sayn until 1919 -Wittgenstein-Hohenstein, issued by order on April 1, 1946.

Since 1959 he was married to Elisabeth Freiin von Zedlitz and Leipe (1937–2020). The marriage resulted in three children, son Georg, b. on April 4, 1960, and the daughters Friederike, geb. on November 21, 1962, and Katharina on September 22, 1965.

Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein moved in 1945 from Eisenach to Laasphe, today Bad Laasphe , the hometown of his ancestors, where he graduated from high school a year later. He then completed training as a nurse. He then studied medicine at the Philipps University in Marburg and worked from 1955 to 1956 as a doctor for the German India Expedition . From 1957 to 1958 he managed a family forest estate. Later he was chairman of the board of directors of Fürst Wittgenstein'schen Waldbesitzergesellschaft in Bad Laasphe until 2001.

Act

In the years 1958/1959 he was first deputy mayor, from 1959 to 1969 mayor of the city of Laasphe. From 1965 to 1980 Botho Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein was a member of the German Bundestag for the CDU. When he ran for the first time in the Bundestag in 1965, he won the direct mandate in the Siegen-Wittgenstein constituency . In the subsequent federal elections in 1969, 1972 and 1976, he entered the Bundestag via the state list of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia.

As a member of the Bundestag for the CDU, Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein was Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Youth, Family and Health after 1972 and also spokesman for the CDU / CSU parliamentary group on health policy . In this role he also headed the German Bundestag's pharmaceutical law subcommittee until 1976, which drafted the first pharmaceutical law passed by the Bundestag. From 1973 to 1980 he was successively vice-chairman and chairman of the Interparliamentary Association, an international association of parliamentarians from different countries. In the 90s and 2000s, Botho Prince Wittgenstein was a member of the television council of the Second German Television (ZDF).

He had already become a member of the German Red Cross (DRK) in 1944. In 1979 he was elected to the DRK Presidium. In 1982 he became President of the DRK and in 1988 he was re-elected for a further term until 1994. During his tenure in late 1990, the DRK of the Federal Republic was unified with the DRK of the GDR. Since November 11, 1994 he was DRK Honorary President and continued to be a member of the DRK Board of Trustees. From 1993 to 1995 he was also Chairman of the Standing Commission of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement .

On Constitution Day on May 22, 1984, Federal President Karl Carstens awarded him the Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, on May 11, 1987 he received the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia , and in 1995, Federal President Roman Herzog awarded him the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon awarded. In the same year he received the Henry Dunant Medal of the Red Cross Movement. In 2002, the Laaspher mayor from 1959 to 1969, who was based at Hof Breitenbach between the Bad Laaspher districts Herbertshausen and Feudingen , received the letter of honor from the city of Bad Laasphe . Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein died on January 27, 2008 at the age of 80.

literature

Web links

Commons : Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. The family's obituary in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 30, 2008, p. 41.
  2. Festschrift "75 Years of the Städtisches Gymnasium Bad Laasphe, 1923–1998", Bad Laasphe 1998, p. 231.
  3. Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .