Heinrich Höfler

Heinrich Höfler's announcement poster for the 1953 Bundestag election

Heinrich Hofler (* 16th February 1897 in Schwetzingen , † 21st October 1963 in Bonn ) was a German politician of the CDU .

Life and work

Höfler, who was a Catholic denomination, attended the community school in Schwetzingen as the son of the locksmith Philipp Höfler. After graduating from high school in 1916 at the Ludwig-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Rastatt , he became a soldier. After the end of the First World War he studied history, political science and economics at the University of Freiburg and Heidelberg University . During his studies he became a member of the Catholic student association KDSt.V. Falkenstein Freiburg in the CV . From 1921 to 1931 he was the editor of the Palatinate Bote in Heidelberg , which was closely related to the Center Party , and from 1931 he was Caritas Director at the German Caritas Association in Freiburg im Breisgau and editor of the Caritas magazine . After the outbreak of war, all Caritas association magazines were banned. He then headed the Church War Aid, which the German Caritas Association maintained first in Berlin after 1939 and later in Freiburg. In his resistance to National Socialism , Höfler was close to the Freiburg circle around the publicist Karl Färber . On May 5, 1944, Höfler was arrested on the orders of Martin Bormann and taken to the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. He was released in April 1945. After the Second World War, he organized aid from the German Caritas Association for prisoners of war and those returning from war. He became the "special envoy" of the German federal government on the war criminals question and achieved, among other things, through a secret agreement with the Italian government that Nazi perpetrators were released from prison in Italy. In 1952 he was a delegate to the UN Special Commission on Prisoner of War Issues.

politics

In 1946/1947, Höfler initially refused direct political participation in the Baden Christian Social People's Party (later the Baden CDU) in the position of General Secretary. Finally, in 1949, he was nominated for election to the first Bundestag as a CDU candidate for the Emmendingen constituency . He was elected with an absolute majority and was a member of the German Bundestag in the following legislative periods until his death in 1963. He was able to defend the direct mandate in his constituency in all ballots. From 1951 he was also a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and from 1955 of the Assembly of the Western European Union . In the 1950s he also became director of the Caritas headquarters in Freiburg.

literature

• Günter letter : Heinrich Höfler (1897–1963). In: Günter letter, Brigitte Kaff, Hans-Otto Kleinmann (ed.): Christian democrats against Hitler. From persecution and resistance to the Union. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2004, ISBN 3-451-20805-9 , pp. 270-277.
• Wolfgang Proske (Ed.): Perpetrators - helpers - free riders. Nazi victims from southern Baden (=  perpetrators - helpers - free riders . Band 6 ). 1st edition. Kugelberg, Gerstetten 2017, ISBN 978-3-945893-06-7 , pp. 160 ff .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Konrad Hofmann, Reinhold Schneider, Erik Wolf (eds.): Sieger in Fesseln. Christian testimonies from camps and prisons (= Das Christian Deutschland 1933–1945 . Documents and testimonials. Community series Bd. 1, ZDB -ID 844709-3 ). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1947, pp. 50-63.
2. ^ Felix Bohr: The war crimes lobby: Federal German help for Nazi perpetrators imprisoned abroad . First edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-42840-5 , pp. 40 .
3. ^ Karl Borgmann: Heinrich Höfler in memory. In: Caritas, magazine for Caritas work and Caritas science. Vol. 64, No. 8, 1963, ISSN  0008-6614 , pp. 337-341.
4. ↑ Hans-Josef Wollasch: "Social Justice and Christian Charitas". Leading figures and path markings from 100 years of Caritas history. Lambertus, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1996, ISBN 3-7841-0880-6 .