Ernst Knäpper

Ernst Knäpper (born August 27, 1920 in Schwelm ; died June 3, 1986 in Berlin ) was a German party official and politician of the SPD .

Life

As a child, Ernst Knäpper was a member of the Kinderfreunde Rote Falken and as a teenager a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth . He completed his apprenticeship as a brush maker in 1937. Knäpper did military service in the Second World War and was taken prisoner of war. In 1946 he found a job at the employment office in Schwelm. In the same year he was elected to the Schwelm City Council as an SPD member. Knäpper got involved in the rebuilding of the workers 'organizations Falken and the workers' welfare (AWO) and in 1948 became an employee of the party organization. In 1949 he was elected chief district manager of the SPD district of Western Westphalia. He held this position as a party worker until 1980.

Until he moved to Dortmund in 1956, Knäpper was also a member of the district council in the Ennepe-Ruhr district and chairman of the SPD parliamentary group. He was also elected city councilor in Dortmund and from 1961 to 1969 also chairman of the parliamentary group. From 1953 he was a member of the Landscape Assembly Westphalia-Lippe and held the office of chairman from 1965 to 1973. Since 1966 he was also district chairman of the Dortmund AWO.

In the SPD he was elected to the party council and to the organizing committee of the SPD party executive . He was one of the party's political pragmatists.

Knäpper received the Federal Order of Merit, First Class, in 1957 the Marie Juchacz plaque from the AWO and the city plaque from the city of Dortmund.

literature

• Udo Vorholt: Ernst Knäpper , in: Bernd Faulenbach , Stefan Goch , Günther Högl, Karsten Rudolph , Uwe Schledorn: Social Democracy in Transition: the District of Western Westphalia 1893–2001 . 4th edition. Essen: Klartext, 2001 ISBN 3-89861-062-4 , p. 224f.

Web links

• Double rabbit . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1972 ( online ).