Burkhard Hirsch

Burkhard Hirsch (1979)

Burkhard Hirsch (born May 29, 1930 in Magdeburg ; † March 11, 2020 in Düsseldorf ) was a German politician ( FDP ). From 1975 to 1980 he was Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia and from 1994 to 1998 Vice President of the German Bundestag . He campaigned for the protection of democratic civil rights and opposed government surveillance measures that undermine these rights.

Life and work

He was the son of District Court Director Alfred Hirsch. After graduating from high school in Halle (Saale) in 1948 , Hirsch completed a law degree in Marburg , which he completed in 1954 with the first state examination and in 1959 with the second state examination . From 1960 to 1967 he worked for the Iron and Steel Industry Association. In 1961 he received his doctorate in law. From 1964 he was admitted to the Düsseldorf bar. From 1967 to 1971 he was legal advisor at Walzstahlkontor West GmbH in Duisburg-Rheinhausen and from 1973 to 1975 director at Mannesmann AG in Düsseldorf.

For decades, Hirsch belonged to the German Humanist Union , a non-state association for the protection and enforcement of civil rights. Burkhard Hirsch was married and had two children.

politics

Burkhard Hirsch at the FDP federal party conference in Cologne in 1981

Hirsch joined the LDP in Halle (Saale) as early as 1948 . After fleeing to West Germany, he became a member of the FDP and the German Young Democrats (DJD) in 1949 . From 1959 to 1964, Hirsch was regional council chairman of the DJD North Rhine-Westphalia. Between 1971 and 1977 he held the office of district chairman of the FDP Düsseldorf, of which he had been a member since 1965. From 1979 to 1983 he was state chairman of the FDP North Rhine-Westphalia , after having been a member of the state executive since 1971. Hirsch was a member of the FDP federal executive from 1976 to 2005.

Hirsch decidedly rejected the coalition change of the FDP to the Union in 1982 (what was then known as the Wende ), but remained in the party , like Gerhart Baum and Hildegard Hamm-Brücher .

In the affair of the destruction of files and data in the Bonn Chancellery (" Federal Deletion Days ") after the election defeat of Helmut Kohl's government in 1998, Hirsch was an officially appointed special investigator of the investigative committee . He proved that there were significant gaps in the files in explosive areas such as the Leuna sales affair and arms deals with the Middle East. There were loopholes in files on trust privatizations, the export of weapons from Fuchs sniffer tanks and the construction of a tank factory in Canada. Burkhard Hirsch's report on the “Federal Extinguishing Days” was not officially published, but later came to the public through the press (see web links). During the work of the committee, Hirsch was massively criticized , especially by the CDU and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .

Burkhard Hirsch belonged to the Freiburg district and the left- wing liberal wing of the FDP. The legal expert has repeatedly advocated the protection of civil rights . Together with his party colleagues Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Gerhart Rudolf Baum , he successfully proceeded before the Federal Constitutional Court against parts of the so-called large eavesdropping attack .

On October 16, 1998, Hirsch voted in the Bundestag against the participation of German soldiers in a possible NATO bombing of Yugoslavia . He was the only FDP member (plus the PDS Bundestag group, 21 SPD politicians, 9 Greens, 1 Union politician, 1 non-attached). In his oral statement, he made it clear that he considered this war to be immoral, contrary to international law and unnecessary. First, humanitarian aid is not linked to military force. Second, the 13th German Bundestag (1994–1998), the last session of which this vote took place, was no longer authorized to vote on German participation in the war, because the recent Bundestag elections had already decided on a new composition of the Bundestag. This new Bundestag must deal with the decision on war and peace. Third, the United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force unless the UN Security Council agrees. This consent was not given, so that the war would cause irreparable damage to international law.

In early 2005 put Hirsch also against the controversial Aviation Security Act , which in the case of terrorist airliner hijackings would explicitly allow the military firing at potential risk of skyscraper attacks, constitutional complaint one. On February 15, 2006, the Federal Constitutional Court declared Section 14 III of the Aviation Security Act to be incompatible with the Basic Law and therefore null and void. The judges followed the complainants in their decision on almost every point.

Another constitutional complaint was filed by Hirsch and other liberals against the data retention policy adopted in November 2007 . Hirsch was an official supporter of the surveillance-critical data protection demonstration Freedom Instead of Fear .

In 2011, Hirsch supported, together with the two FDP MPs Frank Schäffler and Holger Krahmer, the procedure for an internal party membership decision of the FDP on the European Stability Mechanism .

He was one of the supporters of the Charter of Fundamental Digital Rights of the European Union , which was published at the end of November 2016.

From 1981 to 1990 he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation .

MP

From 1964 to 1972, Hirsch was councilor of the city of Düsseldorf. From 1972 to 1975 and from 1980 to 1998 he was a member of the German Bundestag and from November 1994 to October 1998 its vice-president . Burkhard Hirsch always entered the German Bundestag via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia. He did not reapply for a mandate for the legislative period that began in 1998.

Public offices

After the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1975 , Hirsch was appointed Minister of the Interior in the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia led by Prime Minister Heinz Kühn ( SPD ) on May 28, 1975 . He also kept this office under Prime Minister Johannes Rau (SPD) , who was in office from 1978 . On November 19, 1979, he was also appointed Deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since the state FDP, headed by him since 1979, failed in the state elections in 1980 because of the five percent hurdle and the SPD was able to achieve an absolute majority , Hirsch left the state government on June 4, 1980. In 1983 he lost the state chairmanship of the FDP to Jürgen Möllemann .

In 1992 he was defeated by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in an intra-party vote on the successor to Klaus Kinkel as Federal Minister of Justice .

Honors (selection)

Burkhard Hirsch, 2017

• 2016 honorary citizen of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences
• 2006 honorary doctorate from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt / Main
• 2006 Fritz Bauer Prize of the Humanist Union
• 1998 Arnold Freymuth Prize
• 1998 Josef Neuberger Medal
• 1976 Theodor Heuss Prize of the Theodor Heuss Foundation

Publications

• About Bedbugs - Comments on the "Great Eavesdropping". In: Humanist Union e. V. (Ed.): Internal security as a danger. Berlin 2003, pp. 195–203, ISBN 3-930416-23-9 .
• Fend off the bitter end! - In the fight against internal enemies, politics loses all measure. In: Die Zeit , 10/2005 Read here online .
• The fundamental right to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of information technology systems. In: Neue Juristische online Zeitschrift , vol. 2008, pp. 1907 ff.
• (together with Gerhart Baum ): The tree and the deer. Germany from its liberal side . Propylaea, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-549-07471-8 .

See also

• Cabinet Kühn III - Cabinet Rau I

literature

• Frederik Roggan (ed.): Rightly for human dignity and the constitutional state. Ceremony for Dr. Burkhard Hirsch. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8305-1224-0 .
• Ewald Grothe , Maximilian Spohr: Burkhard Hirsch. An icon of the liberal rule of law. Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Potsdam 2020, ISBN 978-3-9822020-0-6 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Burkhard Hirsch  - Collection of Images

Wikiquote: Burkhard Hirsch  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Burkhard Hirsch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Interview with Burkhard Hirsch , 2017 on the Youtube channel of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
• Burkhard Hirsch: An Icon of the Liberal Rule of Law , Publication of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, 2020
• Burkhard Hirsch: The Rule Machine (guest article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010)
• Official report by Burkhard Hirsch on the " Bundeslöschtage " affair (as PDF in the Internet archive, 1.5 MB each): Part 1 (pages 1–20) ( Memento from July 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1, 6 MB), Part 2 (pages 21–40) ( Memento from August 21, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.6 MB), Part 3 (pages 41–61) ( Memento from August 21, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.6 MB)
• Acceptance speech for the award of the Fritz Bauer Prize of the Humanist Union in Freiburg on September 16, 2006.
• Burkhard Hirsch in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SZ-Magazin November 24, 2014, accessed on March 13, 2020
2. ↑ Martin Klingst: data loss . In: Die Zeit , No. 26, June 18, 2003.
3. ^ Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti: Journalists in court - data destroyer free , November 9, 2001 .
4. ^ Rainer Blasius: Embarrassment . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 38, February 14, 2004, p. 1.
5. ↑ Heinz Loquai: The Kosovo conflict - way in an avoidable war. Edited by Dieter S. Lutz. Nomos publishing company. Baden-Baden 2000, pp. 116, 175 f.
6. ↑ Data retention: constitutional complaint necessary - notification of November 30, 2007 on leutheusser-schnarrenberger.de ; Ex-Bundestag Vice President sues against data retention , report on de.internet.com, November 12, 2007.
7. ^ Demonstration of freedom instead of fear , list of supporters .
8. ↑ Heribert Prantl : Strange phalanx against the reserve parachute . In: sueddeutsche.de , September 17, 2011, accessed on March 19, 2018.
9. ↑ Euro exchange rate of the Union: Is Merkel threatening a member survey? In: Stern.de , September 16, 2011.
10. ^ Report on the award ceremony on the pages of the Humanist Union .