Heinrich Hellwege

Heinrich Peter Hellwege (born August 18, 1908 in Neuenkirchen ; † October 4, 1991 ibid) was a German politician ( DHP , DP and CDU ). From 1949 to 1955 he was Federal Minister for Affairs of the Bundesrat and from 1955 to 1959 Prime Minister of Lower Saxony .

Life

After graduating from primary school in 1926 at the Athenaeum Stade high school in Stade , Hellwege completed a commercial apprenticeship and then worked as an import and export clerk in Hamburg until 1933 . In 1933 he took over his father's business for chemical-technical products in his hometown. During the time of National Socialism he was involved in the Confessing Church and the Lower Saxony freedom movement . From 1939 to 1945 he took part in the Second World War as a soldier in the Air Force .

Hellwege was a member of the German-Hanoverian Party until it was dissolved in 1933 and its district chairman in Jork from 1931 .

After the war he co-founded the Lower Saxony State Party (NLP) (from 1947 German party), as its state chairman in Lower Saxony from 1946 to 1961. From 1947 to January 15, 1961 he was also national chairman of the DP. In the negotiations of the DP with the German Conservative Party - German Right Party and the Hessian National Democratic Party on July 1, 1949 about a joint election for the 1949 Bundestag election , Hellwege participated for his party together with Adolf Dedekind , Carl Lauenstein , Walter von Lüde , Hans-Joachim von Merkatz , Ernst-August Runge , Hans-Christoph Seebohm and Friedrich Wilke participated. Although the plans had advanced quite far, they ultimately failed. The reason was the declaration by the British military government that a merger party would not receive a license and could therefore not stand for election.

In October 1961 he joined the CDU, which he left again in January 1979 because "the CDU is looking more to the left of the center, for voters who only disdain or disdain the CDU". In February 1979 he took part in the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to found a conservative collection movement under the title Liberal-Conservative Action .

In 1945/46 Hellwege belonged to the community council of Neuenkirchen and the district council of the district of Stade . In 1946 he was a member of the Appointed Landtag of Hanover , where he led the NLP parliamentary group. From 1947 to November 2, 1950 and from 1951 to January 7, 1952, he was a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament and chairman of the DP state parliamentary group. He was also a member of the Zone Advisory Board for the British Zone of Occupation from 1946 to 1948 , and was elected vice chairman in 1947. From 1955 to 1963 Hellwege was again a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament.

From 1949 to May 27, 1955 he was a member of the German Bundestag , where he briefly chaired the DP parliamentary group until he was appointed Minister of the Federal Council . Hellwege was directly elected member of the constituency of Stade - Bremervörde .

Hellwege (2nd row, 2nd from left) in the Adenauer II cabinet (group photo, 1953)

Hellwege was district administrator in the Stade district in 1947/48 . After the federal election in 1949 , he was appointed Federal Minister for Affairs of the Federal Council on September 20, 1949 in the federal government led by Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer . On May 26, 1955, he left the federal government and was elected Prime Minister of Lower Saxony on the same day .

He was supported in this office by a coalition of DP , CDU , FDP and GB / BHE , with his party only being the second strongest in this government. After Leonhard Schlueter's resignation on June 11, 1955, he also headed the Ministry of Education until Richard Tantzen (FDP) was appointed on September 14, 1955. On November 19, 1957, Hellwege formed a new government made up of the DP, CDU and SPD , with the SPD now the strongest force in his government, while his party was the weakest. After the state elections in Lower Saxony in 1959 , as a result of which the SPD formed a government with the FDP and GB / BHE, he left office.

Heinrich Hellwege was the only prime minister of a federal state that belonged to the German party.

He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Stade since it was founded in 1955 .

Honors

In 1959 he was named Oldenburg Kale King. Hellwege was an honorary citizen of his home community Neuenkirchen (Niederelbe), holder of the Lower Saxony State Medal , the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , the Royal Greek Order of St. George and Honorary Senator of the Technical University of Hanover.

See also

• Cabinet Hellwege I - Cabinet Hellwege II
• Cabinet Adenauer I - Cabinet Adenauer II

Publications

• Heinrich Hellwege: Lower Saxony's German task . Hanover 1946 (Lower Saxony State Party)
• German Party (Ed.): Heinrich Hellwege 1908 - 1958. Speeches and writings. Festschrift for the 50th birthday of Heinrich Hellweges , Braunschweig 1958

literature

• Emil Ehrich: Heinrich Hellwege. A conservative democrat . Hanover 1977 (Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education)
• Claudius Schmidt: Heinrich Hellwege - the forgotten founding father. A political picture of life. With a foreword by Arnulf Baring . Ditzen Druck und Verlags-GmbH, Stade 1991 (series of publications of the regional association of the former duchies of Bremen and Verden, volume 4) ISBN 3-9801919-2-3
• Matthias Fredrichs: Lower Saxony under the Prime Minister Heinrich Hellwege (1955–1959) , dissertation University of Hanover, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2010

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Hellwege in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Heinrich Hellwege in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Schmollinger, German Conservative Party - German Right Party , in Stöss, Party Handburch , Westdeutscher Verlag , Opladen 1986, page 1002 f.
2. ↑ Former Prime Minister Hellwege leaves the CDU . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 13./14. January 1979.