Heinrich Wenke (politician, 1888)

Heinrich Wenke (born May 9, 1888 in Dortmund ; † April 6, 1961 there ) was a German social democratic politician. As secretary of the western Westphalia district, he played a key role in the reconstruction of the SPD after 1945.

Life

Wenkes parents owned a grocery store in the north of Dortmund . After elementary school he did a four-year apprenticeship as a model maker. In addition, he attended evening courses at the Dortmund mechanical engineering school for three years. In the following years he worked in his apprenticeship. In 1906 he joined the German Metalworkers' Association and the SPD. He was actively involved in both organizations as well as in the working class. He also began to write articles for social democratic newspapers. During the First World War he served as an armored soldier from 1915 to 1918 . During the Weimar Republic Wenke was local editor of the social democratic Westphalian General People's Newspaper based in Dortmund.

After the beginning of the National Socialist rule , Wenke lost his job and was unemployed for almost six years. From 1938 he worked for the Catholic newspaper Tremonia . After the war he initially worked for the Ruhr Zeitung published by the British occupation authorities .

politics

After the end of National Socialist rule, Wenke was instrumental in rebuilding the SPD in Dortmund. He was chairman of the subdistrict Dortmund. After leaving this position in 1955, Wenke became honorary chairman. In Dortmund he was also a member of the city council, to which Wenke belonged until 1956. In addition to Dortmund, Wenke had been the secretary of the Western Westphalia district since 1945. He held this position until 1956. In this office he was a close confidante of Kurt Schumacher and took care of the implementation of his political course in the Ruhr area . In particular, he expanded the party's organizational structures in the eastern Ruhr area and the neighboring areas.

Wenke belonged to the Provincial Council of Westphalia in 1946 and to the appointed Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1946 and 1947 . He was a member of the regular state parliament as a successor from 1949 in the first electoral term and was elected via the state list in the second electoral period from 1949 to 1954. In the third electoral term, Wenke moved up again in 1957. A street in Dortmund is named after Wenke.

Awards

In 1957 Heinrich Wenke was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class , for his services to reconstruction and democracy .

Works

• Heinrich Wenke: Around the Reinolditurm. Stories and stories from old Dortmund . Krüger, Dortmund 1966.

literature

• Karl Lauschke: Heinrich Wenke (1888–1961). Engine of reconstruction . In: Bernd Faulenbach (Ed.): Social Democracy in Transition. The district of Western Westphalia 1893–2001. 4th expanded new edition . Klartext, Essen 2001, ISBN 3-89861-062-4 , p. 223 f .
• Karl Lauschke: Wenke, Heinrich . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 2 . Klartext, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-677-4 , p. 142 ff .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Wenke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinrich Wenke (politician, 1888) at the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament