Gert Hoffmann

This article deals with the politician Gert Hoffmann. For the actor see Gert Günther Hoffmann , for other people see Gerd Hoffmann .

Gert Hoffmann (2006)

Gert Hoffmann (born March 1, 1946 in Berlin-Kreuzberg ) is a German administrative lawyer and politician ( CDU , previously NPD ). From November 1, 2001 to July 1, 2014 he was Lord Mayor of Braunschweig .

Life

Scientific career

After graduating from high school at the Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem in Berlin in 1967 and doing military service in Wesendorf ( Gifhorn district ), Hoffmann studied law at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . The clerkship he made from 1972 to 1974 in the city of Göttingen and the administrative district Hildesheim . After the assessor exam in 1974 he was a research assistant at the university until 1975. In 1987 he did his doctorate with Edzard Schmidt-Jortzig at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel .

job

From 1975 to 1976 Hoffmann was an assessor at the Lower Saxony Association of Towns and Municipalities and the Landkreis Hadeln in Otterndorf . In May 1976 he became joint municipality and municipality director of the joint municipality Hemmoor . In 1979 he stood for the election of city director in Gifhorn , where Hoffmann worked from 1981 to 1991. After the reunification he became the first district president in the Dessau administrative region in January 1991 . During this time, numerous important decisions were made for the region. Hoffmann, for example, encouraged the Federal Environment Agency to move to Dessau , played a key role in the rapid settlement of Bayer AG in Bitterfeld , and advocated a strengthening of inner cities through a consistent spatial planning policy . In addition, Hoffmann founded the Society of Friends of the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm , which is now the largest private association for cultural institutions in Saxony-Anhalt .

After the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 1994 led to the Magdeburg model , Hoffmann was dismissed by the new Prime Minister Reinhard Höppner . Hoffmann then worked as a lawyer in business consulting and became deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Stahl- und Maschinenbau AG in Regis-Breitingen .

In 1997 he was on the shortlist as a possible head of the trust property company . The federal cabinet decided on Thilo Sarrazin .

politics

Beginnings in the NPD

Hoffmann joined the NPD in 1967 and successfully ran for the Göttingen Student Council in 1968 as a student on a list called UNS (Independent Students) . According to the “ Deutsche Nachrichten ” (DN), this was the “first-time election of a national democrat” to a student council nationwide. He justified his engagement with the " anti-communism that arose due to the division of Berlin ", an "emotional" rejection of the student movement , the extra-parliamentary opposition and the grand coalition . In the summer of 1968 Hoffmann became the founding chairman of the Göttingen University Group of the National Democratic University Association (NHB) and deputy NHB federal chairman. He was confirmed in this position in the summer of 1969. The failure of the NPD in the federal election in 1969 on the electoral threshold , he said in the DN as "manipulation by the opinion of institutions" and the alleged "Agitation and smear campaign in the press, radio and television" and the "APO and DGB -Terrors" and wrote further: "The NPD must become the party of the thinking and creative youth not for its own sake, but for the sake of the German people ... We only lost the first 'battle': the future belongs to us - this certainty makes us wait for our hour!" In the same year, however, he left the NPD.

Career in the CDU

In 1970 Hoffmann joined the CDU and soon held several positions there. In 1972 he became deputy district chairman of the Junge Union and shortly afterwards press spokesman for the Göttingen district association of the CDU. In 1983, after public discussions about his former membership in the NPD, he withdrew an application to be the senior city director in Hildesheim .

After the population of Gifhorn had risen to almost 37,000 within three years due to the influx of around 1,500 resettlers and numerous emigrants from the GDR , the administrative committee, under the leadership of City Director Hoffmann, made a resolution in December 1989, in which it was called “Harmonie "Was disturbed by the" uninterrupted influx of emigrants and emigrants to Gifhorn "; Therefore, “the number of asylum seekers should be completely dismantled in the short and medium term” and the city will no longer promote “accommodation programs for former non-residents”. Hoffmann had advertisements placed in the regional press in which these measures were justified. As a result, Gifhorn got into the press nationwide. Among other things, Der Spiegel criticized: "What the city director wants, right-wing greasers like to sum up a short formula:» Foreigners out «."

Lord Mayor of Braunschweig

In the local elections in Lower Saxony in 2001 , Hoffmann stood as a candidate for the CDU for the election of Lord Mayor of Braunschweig . On September 23, 2001, he won a runoff election with 57.4% against Gernot Tartsch (SPD). A promise in his election campaign was the consolidation of the city's budget through a rigid austerity policy, namely through the privatization and sale of municipal companies such as Braunschweiger Versorgungs-AG or the closure of the leisure and education center, which is particularly popular with young people . In 2005 the budget closed for the first time. The debt relief through the sale of the city's "silverware" was criticized as a one-off effect.

He received massive support in the election campaign from a coalition of local business leaders who financed , among other things, full-page advertisements in the Braunschweiger Zeitung . The most important supporters later worked as "Schlossfreunde" (Castle Friends) to ensure that a hybrid building could be realized instead of the castle park , which consists of the reconstruction of the Brunswick residential castle and the Schloss Arkaden shopping center . Preceded Richard Borek , who also for the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace began.

On Hoffmann's initiative, Braunschweig applied for European Capital of Culture 2010, but was defeated by the city of Essen and the Ruhr area . In contrast, the city of Braunschweig prevailed against Aachen and Freiburg im Breisgau in the competition of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft in March 2006 with its application for the title “ City of Science 2007” .

In addition, Hoffmann and the council factions of the CDU and FDP resolutely pushed ahead with the controversial project of building a shopping center by the company ECE Projektmanagement on the aforementioned area of ​​the castle park. The council voted with a majority of one vote for the development of the castle park. After a selection process among renowned German architectural firms and the recommendation of a jury chaired by Peter Kulka , ECE built the shopping center as a shopping mall and, using around 650 original facade parts, the reconstruction of the palace, which makes up around a quarter of the total building volume. 80 percent of the area of ​​the palace reconstruction is used culturally by the city as a tenant with the public city library, the city library, the city archive, the cultural institute, an event hall and, since 2011, a palace museum.

In August 2004, Hoffmann caused a sensation when the city administration introduced the conventional spelling of 1901 and abolished the new spelling . Thereupon he was honored by the Bild-Zeitung with the so-called "BILD-Orden - Savior of the German Language". On October 8, 2004, however , the German Prime Ministers unanimously decided that the new spelling should be introduced on time. In August 2005 it was decided again in Braunschweig to use the new spelling as a matter of principle.

In the local elections in 2006, Hoffmann was confirmed as Lord Mayor for eight years in the first ballot with 58.0% and 49.3% turnout.

After the satirist Hartmut El Kurdi repeatedly criticized Hoffmann in the Braunschweig city magazine Subway and also addressed his NPD membership, in 2007 he instructed the employees of his city administration not to appear together with El Kurdi on official occasions, which resulted in a de facto ban on public appearances city-financed cultural events. The mostly critical echo in the media ranged from “excessive” to “attempted restriction of freedom of expression”. Hoffmann was reprimanded by the German Cultural Council for his behavior against El Kurdi. He did not withdraw the controversial instruction despite considerable criticism.

On June 10, 2014 Hoffmann was awarded the Lower Saxony State Medal by Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) for his services to the State of Lower Saxony.

Hoffmann did not run for the 2014 local elections and handed over his office to his successor Ulrich Markurth ( SPD ) on July 1, 2014 .

Other functions

From 2005 to 2017 Hoffmann was President of the Braunschweigischer Kulturbesitz Foundation .

Private

Hoffmann has been married since 1973 and has a son and a daughter.

Publications

Trade journals

• The creeping erosion of local self-government . Cities and Municipalities Association (StGB), 1977, p. 132 ff.
• For a review of the dual track in Lower Saxony . Association of Lower Saxony Cities (NST-N), 1985, p. 57 ff.
• The dual track - controversial for 40 years . Association of Lower Saxony Cities (NST-N), 1987, pp. 205 ff.
• The so-called dual track of the Lower Saxony municipal constitution. A contribution to the current reform discussion . 1987, ISBN 3-509-01551-7 .
• The deselection of municipal electoral officials as a consequence of their involvement in politics . Public Administration (DÖV), 1990, p. 320 ff.
• The state middle instance in the new federal states . Public Administration (DÖV), 1992, p. 689 ff.
• On the situation of local government law according to the legislation in the new federal states . Public administration (DÖV), 1994, p. 621 ff.

Newspapers

• Resistance from academic youth. Task and commitment of the national students . In: German news . No. 43/1968, p. 8.
• We boys are down to business. Rely on the German youth even more . In: German news . No. 43/1969, p. 13.
• Worthwhile targets for citizen protest . ( Foreign feathers , guest commentary). In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 13, 2011, p. 10.
• Lived beyond the circumstances (guest commentary). In: Braunschweiger Zeitung . February 13, 2012, p. 4.

Comments

• Comment on §§ 30 to 50 NGO. In: Thieme / Schäfer: Lower Saxony municipal code - comment. 3rd edition, 1997.

Anthologies

• Memories of the establishment of the state administration in Anhalt. In: Michael Kilian (Ed.): Sachsen-Anhalt, Land der Mitte , 2002.
• Stronger cohesion is a question of survival for the region. In: Biegel (Ed.): Braunschweigischer Kalender 2010 , p. 26 ff.
• Privatizations and PPP in the light of practical experience. In: Kurth / Baum-Rudischhauser (Hrsg.): Resource Waste - political and economic considerations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the BDE , 2011, p. 204 ff.

Autobiography

• From wrong turns to responsibility: contemporary witnesses and designers in turbulent times. Klartext, Essen 2018, ISBN 9783837519150 .

literature

• Asylum seekers clog everything. How the little town of Gifhorn wants to cope with its many strangers . In: Der Spiegel . ISSN  0038-7452 , No. 3/1990, p. 78.
• Upset over Weigel in the East German CDU . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 7, 1997.
• The miracle of Braunschweig . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , January 22, 2006, p. 40.
• The silverware stays in the museum . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 1, 2006, p. 24.
• The Braunschweig case: And renovation is still possible. In: Lübecker Nachrichten , February 9, 2007, p. 13.
• Savings master from Lübeck. In: Nordwest-Zeitung , February 11, 2009.
• A city takes off. In: Handelsblatt of November 18, 2010, p. 19.
• Mission accomplished. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine online from May 22, 2014.
• Arguable and successful - the last Prussian disembarks . In: Die Welt, June 30, 2014, p. 6.

Web links

Commons : Gert Hoffmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dissertation: The so-called two-track nature of the Lower Saxony municipal constitution. A contribution to the current reform discussion . Enke, 1987, ISBN 978-3-509-01551-5
2. ↑ Michael Zajonz: Fake and Facade. Der Tagesspiegel of January 13, 2007, accessed on August 29, 2015
3. ↑ Ralph-Herbert Meyer: State medal for Dr. Gert Hoffmann. June 11, 2014, accessed August 30, 2016 . 
4. ^ City of Braunschweig: Mayor congratulates Ulrich Markurth on his election , Ulrich Markurth will take up his new office on July 1st. ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.