Hermann Schwann

Hermann Schwann (born January 2, 1899 in Niederhöchstadt / Hessen , † January 15, 1977 in Bergisch Gladbach ) was a German politician of the FDP and the AUD .

Life and work

After attending high school in Cologne Schwann was commissioned officer in the First World War . He then studied agricultural science and graduated as a qualified farmer. From 1933 he worked as a seed specialist in the Reichsnährstand as head of the Berlin seed agency until 1938, then as a self-employed seed merchant in Vienna.

After the Second World War he ran a farm in Bergisch Gladbach .

Political party

Schwann was politically active in the DVP and from 1926 also in the Stahlhelm . In 1933 he joined the NSDAP .

After 1945 Schwann was initially involved in the FDP , of which he became district chairman in Bergisch Gladbach . In 1957/58 he was a member of the FDP federal executive committee . In 1960 he resigned from the FDP and founded on April 30, 1961 with Wolf Schenke , Werner Otto von Hentig , Bogislaw von Bonin and Theodor Kögler the Association of the German National Assembly (VDNV), of which he became the first chairman. After the merger of the VDNV with the German Association of August Haußleiter and the German Freedom Party of Heinrich Kunstmann to form the Action Group of Independent Germans (AUD) in 1965, Schwann was also part of this national-neutralist party - which would later become one of the germ cells of the Greens - until 1968. Today Schwann is considered to be the architect of the founding of the AUD, his attempts to win over well-known personalities such as Thomas Dehler , Oswald Adolph Kohut , Willy Max Rademacher (all FDP), Hubert Ney (CDU) or ex-Reichsbank boss Hjalmar Schacht for the new party failed however.

MP

From 1950 to 1953 Schwann was a member of the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia . From 1953 to 1957 he was a member of the German Bundestag for the FDP . In 1956 he was the first member of the Bundestag to travel to the People's Republic of China at his own expense . In the German Bundestag Schwann voted against the Saar Statute , the Paris Treaties and rearmament . Because of his criticism of the party leadership's foreign and nuclear policy, he decided not to run for the Bundestag again in 1957.

Volunteer work

Schwann was chairman of the German China Society from 1971 until his death

See also

• List of former NSDAP members who were politically active after May 1945

literature

• Munzinger : Internationales Biographisches Archiv 40/1965 of September 27, 1965.
• 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. 1159.