Harry Ristock

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Ristock (center) in conversation with Willy Brandt (left) and Hans Koschnick (right) (1975)

Harry Ristock (born January 20, 1928 in Seemen , Osterode district in East Prussia ; † March 5, 1992 in Berlin ) was a German social-democratic politician, Berlin senator for construction and housing and managing director in industry.

origin

Ristock, who came from a rural family, went to the West at the age of 17 after secondary school in Gilgenburg and a short period of imprisonment , studied from 1948 to 1952 at the German School of Politics and graduated with a diploma. 1952/53 followed work as a scientific assistant.

Career

From 1960 to 1965 Ristock was a commercial employee and from 1965 to 1971 district councilor for public education in the Charlottenburg district . a. strong and successful for a comprehensive school in Charlottenburg-Nord. From 1971 to 1975 Ristock worked as Senate Director at the Senator for Schools. From 1975 to 1981 he was Senator for Construction and Housing. After 1981 he was a managing director in the metalworking industry.

Ristock, who worked hard to reconcile Germans and Poles, held parties every year in his gazebo that brought together very different people and opponents of the party. Ristock was an “unorthodox, interesting, lovable leftist” - that's how Helmut Schmidt described him in his funeral speech.

Memberships and Activities

Ristock joined the SPD and SDS in 1950 . At the German School of Politics, he initially belonged to the “Independent Socialist Student Group” and took part as its representative in the preparatory committee for the formation of an independent workers' party in Germany, which sought to found a Titoist party in West Germany. In 1954, a group of the SDS led by him wrote a statement on another thesis paper that the SDS group at the FU had written on the defeat of the SPD in the 1953 federal election . As a consequence of the defeat of the SPD, the paper demanded that the party renounce Marxist symbols and terms as well as a renewal of the functionaries. In contrast, the DHfP group led by Ristock stated :

“... (the) too little 'bourgeois' attitude of the SPD (was) not responsible for the election defeats. ... We know that the party is too little socialist and perhaps even too little revolutionary and that is where we see the causes of our failure. "

- Group of the SDS at the German University of Politics; Harry Ristock as their leading member

From 1954 to 1963 he was state chairman of the Berlin “Falken” . From 1954 to 1958 Ristock was department chairman and party congress delegate, as well as district chairman of the SPD Charlottenburg and member of the SPD state executive for several legislative periods.

In 1968, Ristock was immediately expelled from the SPD for carrying a demonstration poster “I protest against the American war in Vietnam. I am a social democrat ” . However, the exclusion was reversed a few days later at the party conference in Nuremberg. Since 1973 he was a member of the federal executive committee of the SPD and from 1976/1977 was deputy SPD state chairman in Berlin. An application for voting out as a councilor for public education failed in the BVV Charlottenburg on the spokesman for the FDP group Hartmut Röseler .

After the SPD had lost the Berlin election in 1981 , Ristock, rooted in the self-built left wing of the Berlin SPD , strove for the top candidacy of the Berlin SPD for the office of governing mayor in the Berlin election in 1985 and was already considered a certain challenger to Eberhard Diepgen ( CDU ) .

However, a company bankruptcy in 1984 prevented him from enforcing his claim, so that Hans Apel took his place against Diepgen.

Further memberships

Ristock belonged to the ÖTV since 1953 .

Mandates and public offices

From 1975 to 1979 and since June 1981 he was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives .

From 1954 to 1957 Ristock was a district councilor in the Spandau district and from 1963/1964 a district councilor in the Charlottenburg district .

In 1975, Klaus Schütz appointed him Senator for Construction and Housing. He also held the office under Schütz's successor Dietrich Stobbe , but was not reappointed Senator by the new Governing Mayor Hans-Jochen Vogel in January 1981 after the Garski affair .

Senates

Quotes

Fonts

  • Childhood and youth in East Prussia. Langen Müller, Munich 1984.
  • Next to the red carpet. Encounters, experiences and visions of a politician. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-926175-93-1 .
  • 300 years of street lighting in Berlin. Senate Department for Building and Housing.

literature

  • Siegfried Heimann , Manfred Rexin (ed.): Harry Ristock - Memories of companions , series of publications by the Franz Neumann Archive eV, Berlin 1993
  • Werner Breunig, Andreas Herbst (ed.): Biographical handbook of the Berlin parliamentarians 1963–1995 and city councilors 1990/1991 (= series of publications of the Berlin State Archives. Volume 19). Landesarchiv Berlin, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-9803303-5-0 , p. 311.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Tilman Fichter , Siegward Lönnendonker : Small history of the SDS. The Socialist German Student Union from 1946 to self-dissolution , Berlin 1977, Rotbuch Verlag , ISBN 978-3-88022-174-1 , p. 27: Thesis paper on the SPD, p. 149: Independent workers' party and SDS entry
personal data
SURNAME Ristock, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdA and industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Seemen (Polish: Samin ), Osterode district in East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1992
Place of death Berlin