Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Until 1957 the seat of the all-German ministry: the old town house in Bonn.
From 1967 to 1973 the ministry resided in the high-rise on the tulip field .

The Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations ( BMB ) was established in 1949 under the name Federal Ministry for All-German Issues ( BMG ). In 1969, as part of the new Ostpolitik, it was given the new designation " intra-German relations ". It was dissolved in 1991 after German reunification .

Responsibilities and objectives

The Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations was responsible for all matters relating to the GDR , but at the beginning also reported further claims. The statement attributed to the first Federal Minister for Pan-German Issues, Jakob Kaiser , is often quoted : “A true Europe can only be formed if German unity is restored. It includes, I remind you, besides Germany ( within the borders of 1937 ) also Austria, part of Switzerland, the Saar and Alsace-Lorraine. ”However, this is a confidential conversation held on March 2, 1951 in Salzburg ; The quote was circulated in this form by Emil Lehnen , so that the suspicion arises that the separatist Saar politician might have exaggerated a statement made by Kaiser for tactical reasons.

Erich Mende (1963–1966 Federal Minister for All-German Issues and FDP Chairman 1960–1968) stated in 1965:

"[...] the questions that affect all of Germany (include) neither South Tyrol nor Alsace-Lorraine [...]. For this reason and also because of the more precise description of our mandate, I would prefer the official title 'Federal Minister for Reunification Issues'. "

The de facto diplomatic contacts between the two German states were formally the responsibility of this Ministry, not the Foreign Office , on the part of the Federal Republic . In practice, however, the Federal Government's policy towards the GDR was largely determined by the Federal Chancellery .

In the course of the unification of the two German states , the work of this ministry became obsolete. It was therefore dissolved in 1991 at the beginning of the twelfth electoral period , the first all-German. His legal successor is the Federal Ministry of the Interior .

history

The Federal Ministry for All-German Issues was founded in 1949 and was initially active in the fight against communism. The Federal Ministry created a secret card index that recorded over 20,000 alleged anti-democrats and communist friends in the Federal Republic. The collected data was used by the ministry itself as well as by the Federal Intelligence Service , the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and probably also by the US secret service CIA .

In the early years, the ministry hardly had any of its own staff and therefore relied in its work “on a large number of private clubs and associations”, which it “tied to itself in the sense of a 'gray administration', financially promoted or as covert, more or less subordinate under private law Ministerialabteilung. ”In 1952, according to its own survey, the BMG maintained contacts with around 400 such organizations. The most important were the Eastern offices of parties, churches and trade unions, but also the fighting group against inhumanity , the investigative committee of freedom lawyers or the “Office for All-German Student Issues” of the VDS . In 1969 most of the remaining organizations were transferred to the newly created All-German Institute - Federal Office for All-German Issues .

people

Federal Minister 1949 to 1991

No. Surname Life dates Political party Beginning of the term of office Term expires Term of office
in days
Federal Minister for All-German Issues
01 Jakob Kaiser 1888-1961 CDU September 20, 1949 October 29, 1957 2961
02 Ernst Lemmer 1898-1970 CDU October 29, 1957 December 13, 1962 1780
03 Rainer Barzel 1924-2006 CDU December 14, 1962 October 11, 1963 392
04th Erich Mende 1916-1998 FDP 17th October 1963 October 28, 1966 1107
05 Johann Baptist Gradl 1904-1988 CDU October 28, 1966 November 30, 1966 33
06th Herbert Wehner 1906-1990 SPD 1st December 1966 October 21, 1969 1055
Federal Minister for Internal German Relations
07th Egon Franke 1913-1995 SPD October 22, 1969 October 1, 1982 4727
08th Rainer Barzel 1924-2006 CDU 4th October 1982 March 29, 1983 170
09 Heinrich Windelen 1921-2015 CDU March 30, 1983 March 11, 1987 1442
10 Dorothee Wilms * 1929 CDU March 12, 1987 January 18, 1991 1408

Official State Secretaries

Parliamentary State Secretaries

Publications

The Federal Ministry published many writings on the division of Germany , most of which were scientifically founded and had an educational character. The political mandate of promoting reunification by peaceful means, which until the beginning of the 1970s also referred to the areas beyond the Oder-Neisse line , was clearly evident in some of the writings. Some older BMgF publications are listed below:

  • BMgF (Ed.): SBZ from A to Z , Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Bonn, 1st to 10th ed., 1953 to 1966, approx. 500 pages.
  • BMgF (Ed.): Soviet views on the German question 1945–1954. Represented according to official documents , Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Bonn, 1954.
  • BMgF (ed.): Who is who in the SBZ? A biographical handbook , Verlag for International Cultural Exchange, Berlin, 1958.
  • BMgF (ed.): The situation of young people in the communist system of rule of the Soviet occupation zone in Germany in Bonn reports from Central and Eastern Germany , Bonn - Berlin, 1960.
  • BMgF (Ed.): The efforts of the Federal Republic to restore the unity of Germany through all-German elections. Documents and files. Part I, October 1949 - October 1953, Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Bonn, 1958.
  • Federal Ministry for innerdt. Relations (ed.): The blocking measures of the GDR from May 1952: The blocking measures of the Soviet zone government at the zone border and around West Berlin , facsimile reprint d. White Paper from 1953, Lübeck: Wullenwever, 1953, DNB 891507477 .
  • Federal Ministry for Inner-German Relations (Ed.): The construction of the wall through Berlin: the escape from the Soviet zone and the blocking measures of the communist regime of August 13, 1961 in Berlin , facsimile reprint of the memorandum of 1961, 1st supplemented edition, Wolfenbüttel : Roco-Druck, 1988, OCLC 180482809 .

In addition to its own publications, the BMG - similar to the Federal Agency for Civic Education to this day - had so-called special editions of relevant titles produced by other publishers.

Foundations

This article or section needs to be revised: here apples and pears are mixed: the prizes were donated, but were not foundations in the legal sense!
Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Until its dissolution in 1991, the Federal Ministry maintained four foundations:

  1. Kuratorium Stiftung Deutschlandhaus
  2. Foundation of a literary prize - Thomas Dehler Prize ; not to be confused with the award of the same name from the Thomas Dehler Foundation
  3. The Ministry awarded the Ernst Reuter Prize primarily as a radio but also as a television prize and was endowed with DM 10,000  . For an award, contributions in the categories of radio play and information broadcast had to derive “their topic from the problem of the division of Germany and the relationship between the people in the two German states”.
  4. Foundation of a television prize - Jakob Kaiser Prize . This prize was awarded annually from 1960 by the Federal Ministry for All-German Issues for the best television broadcast or report and was endowed with 10,000  DM .

literature

  • Heinz Hoffmann (editor): The Federal Ministries 1949–1999. Designations, official abbreviations, responsibilities, organizational structure, management personnel (=  materials from the Federal Archives . Issue 8). Wirtschaftsverlag NW GmbH, Bremerhaven 2003, ISBN 3-86509-075-3 , p. 280-288 .
  • Stefan Creuzberger : Fight for unity. The all-German ministry and the political culture of the Cold War 1949–1969 (writings of the Federal Archives 69), Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-7700-1625-9 ( review by Sehepunkte ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 26, 1952, remote edition, sheet 5.
  2. ↑ Herbert Elzer, Konrad Adenauer, Jakob Kaiser and the "little reunification". The federal ministries in the foreign policy struggle for the Saar . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2008, pp. 178-180.
  3. ↑ Werner Höfer : Do not nurture illusions… . In: Die Zeit , October 29, 1965.
  4. ↑ a b HISTORIKER: Psychological warfare . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 2008 ( online - October 6, 2008 ).
  5. ↑ Creuzberger , Kampf für die Einheit, pp. 440 ff. And 481.
  6. ↑ Creuzberger, Struggle for Unity, p. 141.
  7. ^ Creuzberger, Struggle for Unity, p. 492 ff.
  8. ↑ Printed matter 12/594 German Bundestag - 12th electoral term On the portfolio of the Federal Minister for Internal German Relations , see page 150 of 188 ( PDF file; 3.5 MB)
  9. ↑ a b Nothing new about the division of Germany . In: Der Spiegel . No. 53 , 1979 ( online - 31 December 1979 ).