Heinrich Windelen

Heinrich Windelen (1972)

Candidate poster for the 1980 federal election

Heinrich Windelen (born June 25, 1921 in Bolkenhain , Silesia , † February 16, 2015 in Warendorf ) was a German politician ( CDU ). In 1969 he was Federal Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims and from 1983 to 1987 Federal Minister for German Relations .

Life and work

After graduating from high school in 1939, Windelen did the Reich Labor Service until 1940 , after which he began studying physics and chemistry in Breslau . But already in 1941 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and participated in the Second World War until 1945 , most recently with the rank of sergeant in the reserve . After his release from captivity, he came to Westphalia as an expellee and completed a commercial training there from 1945 to 1948. Since 1949 he was a co-founder of a commercial enterprise in Warendorf .

Heinrich Windelen was widowed last and had four children.

Political party

From 1946 Windelen was a member of the CDU. From 1970 to 1977 he was state chairman of the CDU Westfalen-Lippe . He was honorary chairman of the state board of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia.

MP

From 1947 to 1948 and from 1964 to 1966 Windelen was a member of the district council of Warendorf , from 1948 to 1964 also a city councilor for the city of Warendorf.

From September 28, 1957, when he replaced the resigned MP Anton Sabel , he was a member of the German Bundestag until 1990 .

Windelen was deputy chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group from 1969 to 1980 . From October 20, 1977 to April 8, 1981 he was chairman of the Committee on Budgets , after having been its deputy chairman from 1965 to October 5, 1967. From April 2, 1981 to 1983, he was finally Vice President of the Bundestag .

Windelen was drafted into the German Bundestag in 1957 via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia and otherwise always as a directly elected member of the constituency of Beckum - Warendorf or, from 1980, of the constituency of Warendorf . Most recently, Windelen received 51.7% of the first votes cast in his constituency in the 1987 federal election .

Windelen, who had already rejected the Eastern Treaty, voted on June 21, 1990 together with his parliamentary group colleagues Helmut Sauer , Fritz Wittmann , Gerhard Dewitz , Ortwin Lowack , Kurt Rossmanith , Herbert Czaja , Franz-Hermann Kappes , Joachim Kalisch , Claus Jäger , Dietrich Mahlo , Matthias Engelsberger and Lorenz Niegel for "reasons of international law and because of the violation of the right of self-determination of the German people" against the intergroup joint resolution on the German-Polish border , which was introduced by his parliamentary group and which describes the Oder-Neisse border as the German eastern border. On September 20, 1990, he also rejected the unification treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR because, in his view, the right of homeland of the expellees was finally given up and this sacrifice could not be expected of the expellees.

Federal Minister

On February 7, 1969, he was appointed Federal Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims to the Federal Government ( Kiesinger Cabinet ) headed by Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger , but left a few months later after the change of government to the social-liberal coalition as a result of the federal election on October 21 back out of government.

After the federal election in 1983 , he was appointed Federal Minister for Internal German Relations in the Federal Government ( Kohl II cabinet ) led by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl . At the end of the legislative period, he left the government in 1987.

Honors

• 1969: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1977: Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1981: Silesian sign of Landsmannschaft Silesia
• 1985: Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Honorary citizen of Warendorf
• Honorary citizen of Bolkenhain

Publications

• SOS for Europe. Seewald-Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-512-00231-5 .
• The Committee on Budgets in the political process. In: Administration and training. Born 1978, No. 3, pp. 93-100.
• Structural changes in public finance. Monetary Policy and Budget Policy. In: money and currency. Bonn 1979, pp. 55-61.
• Parliament between spending pleasure and budget control. In: Günter Triesch : State finances and economy. Cologne 1981, pp. 111-130.

literature

• Rudolf Vierhaus , Ludolf Herbst (eds.), Bruno Jahn (collaborators): Biographical manual of the members of the German Bundestag. 1949-2002. Vol. 2: N-Z. Attachment. KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-23782-0 , p. 960.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Windelen  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Heinrich Windelen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Heinrich Windelen  in the German Digital Library
• David Maaß: Heinrich Windelen on his 90th birthday . Article on the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung website , accessed February 15, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Beate Kopmann: Mourning Heinrich Windelen: The former Federal Minister is dead . Westfälische Nachrichten , February 16, 2015
2. ↑ ^{a b} OMV press release of February 17, 2015 ( Memento of the original of April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .