Hellmut royal house

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Hellmut royal house
Royal family (middle) during a trip to Afghanistan (2011)

Hellmut Georg Richard Königshaus (born July 28, 1950 in East Berlin ) is a German lawyer and politician ( FDP ). From 2010 to 2015 he was the Defense Commissioner of the German Bundestag . He is President of the German-Israeli Society and partner in a Hamburg law firm.

Life

education and profession

Königshaus was born in 1950 into a family of teachers in Berlin-Adlershof . In 1957 he moved to Germany with his parents. He attended the Goethe-Gymnasium Karlsruhe , the Wöhlerschule in Frankfurt am Main and the Tilemannschule in Limburg. After graduating from high school in 1970 at the boarding school Eckenberg-Gymnasium Adelsheim , Königshaus did military service as a temporary soldier (SaZ 2) with the reconnaissance squadron 51 “Immelmann” in Bremgarten near Freiburg im Breisgau. Afterwards he did several military exercises as a personnel officer (S1) with Lufttransportgeschwader 61 in Penzing / Bavaria and was promoted to first lieutenant in the reserve.

In 1972 he began studying law at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin , which he completed in August 1977 with the first state examination in law. After completing his legal clerkship in Berlin, he passed the second state examination in 1980 and then worked as a judge from February 1980 . From 1984 to 1986 he was a judicial spokesman in Berlin.

In 1986 he joined the Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection of the State of Berlin as a Senate Councilor . From 1986 to 1989 he headed the office of Senator Jürgen Starnick and in 1989 he took over the construction and until 1993 also the management of the waste management authority in Berlin. From 1986 to 1993 he was a representative of the State of Berlin on the Administrative Council of Berlin City Cleaning (BSR). In 1993 he moved to the Berlin waste disposal company Alba AG as a general manager .

Königshaus has been a partner in the law firm Steinmeyer & Partner Rechtsanwälte mbB in Hamburg since 2016.

Political party

He has been a member of the FDP since 1985 . Königshaus has been a member of the FDP state executive in Berlin since 1995. From 1996 to 1997 he was deputy state chairman of the FDP and from 1997 to 2004 legal advisor of the FDP regional association in Berlin. In the area of ​​the federal party he performed various functions, most recently as chairman of the federal committee for foreign policy. He has not held any party functions since the start of his tenure as military commissioner.

Member of Parliament

From 1990 to 1993 the royal house belonged to the district assembly of Berlin-Steglitz .

On August 20, 2004, he replaced the deceased member of the Bundestag Günter Rexrodt . In the 2009 Bundestag election he was again able to win a mandate from the Berlin State List. In 2004/2005 he was a member of the petitions committee and chairman and spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group in the committee for education, research and technology assessment. From 2005 to 2009 Königshaus was chairman and spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group for economic cooperation. From September 2009 he was a full member of the Defense Committee . He represented the FDP in three investigative committees, namely in 2004/2005 as chairman of the so-called Visa Committee, from 2005 in the "BND Committee" and was a member of the Defense Commission as a spokesman for the FDP in the investigative committee on the so-called Kunduz Affair .

He was a member of the Europa-Union parliamentary group of the German Bundestag .

On March 25, 2010, the King's House was elected by the German Bundestag to succeed the SPD politician Reinhold Robbe as the Bundestag's defense commissioner. He took up this office on May 20, 2010 and left the Bundestag at the same time. Holger Krestel moved up for him . Königshaus' term of office ended in May 2015. "If Königshaus [...] leaves in May, you can confidently call him the most successful FDP federal politician in recent years," wrote Nico Fried in January 2015 on the occasion of the presentation of the last annual report from Königshaus. "Quite a few liberals were annoyed, but at least it made a difference for the royal family." His successor was Hans-Peter Bartels , who was elected by the German Bundestag on December 18, 2014.

Other engagement

From 1990 to 2004 Königshaus performed various functions in different self-government organizations in the economy. He was a member for many years, chairman of the environmental committee of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry for more than 10 years and a member of the environmental committee of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as the energy committee of the BDI and from 2002 to 2004 chairman of the "Public Services Task Force" of European Industry Umbrella organization UNICE. From 2003 to 2007 Königshaus was also chairman of the “Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ” in Berlin. From 2004 to 2010 he was a deputy member of the board of trustees of the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” foundation . Between 2006 and 2010 he was a member of the board of trustees of the “ Georg Kraus Foundation ”, a member of the board of trustees of “InWelt” and a member of the supervisory board of the “ Center for International Peace Operations ” (ZIF). He is currently a member of the board of the Colonel Schöttler Disabled Foundation , which cares for the wounded and the bereaved of the fallen, and a member of the Free Democratic Welfare (FDW), a social association.

On November 15, 2015, the general assembly of the German-Israeli Society elected him as its President following the resignation of Reinhold Robbe .

Private

Hellmut Königshaus is married and has two daughters.

Positions and controversies

After the royal family was nominated as a candidate for the office of military commissioner, doubts were spread among the public as to whether he could actually have left the Bundeswehr after two years of service as a soldier with the rank of lieutenant , as stated in his Bundestag biography . In fact, this was possible at the time and was also true in his case, since then, unlike today, he was regularly promoted to lieutenant after 21 months.

Even before he took office, Königshaus came under political criticism in April 2010 because, after the “Good Friday Battle” in Afghanistan, near the Kunduz field camp in the village of Isa Khel, three German soldiers fell and suffered further serious wounds Demanded that the German contingent in Afghanistan be given heavy weapons to protect the camps and their surroundings in particular. The royal family argued that it was a war effort and that the forces had to be equipped accordingly. The political critics objected that such weapons could not be used in the "mountainous north" of Afghanistan and that they were not necessary because they were declared "not to be used in combat". Both assessments quickly turned out to be wrong, especially since the camps in Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif are not in the mountains but on flat plateaus. In addition, the then Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg admitted two weeks later, after four more soldiers had died, that the situation was "war-like" and then had heavy weapons, especially with the Panzerhaubitze 2000 artillery, transferred to Afghanistan and otherwise massively improve the equipment. After that, the security situation there relaxed significantly, and criticism of the royal family fell silent.

After the fatal accident of a young soldier on the sailing training ship Gorch Fock , the royal family complained about safety and equipment deficiencies as well as failure of leadership. After again initially violent criticism of the royal family, the navy ultimately confirmed this criticism, changed the training concept and retrofitted safety equipment on board. At the naval school in Flensburg - Mürwik , the Gorch-Fock training mast was also built in accordance with a request from the royal family , on which the physical performance of the young cadets can be tested under safe conditions before they have to go on board. It was also criticized that the royal house, citing its mandate "to protect fundamental rights" issued by the Basic Law, also referred to equipment and training deficiencies in special reports to the Defense and Budget Committees. In fact, almost all of his demands have meanwhile been met or recognized as justified, as can be seen from the statements of the Federal Ministry of Defense on these reports.

In August 2012, criticism of the royal family's actions was loud in the German media when they allegedly obtained the temporary deletion of a comment from Deutschlandradio Kultur on his work as a military commissioner. This demand resulted in the so-called Streisand effect and the comment was published on YouTube and in a blog , among other things, to be made available again a little later by the station. The broadcaster explained its procedure with a "communication glitch". Reports that the royal family had the comment deleted from the website after it aired on July 20 have been denied. “The accusation does not apply, of course,” stresses Editor-in-Chief Lange. "There must be no doubt about the independence of Deutschlandradio." In fact, the comment did not meet the quality standards of the station. The vehemence of the attack on the military commissioner does not reveal itself from the facts. Criticism must remain focused on the matter.

In December 2017, the royal family supported the controversial decision of US President Donald Trump to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem : “The fact that the US embassy was previously in Tel Aviv had something to do with the non-recognition of established realities. West Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for many years. German presidents and chancellors also spoke there in front of parliament and knew for sure where they were. That's why I can't understand the excitement like that. "

Web links

Commons : Hellmut Königshaus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nico Fried: Ein stubborn Mauler, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung No. 22, January 28, 2015, p. 4.
  2. ↑ Florian Stöhr: Bundestag elects new defense commissioner. Bundeswehr.de, December 19, 2014, accessed December 30, 2014 .
  3. ↑ The comment . Bendler blog. August 3, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  4. ↑ Armed Forces Commissioner has a comment deleted . heise.de. August 5, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  5. ↑ On our own behalf . Germany radio. August 6, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  6. ↑ Deutschlandradio puts the deleted comment back online . heise.de. August 6, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  7. ↑ Deutschlandradio Kultur - Statement . Germany radio. August 6, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ Werner Kolhoff: Interview: DIG boss Hellmut Königshaus supports Trump's decision , Baden online, December 7, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Royal family, Hellmut
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Royal Family, Hellmut Georg Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (FDP), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH East Berlin