Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski (2002)

Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski (born July 24, 1922 in Allenstein / East Prussia , † February 24, 2005 in Cologne ), known nickname "Ben Wisch", was a German politician ( SPD ).

Life and work

After graduating from high school in Berlin in 1941 , Wischnewski took part in the Second World War as a tank grenadier (last rank: first lieutenant ) until 1945 . He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Wound Badge (1939) . After the war he worked in the metal industry and later trained as a union secretary. From 1952 he was employed as a volunteer at IG Metall and from 1953 to 1959 as a secretary .

Vishnewski was married and had three children.

Political party

Wischnewski in 1988 at the SPD party conference in Münster

He had been a member of the SPD since 1946. From 1957 to 1968 he was chairman of the SPD sub-district of Cologne and at the same time from 1959 to 1961 federal chairman of the Young Socialists . From 1968 to 1972 he acted as federal manager of the SPD and from 1970 also belonged to the SPD party executive committee. After all, from 1979 to 1982 he was deputy federal chairman of the SPD and from 1984/85 as its treasurer.

MP

Wischnewski was a member of the German Bundestag from 1957 to 1990 and was also a member of the European Parliament from 1961 to 1965 .

He was drawn into the Bundestag in 1957 and 1961 via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia and thereafter always as a directly elected member of the Cologne I constituency . Most recently he achieved 47.3% of the vote in the 1987 federal election .

Public offices

After the formation of the Grand Coalition Wischnewski was on 1 December 1966 as the Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation in by Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger led government appointed. On October 2, 1968, he resigned from this office to become federal manager of the SPD.

In May 1974 he was appointed to the federal government led by Helmut Schmidt , first as Parliamentary State Secretary , then from 1974 to 1976 as Minister of State in the Foreign Office . After the federal election in 1976 , he was Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery from December 1976 to December 1979 and at the same time authorized representative of the Federal Government in Berlin. He held this office again in the final months of the social-liberal coalition from April to October 1982.

Political activity

Grave of Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

As IG Metall youth secretary and Juso functionary, Wischnewski was one of the founders and first chairman of the Cologne Conscientious Objectors Group (GKW) in September 1953 , which later became the Association of Conscientious Objectors .

During the Algerian liberation struggle , Wischnewski already had good contacts with the Algerian side and was one of the central figures of the West German supporters of Algerian independence. He was one of the most famous German luggage carriers and, together with Georg Jungclas and Wilhelm Pertz , was one of the founders of the magazine Free Algeria in September 1958 , of which he was also the first editor. Wischnewski was also involved in illegal monetary transactions of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), for which he also made his private account available. His auxiliary services for a free Algeria earned him the surname and honorary name of Ben Wisch .

In his later time as Minister of State, Wischnewski was entrusted with numerous special missions: Germans arrested in Chile and refugees in European embassies owed their liberation to his energetic appearance at General Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973.

He became known to a wider public in connection with the negotiations on the terrorist attacks in the " German Autumn ". After the kidnapping of the employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Red Army Fraction (RAF), Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski traveled between September 14 and 29, 1977 to the five countries to which the free-pressed terrorists wanted to be brought. He consulted the governments of Algeria, Libya, Iraq, South Yemen and Vietnam to explain to them that their countries were now involved in the attempt to blackmail the Federal Republic . In addition, on behalf of Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, he followed the hijacked Lufthansa aircraft “ Landshut ” in October 1977 and, as special representative of the federal government, conducted negotiations with the local authorities at the airports where the aircraft landed. a. also in Mogadishu , where he got the GSG 9 to storm the machine.

In connection with the clashes between the Sandinista and the Contra in and around Nicaragua , Vishnevsky traveled to the region several times to help bring about peace. In his political memoirs With Passion and A sense of proportion , Wischnewski reports on both Mogadishu and his experiences in Latin America .

Wischnewski achieved great recognition , particularly through his knowledge of African and Arab conditions. He improved the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and numerous Arab states and advocated the Palestinians' right to self-determination and peace in the Middle East . In 1997 he was awarded the highest Palestinian order by Yasser Arafat . In Latin America he was known by the nickname "Comandante Hans".

Wischnewski was a long-time member of the German-Arab Society , which he left in 2002 because of the dispute over statements by Jürgen Möllemann .

Awards (excerpt)

Publications

  • With passion and a sense of proportion: In Mogadishu and elsewhere. Political memoir. Bertelsmann, Munich 1989.

literature

  • Michael Bohnet : History of German Development Policy: Strategies, Interior Views, Contemporary Witnesses , Challenges , Konstanz / Munich, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft 2015 (utb4320), ISBN 978-3-8252-4320-3 , pp. 55–63.
  • Claus Leggewie : porter. The Algeria project of the left in Adenauer Germany , Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88022-286-X .

Web links

Commons : Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Bilz: Risen from the ruins. Start-up, consolidation, adjustment. The time from 1945 to 1960 , socialist forum rheinland
  2. ↑ Claus Leggewie: Kofferträger , p. 115
  3. ↑ Ute Bönnen and Gerald Endres : The Algerian War: Combat on many fronts , manuscript of a documentary on ARTE (1998)
  4. ↑ The honorary name "Ben Wisch" , DER SPIEGEL, August 27, 1984. In an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however, it says that the nickname "Ben Wisch" was given to him by the Federal Chancellor and SPD leader Willy Brandt because of his good contacts in the Arab region. The “hero of Mogadishu” is dead , FAZ, February 25, 2005. However, this is also placed in the context of Vishnevski's pro-Algerian activities in the article.
  5. ↑ The "Hero of Mogadishu" is dead , article from February 25, 2005 on FAZ.NET
  6. ^ German-Arab Society: SPD boycotted Möllemann Der Spiegel June 13, 2002 By Severin Weiland
  7. ↑ SPD leaves German-Arab Society Dispute over Möllemann draws circles Berliner Zeitung June 14, 2002 By Gerold Büchner
  8. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Wischnewski, Hans-Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag, Federal Minister, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenstein , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 2005
Place of death Cologne