Henning Voscherau

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Henning Voscherau (1988)

Henning Voscherau [ ˈfɔʃəʁaʊ̯ ] (born August 13, 1941 in Hamburg ; † August 24, 2016 there ) was a German politician of the SPD . The lawyer was first mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 1988 to 1997 .

Live and act

Family, education and work

Henning Voscherau was the son of the actor Carl Voscherau and Martha, geb. Lohmann (1906–1971), the nephew of the popular actor Walter Scherau (actually Walter Voscherau) and brother of Eggert Voscherau . Henning Voscherau studied after graduating from high school Oberalster Law and Economics at the University of Hamburg . In 1969 he received his doctorate.

In 1971 Voscherau married the pharmacist Annerose. They had a son and two daughters.

From 1974 to 2011 (with an interruption from 1988 to 1997) he worked as a lawyer and notary in Hamburg . From 2011 on he ran an office community with his son, the lawyer Carl-Christian Voscherau .

Political career

Environmental discussion with Lord Mayor Wolfgang Berghofer (left) in Dresden, 1989

Voscherau described himself as a "born soci ", among other things his parents and grandfather were in the SPD. He himself joined the SPD in 1966. His political career began in 1970 when he was elected to the Wandsbek district assembly , in which he was also the parliamentary group leader of his party and of which he was a member until he was elected to the Hamburg parliament in 1974. In 1976 he was elected second deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in a voting against the left-wing Jan Ehlers with 41 to 17 votes.

From 1981 he was a member of the state executive committee of the SPD in Hamburg. In 1982 he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Hamburg parliament and held this position until 1987, before he was elected as the successor to Klaus von Dohnanyis as Hamburg's first mayor on June 8, 1988 . Until 1997 he headed three Hamburg Senates ( Senate Voscherau I , II and III ).

He was critical of the compromise reached by his predecessor in the autumn of 1987 with former squatters on Hafenstrasse and took a tougher line. In the end, he decided not to have the houses cleared and torn down, as the residents accepted the building of adjacent open spaces. From November 1, 1990 to October 31, 1991 Voscherau was President of the Federal Council . Before the 1997 anniversary, he initiated the extensive renovation of the Hamburg City Hall . He won the Senate and the citizenship as well as numerous donors for this task. Voscherau was one of the initiators of Hamburg's HafenCity , a new district.

Voscherau and Alfred Gomolka in the Hamburg City Hall, 1990

In the 1997 general election , the Hamburg SPD, with Voscherau as the top candidate, received only 36.2% of the votes. Voscherau said on the evening of the election in the 8 pm Tagesschau that this was "below his pain threshold". He takes "full responsibility" for the result and will not run for the office of first mayor in the new citizenship. His term of office ended on October 8, 1997. He then withdrew from active politics, but remained a member of the SPD federal executive committee until 2001.

After a member survey of the Hamburg SPD, which failed because of ballot theft, on the question of whether Mathias Petersen or Dorothee Stapelfeldt should challenge Ole von Beust ( CDU ) in the Hamburg state election in 2008 , Voscherau was given good chances of becoming the SPD's top candidate again . In a letter to the state chairman on March 5, 2007, however, he announced that he had decided not to run because of fear of not receiving permanent support and out of consideration for his family.

After Christian Wulff's resignation , he was discussed as a candidate for the office of Federal President in February 2012 .

Further activities and death

From 2003, Voscherau was a member of the board of directors of the German National Foundation , where he was deputy chairman of the Senate, he was also a member of the board of trustees of the Hamburger Zeit Foundation Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius and was both a supervisory board member and a member of the board of trustees of the private Hamburg Bucerius Law School .

Henning Voscherau's grave

In April 2012, Henning Voscherau became chairman of the supervisory board of South Stream Transport AG , a joint venture between Gazprom and the Italian energy supplier Eni .

Voscherau was chairman of the minimum wage commission , which in Germany decides on the adjustment of the level of the statutory minimum wage. He resigned from office in April 2015 for health reasons.

Voscherau died on August 24, 2016, the anniversary of his father's death, in his house in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel in the presence of his family of the consequences of a brain tumor . A state ceremony in his honor took place on September 9, 2016 in Hamburg's Thalia Theater . He was buried the next day in the closest circle of his family at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg.

Honors

In 2011, Voscherau was honored with the Mayor Stolten Medal , one of the highest awards in Hamburg, for his commitment to the planning of HafenCity . He was also an honorary member of the Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold .

The forecourt of HafenCity University was named after Henning Voscherau on November 14, 2019.

reception

Dieter Wedel's six-part play in Hamburg The Semmeling Affair from 2001 shows, despite assertions to the contrary, numerous parallels to Voscherau, his successor Ortwin Runde and the Hamburg SPD. The Hamburg mayor, played by Robert Atzorn , “Dr. In contrast to his down-to-earth successor, Axel Ropert, who was arrested in the party, he is an intellectual politician of integrity who is resigning due to family problems and an alliance that is emerging with the Greens. Voscherau recognized himself in the role of Dr. Hennig not again; He described a scene in which Social Democrats forge an intrigue in the opera as impossible, "because there aren't enough SPD members."

Publications

  • The insignificant false testimony: A contribution to the history and to the interpretation of the objective facts of undocumented and sworn false testimony. Hamburg 1970, DNB 482079193 ( dissertation , University of Hamburg, July 1, 1970).

Web links

Commons : Henning Voscherau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Family grave on knerger.de
  2. ^ Frank Reschreiter: "As long as I can, I work" , archive: Interview with Henning Voscherau. Hamburger Morgenpost from August 12, 2006 ( Memento from February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. a b Who was it? - Henning Voscherau, in: Vorwärts 6/2013, p. 41
  4. "21 were against Ulrich Hartmann" , in: Hamburger Abendblatt of April 27, 1976, accessed on March 22, 2020.
  5. ^ The history of Hafenstrasse , ndr.de, September 6, 2011
  6. Gisela Schütte: The town hall shines - Hamburg thanks the citizens. In: welt.de . September 21, 1999, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  7. ↑ The SPD apologizes to ex-party leader Petersen , welt.de of December 8, 2009
  8. ↑ Searching for a candidate: Voscherau cancels Hamburg's SPD , Spiegel article from March 5, 2007 on Voscherau's candidacy in the 2008 state elections
  9. Daniel Friedrich Sturm: Suddenly a Social Democrat was involved for Bellevue , welt.de of February 20, 2012
  10. Henning Voscherau on the website of his law firm, as seen December 28, 2012
  11. ^ Benedikt von Imhoff: Voscherau elected to the South Stream supervisory board chairman. In: Abendblatt.de, April 13, 2012
  12. Press release of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of December 17, 2014
  13. Press release of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of June 8, 2015
  14. ^ Senate mourns the loss of First Mayor Henning Voscherau hamburg.de, accessed on August 24, 2016
  15. Companions say goodbye to Henning Voscherau. In: Welt.de , September 9, 2016, accessed on September 10, 2016
  16. ^ Hanseat through and through: Henning Voscherau , NDR article from August 24, 2016
  17. Henning-Voscherau-Platz in the HafenCity inaugurated on www.hamburg.de on November 14, 2019, accessed on November 14, 2019