Jan Klinkenborg

Jan Peter August Klinkenborg (born September 26, 1935 in Emden ; † July 28, 1988 there ) was mayor of his hometown from 1973 to 1981 and from 1979 to his death a member of the European Parliament in the first and second electoral periods.

Klinkenborg grew up in simple circumstances and among other things worked as a truck driver . He joined the SPD in 1952 and was elected to the executive committee of the SPD district Weser-Ems in 1969, two years later to the Lower Saxony state committee and again two years later to the SPD party council.

When his predecessor Hermann Schierig had to resign in September 1973 because of a scandal over a celebration financed by the city's treasury, the SPD majority elected him as the new mayor. Although Klinkenborg was only the highest representative of the city and chairman of the council according to the Lower Saxony municipal code at the time, he still claimed a leadership role vis-à-vis the city ​​director and also moved into an office in the administration building. “He shone less with high school social fate and diplomatic sophistication. But he had other advantages: his visibly unaffected joviality and his East Frisian-rough charm. Both were paired with him with a remarkable Low German quick-wittedness. This coarseness was not for everyone, especially since Klinkenborg often took an uncontrolled shot from the hip in his public speeches. Out of the grossest linguistic calamities, he skilfully wriggled his way out of the Low German and took away the embarrassment of many undiplomatic statements at the last second - if not always. "

During Klinkenborg's tenure, the first harbingers of the shipyard crisis fell , which made itself felt in Emden above all through job cuts at the largest shipyard, Nordseewerke . In 1979 the Schulte & Bruns shipping company went bankrupt with the associated shipyard . The Volkswagen plant in Emden , founded in 1964, saw its export situation weakened by the construction of its own Volkswagen of America plant in Westmoreland (Pennsylvania) , but the number of employees increased again after declines in the meantime. In 1977 the natural gas landing station of the American energy company Phillips Petroleum Company was inaugurated on the Knock for gas from the North Sea field Ekofisk .

The dominant local political and economic issue during Klinkenborg's tenure, however, was the Dollarthafen project (which later failed) , which envisaged an expansion of the Emden harbor along the Ems over several kilometers. In addition to the settlement of industrial companies and the construction of a nuclear power plant on the Knock, the port handling, which was characterized by a decline in iron ore imports for the Ruhr area , should be stimulated again. The major project dominated political events in the city for years without ever being implemented. Klinkenborg was seen as a clear supporter of the project: "If there is no sensible port policy here, there will be no sensible economic development."

The honorary mayor ran in 1979 as a candidate for the European Parliament and was also elected. In 1984 he was re-elected. Klinkenborg had always refused to hold the offices of MEP and (honorary) Mayor of Emden in parallel. For Klinkenborg, the status of a member of parliament also meant the solution to the supply problem, since as an honorary mayor he was doing a time-consuming but not paid job.

Klinkenborg died on July 28, 1988 in his holiday home on the Uphuser Meer in Emden- Marienwehr . He had previously met friends and collapsed dead after their visit.

Web links

• Entry on Jan Klinkenborg in the European Parliament 's database of MEPs

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Herbert Kolbe: The man. The institution. The town. An essay about Alwin Brinkmann and other (s). Verlag SKN, Norden 2011, ISBN 978-3-939870-96-8 , p. 46.
2. ↑ Herbert Kolbe: The man. The institution. The town. An essay about Alwin Brinkmann and other (s). Verlag SKN, Norden 2011, ISBN 978-3-939870-96-8 , p. 53.
3. ↑ Herbert Kolbe: The man. The institution. The town. An essay about Alwin Brinkmann and other (s). Verlag SKN, Norden 2011, ISBN 978-3-939870-96-8 , p. 56.