Hans Koschnick

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Hans Koschnick (undated)

Hans Koschnick (* 2. April 1929 in Bremen , † 21st April 2016 ) was a German SPD - politician . From 1967 to 1985 he was President of the Bremen Senate and thus Bremen Mayor and from 1987 to 1994 a member of the German Bundestag . From 1994 to 1996 he was the EU administrator of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina .

biography

youth

Koschnick grew up in Bremen- Gröpelingen . His father was a union official of the Communist Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). After the National Socialists came to power, they converted May Day into National Labor Day and took trade unionists into custody, including Koschnick's father on the evening of May 1, 1933. The organization of the May rally and a speech earned him a conviction for “ high treason ” for which he had to endure in prison, penitentiary and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , before he was “on leave” at the end of 1938 and called up for military service in 1943 for “conditionally worthy of military service”. In 1944 he was transferred to Finland .

His mother was held in custody for one year for courier activities between various resistance groups until she was released. Due to her refusal to join the German Labor Front (DAF) and "learn" the Hitler salute , she very often lost her job until she was relatively safe from the DAF controls as a sugar confectionery seller for a showman. But this was associated with an almost permanent absence, so that Koschnick grew up with his grandparents. In 1938 his mother found a job as a seamstress for tarpaulins.

Education, work and family

After high school, Koschnick began training as a senior administration officer . In March 1945 he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service (RAD) and then into the Wehrmacht, with whom he was taken to Brussels as a British prisoner of war at the end of the war . In September 1945 he returned to Bremen.

After Koschnick had finished his training for the higher administrative service, he was employed at the senatorial office of the Senator for "Social, Youth, Family and Sport". On February 1, 1958, he was promoted to chief administrative officer and head of the office for physical exercise. As senior government councilor, he headed the “Youth, Family and Sport” department in the social department of the state of Bremen.

Hans Koschnick was married to Christine Koschnick since 1954, which was full-time employed by the OTV and member of today ver.di is.

politics

Koschnick at the Protestant Church Congress 2009 in Bremen

Koschnick joined the SPD in May 1950. Between 1951 and 1954 he was the district secretary of the ÖTV trade union . From 1955 he was a member of the Bremen citizenship .

In 1963 he was elected as the successor to Adolf Ehlers (SPD) on November 26, 1963 as Senator for Internal Affairs in the Senate under the leadership of Wilhelm Kaisen (SPD). After Kaisen's resignation, from July 20, 1965, Koschnick was also Deputy President of the Senate and Mayor of Willy Dehnkamp's (SPD) Senate .

After the new citizenship elections , he became President of the Senate on November 28, 1967, i.e. head of government of the state of Bremen. During his reign he was also Senator for Church Affairs from 1971 and as a managing director in 1970 Senator for Economics and Foreign Trade for a few weeks and in 1978 after the resignation of Senator Hans Stefan Seifriz (SPD) for a few months Construction Senator .

Koschnick initially led an SPD / FDP coalition government , which broke up in 1971 because of differences over the establishment of the University of Bremen . Due to the successful elections for citizenship in 1971 , 1975 , 1979 and 1983 , in which he ran as the top candidate of the SPD, he was then able to lead a pure SPD Senate without interruption until 1985. He was president of the Senate Koschnick I to Koschnick V . His deputies and thus also mayor were Annemarie Mevissen (1967–1975), Walter Franke (1975–1979) and Moritz Thape (1979–1985).

During his reign there were, among other things, the Bremen tram riots in 1968 , the founding of the university (1971), the twinning between Bremen and Haifa as the first twinning between a German city and a city in Israel (1976), the vow ceremony in Bremen in 1980 with violent riots that Expansion of the Bremerhaven container terminal (1978–1983) and the Bremen freight center in the 1980s as well as the construction of a new Mercedes-Benz automobile plant in Sebaldsbrück (1979–1982) for up to 18,000 employees.

Koschnick was affected by the decision to close the Werft AG Weser shipyard in his hometown Gröpelingen, which was part of the Krupp Group at the end of 1983 . Although Hans Ziegenfuß , council svorsitzender the AG Weser, violently moved against the Senate and Koschnick to fight, Koschnick was in the immediately following state election for the 11th legislative period achieve dramatic election victory on September 25 1,983th

From 1970 to 1971 and from 1981 to 1982, as head of government in Bremen, he was also President of the Federal Council .

From 1970 to 1991 Koschnick was a member of the federal executive committee of the SPD and from 1975 to 1979 deputy chairman of the SPD and thus deputy of Willy Brandt . During this time, Koschnick pushed the Ostpolitik and signed the first West German-Polish town twinning in Danzig on April 12, 1976 .

After almost 18 years as head of government and 22 years in the Senate, he resigned on September 17, 1985 at his own request. His successor was the SPD parliamentary group leader of the Bremen citizenship, Klaus Wedemeier .

Politics after the Senate period

In the Bundestag

From 1987 to 1994 Koschnick was a member of the German Bundestag as a directly elected member of the Bremen-West constituency . He was deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee , foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group and was considered a possible foreign minister in the early 1990s .

EU envoy and advisor

From July 23, 1994 to April 2, 1996, Koschnick was commissioned by the European Union as EU administrator for Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina to coordinate the reconstruction, administration and infrastructure of the war-torn city.

In 1994, Croatian nationalists launched a grenade attack on Koschnick, in which his hotel room in Mostar was devastated, but he was unharmed. A second attack in 1996 also failed. An angry Croatian crowd attacked Koschnick in his armored company car during a demonstration. The Croatian police remained passive. With the help of his escort and thanks to the armor protection of his limousine, he was able to escape unharmed.

In 1996 he announced his resignation to the Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU in Brussels .

From October 1996 to September 1998 he worked as an advisor to the European Commission for the establishment of a European Voluntary Service.

As a foreign policy advisor

Koschnick was active in various respects as a foreign policy advisor or agent, u. a. from December 1998 to December 1999 as Federal Government Commissioner for Refugee Return, Reintegration and Reconstruction Accompanying Return in Bosnia-Herzegovina, from March 2000 to December 2001 as Chairman of the Steering Committee for Refugee Issues in the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe, from January 2000 to December 2005 as chairman of the German-Polish parliamentary group in the Bundestag and as president of the German Poland Institute . He campaigned for ethics and peace education, gave lectures and wrote essays.

Other offices

honors and awards

See also

literature

  • Karla Müller-Tupath: Hans Koschnick. Overcoming what divides. Biography . Vorwärts-Buch, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86602-538-7 ( review by Jörn Brinkhus in: Bremisches Jahrbuch Nr. 88, 2009, pp. 277-281).
  • Ulrike Liebert (Ed.): "Towards a Europe of Citizens." Hans Koschnick's political speeches from 1964 to 2004 . 1st edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-587-4 .
  • Hans Koschnick, Jens Schneider: Bridge over the Neretva. The reconstruction of Mostar (=  dtv . No. 30496 ). Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-423-30496-0 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Koschnick  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. On the death of Hans Koschnick: Volkstribun and Friedensstifter Spiegel Online , April 21, 2016
  2. Weser-Kurier of January 31, 1958
  3. More than the mayor's wife, interview with Christine Koschnick, senior magazine WIR No. 38/2019, publisher: DGB trade unions Bremen.
  4. ^ Gustav-Adolf-Werk eV: Laureate of the Gustav-Adolf-Preis. Gustav-Adolf-Werk eV, accessed on August 10, 2018 .