Hans vom Hoff

Hans vom Hoff (born May 1, 1899 in Wermelskirchen ; † November 15, 1969 ibid) was a German politician and union official .

Life

As the son of a master knitter, Hans vom Hoff completed an apprenticeship in his father's company after primary school. From 1917 to 1919 he did his military service on the Western Front and then worked as an assistant at the Hanover Telegraph Construction Office. In addition, he obtained his secondary school leaving certificate by self-study until 1921 and then joined the Continental factories in Hanover, where he was promoted to deputy department head until 1923.

From 1923 he was a full-time functionary of the Central Employees' Association , first as Hanoverian district secretary, then as district manager for the districts of Hagen, Lübeck, Essen and Düsseldorf. In 1924 vom Hoff joined the SPD . After the so-called seizure of power by the National Socialists and the dissolution of the trade unions, he was dismissed and worked for Hansa-Volksversicherung in Düsseldorf as an organization manager until 1935 . In 1935/1936 he was imprisoned for preparation for high treason , but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Then von Hoff was the district director of Hamburg-Mannheimer insurance in Düsseldorf. From 1939 to 1943, von Hoff did military service again and then became operations manager of an engine repair plant in Bremen.

After the end of the Second World War he was appointed by the British military government as District Administrator of Nienburg / Weser in November 1945 and held this office until the end of 1946. Von Hoff played an important role in the reconstruction of the trade unions in the British zone of occupation ; from 1946/1947 he was a member of the zone committee of the trade unions in the British zone of occupation, and from 1947 on, as head of the main organization, administration and finance department, he was a member of the DGB's federal executive committee in the British zone of occupation. From 1949 to 1952, von Hoff was a member of the executive board of the DGB under Hans Böckler as head of the main economic policy department . In this function, he advocated the party-political independence of the DGB promoted by Böckler and a pragmatic relationship with the federal government under Konrad Adenauer . In 1950 von Hoff was appointed by the federal government to the German delegation to negotiate the Schuman Plan .

In contrast to the majority of the union members, vom Hoff was open to a German military contribution in 1952 and, after controversies, did not stand for re-election to the federal executive committee in 1952, but switched to the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community as Jean Monnet's personal advisor .

After accusations were launched from communist circles in 1953 that von Hoff had sympathized with the Nazi regime, he was briefly excluded from the trade union trade, banking and insurance "for an unusually gross violation of collegiality and union solidarity" . However, a court proceeding brought about by Hoff relieved him across the board, so that in 1954 the exclusion was reversed.

Honor

• A fish steamer owned by the Gemeinwirtschaftliche Hochseefischerei GmbH, Bremerhaven, (GHG) was named Hans vom Hoff . It was built in 1950 at the Rickmers shipyard in Bremerhaven .

literature

• Bernd Bühlbäcker: Hans vom Hoff - From Central Association of Employees to Head of the Main Economic Policy Department in the DGB. In: Ders .: Europe on the move. Personnel and personnel policy of German parties and associations in the coal and steel union 1949–1958. Essen 2007, pp. 38–43.