Horst Ehmke

Horst Ehmke (2003)

Horst Paul August Ehmke (born February 4, 1927 in Danzig , Free City of Danzig ; † March 12, 2017 in Bonn ) was a German constitutional law teacher and politician ( SPD ). In 1969 he was Federal Minister of Justice , from 1969 to 1972 Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellery, and from 1972 to 1974 Federal Minister for Research and Technology and Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications .

Life and work

Horst Ehmke came from the medical family of Paul Ehmke and Hedwig Ehmke; he first attended high school in Danzig. In 1943 he became an air force helper and after graduating from high school in 1944, he joined a paratrooper unit of the Wehrmacht . At the age of 18 he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Soviets . In 1945 he was released due to a serious illness.

In 1946 Ehmke passed the Abitur in Flensburg . He studied law and economics in Göttingen and from 1949 to 1950 political science and history in Princeton (USA). Ehmke finished his studies in 1951 with the first state examination and the legal clerkship in 1956 with the second state examination . In 1952 his promotion to the doctorate in law .

From 1952 to 1956 he was a research assistant to the Bundestag member Adolf Arndt (SPD). He then worked as a research fellow at the Ford Foundation in Cologne and Berkeley (USA) until 1960 . After his habilitation in 1960 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 1961 . From 1963 he was a full professor and holder of the chair for public law at this university. He was admitted to the bar in 1974 .

After leaving active politics, Ehmke devoted himself to writing detective novels that are set in a political environment (political thriller ). At times Ehmke also dealt intensively with the Praun murder case . He thought the verdict against Vera Brühne was wrong and suspected illegal arms trade as the motive for the murder.

Horst Ehmke was married for the second time and had three children. The art historian Ruth Schmitz-Ehmke was his older sister. A niece is the biologist Adelheid Ehmke .

Horst Ehmke's gravestone in the Poppelsdorf cemetery

Horst Ehmke's final resting place is in the Poppelsdorf cemetery in the Bonn district of the same name .

Political party

From 1944 Ehmke was registered as a member of the NSDAP . When this became known in 2007, he stated that he had not known about it before.

Since 1947 Ehmke belonged to the SPD. From 1973 to 1991 he was a member of the SPD party executive. There he was considered a representative of the center- left .

MP

Horst Ehmke with Katharina Focke in 1972 at a Christmas party in the Federal Chancellery

From 1969 to 1994 Ehmke was a member of the German Bundestag . From 1977 to 1990 he was deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group . Horst Ehmke was last drawn into the German Bundestag (12th electoral term 1990) via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia . After leaving the cabinet in 1974, he was foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group until 1990.

Public offices

From January 2, 1967 to March 26, 1969, Ehmke was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice led by Gustav Heinemann . After Heinemann's election as Federal President on March 5, 1969 and his departure from the Federal Government on March 26, 1969, Ehmke became Minister of Justice in the Kiesinger cabinet .

After the general election in 1969 , he was in the now by Chancellor Willy Brandt led government on 22 October 1969 the Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellery. After Ludger Westrick , he was only the second head of the chancellery in the ministerial rank. He increased the number of employees in the Chancellery by fifty percent to 389 in just one year . Ehmke was significantly involved in Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik . Brandt called Ehmke a "specialist for everything". As Minister of the Chancellery, Ehmke was also responsible for matters relating to the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). According to ZDF, he signed the contract on the German side for Operation Rubicon, which began in 1970 between the BND and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After the federal election in 1972 , he took over in the Brandt II cabinet on December 15, 1972, as head of the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology and the Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications . These offices ended after Willy Brandt's resignation in the course of the Guillaume affair on May 7, 1974 with Helmut Schmidt's election as Federal Chancellor on May 16, 1974 .

Fonts

Horst Ehmke's written estate (1948–1998; 43.00 running meters) is in the archive of social democracy (AdsD) of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Bonn.

Non-fiction books on politics

• Constitutional Amendment Limits. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953.
• Politics of Practical Reason. Articles and presentations. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969.
• Politics as a challenge. Speeches - lectures - essays 1968–1974. Müller, Karlsruhe 1974, ISBN 3-7880-9563-6 .
• Politics as a challenge. Speeches - lectures - essays 1975–1979. Müller, Karlsruhe 1979, ISBN 3-7880-9636-5 .
• Contributions to constitutional theory and constitutional politics (= monographs on legal research. Public law. Volume 6). Athenaeum, Königstein 1981, ISBN 3-7610-6315-6 .
• In the middle. From the grand coalition to German unity. Rowohlt, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-87134-089-8 .

Political thriller

• Global players. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-8218-0578-1 .
• The euro coup. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-8218-0539-0 .
• Sky torches. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-8218-0876-4 .
• Private matter . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-8218-0932-9 .
• In the shadow of violence. edition q in Bebra Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86124-599-X .

satire

• Dieter Klama , Horst Ehmke: The power of big and small animals. Carl Hanser, Munich a. a. 1980, ISBN 3-446-13203-1 .

See also

• Cabinet Kiesinger , cabinet Brandt I , Cabinet Brandt II

literature

• Annual Public Law of the Present 66 (2018), pp. 483-529 (contributions by Wolfgang Clement , Peter Häberle , Fritz W. Scharpf , Kurt Graulich and Frieder Günther ).
• Benjamin Seifert: Dreams of Modern Germany. Horst Ehmke, Reimut Jochimsen and the planning of the political in the first government of Willy Brandt (= Göttingen young research. Vol. 2). Ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8382-0105-4 .
• Winfried Süß: “But who thinks for the whole?” The rise and fall of inter-departmental planning in the Federal Chancellery. In: Matthias Frese, Julia Paulus, Karl Teppe (eds.): Democratization and social awakening. The sixties as the turning point of the Federal Republic (= research on regional history. Vol. 44). Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-506-79617-8 , pp. 349-377.
• Rolf Zundel : The controversial child prodigy. In: Die Zeit , 12/1969, portrait.

Web links

Commons : Horst Ehmke  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Horst Ehmke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Franz Walter : Horst Ehmke is 80 . In: Spiegel Online , February 4, 2007; portrait
• Renate Faerber-Husemann: Sometimes a warrior, sometimes a scholar: Horst Ehmke turns 90 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Horst Ehmke is dead . focus.de, March 13, 2017.
2. ↑ Günter Bannas : Ambitious, assertive and cheerful. On the death of the SPD politician Horst Ehmke . In: FAZ , March 14, 2017, p. 4.
3. ↑ The secret of Pöcking . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 2001, p. 134 ( online ).
4. ↑ Curriculum Vitae ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 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. , European Research Area Board 
5. ↑ Newly added to the list of people. In: knerger.de. Klaus Nerger, accessed on November 6, 2018 . 
6. ^ German Bundestag, 17th electoral period, 204th session of November 8, 2012, Document 17/8134 Dealing with the Nazi Past . (PDF)
7. ↑ Malte Herwig: Hopelessly in between. Nazi files reveal new prominent names - but the membership cards of the NSDAP say nothing about guilt or involvement of the 16 or 17-year-olds at the time . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 2007 ( online ).
8. ↑ Horst Ehmke is dead . Zeit Online , March 13, 2017.
9. ↑ Horst Ehmke died . tagesschau.de, March 13, 2017.
10. ↑ Robert Rossmann: At the switching point of power, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung on the weekend, 15./16./17. April 2017, p. 2.
11. ↑ Robert Rossmann: At the switching point of power, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung on the weekend, 15./16./17. April 2017, p. 2.
12. ↑ Horst Ehmke is dead . Spiegel Online , March 13, 2017.
13. ↑ The maker . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1971 ( online ).
14. ^ Operation Rubicon. Retrieved March 18, 2020 . 
15. ↑ Horst Ehmke's estate in the archive of social democracy; Retrieved September 18, 2012.