Joachim Wundrak

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Joachim Wundrak (right) with the US Ambassador to Mozambique Dean Curran (left) and Major General of the US Air Force Joe Wehrle in Maputo in March 2000
Joachim Wundrak (middle row, third from right) at a conference with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem

Joachim Wundrak (born May 28, 1955 in Kerpen ) is a Lieutenant General a. D. the air force of the German armed forces . For the AfD , he ran unsuccessfully for the office of Lord Mayor of Hanover in the elections in October 2019 , where he received 4.6% of the vote.

Military career

Training and first uses

Wundrak joined the German Armed Forces on October 1, 1974 and completed basic training in Air Force Training Regiment 2 in Budel in the Netherlands . He went through further officer training at the Luftwaffe officer school in Neubiberg . From 1976, Wundrak studied electrical engineering at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich . He graduated in 1980 with a degree in engineering .

From 1980 to 1982 Wundrak was in the Pilot School of Lufthansa in Bremen designed to transport pilots and then to the Air Transport Wing 62 in Wunstorf added. Wundrak flew Dornier Do 28 and Transall C-160 there . In 1986 he was transferred to the Luftwaffe officer's school as a lecture hall director, before he was deployed again in an aviation assignment from 1987, this time as commander on the Transall, with Lufttransportgeschwader 62. From 1988 to 1990 Wundrak attended the 33rd general staff course at the Staff College in Hamburg in part.

Service as a staff officer

Following the general staff course, Wundrak was Head of Division A3a in the air transport command in Münster until 1992 . A deployment as a squadron captain of the 1st squadron of the Lufttransportgeschwader 63 in Hohn near Rendsburg was followed by a deployment as a consultant for air transport in the command staff of the Air Force from 1994 to 1995 and then as an adjutant to the Inspector of the Air Force until 1998.

In 1998, Wundrak returned to Wunstorf and, as a commodore, was in charge of Lufttransportgeschwader 62 in Wunstorf until 2000. At the beginning of 2000 he also headed the German contingent of "Operation Atlas Response / Silent Promise" in Maputo ( Mozambique ) during a flood disaster . He then went from 2000 to 2002 as a liaison officer at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (Northwood Headquarters) of the British Armed Forces . From 2002 to 2004 he was Head of Division in the Air Force Command Staff. From 2004 to 2006 he was Head of Department V in the Command Staff of the Armed Forces .

Service as a general

From 2006, Wundrak was the Deputy Director European Air Group in High Wycombe in Great Britain and from April 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 in the Air Force Command Staff. From July 1, 2009 to March 31, 2012, Wundrak was then Deputy Commander in the Air Force Command . 1 April 2012 Wundrak successor was Dieter Naskrent as commander of the Command Operations Command Air Forces in Kalkar and in personal union of the Combined Air Operations Center in Uedem . At the end of June 30, 2013, the command was officially dissolved and the Air Operations Center was set up, and Wundrak was its first commander. He handed over this post to Lieutenant General Klaus Habersetzer on September 24, 2018 and retired after 44 years of service at the end of that month.

Assignments abroad

Politician

Joachim Wundrak is the highest-ranking former Bundeswehr soldier who is involved as a politician in the AfD. Wundrak, who claims to have previously elected the SPD and valued Helmut Schmidt , joined the CDU in 2008 . He left the party in 2014, according to his own account, because of the federal government's refugee policy, which he was informed about at an early stage through his official contacts with the federal police . In January 2018 he joined the AfD. The party membership only became publicly known after he left the armed forces, when he applied for the post of Lord Mayor in Hanover in July 2019. The Hanover AfD nominated him in the summer of 2019 as their candidate for the mayoral election.

Wundrak accuses Chancellor Angela Merkel of being "anti-German", which means that he does not only refer to immigration and refugee policy. With regard to migrants and journalists, he represents AfD-typical views. He describes EU structures as undemocratic, the European Parliament is a “pseudo- parliament ”, the European Union is pushing the nation states into the background. However, Wundrak says he is “not fundamentally against the EU”. He regards Germany as having only limited sovereignty , for which he refers to a broad spectrum of opinion from the so-called Reich citizens to Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble , whom he named as an example in a presentation to the Hanover AfD before his nomination. He considers the European Central Bank and the European Court of Justice to be particularly dangerous . They degrade Germany to a mere regional authority and have "largely given up" its sovereignty. He considers right-wing extremist tendencies in his party to be a product of press coverage that the AfD is being “attached to a right-wing extremism problem”. The problems of Hanover, which he sees sunk in feeling and dependency after the resignation of Mayor Stefan Schostok because of the accusation of infidelity , he sees in the polluted public space, school problems and crime. He describes himself as "very future-oriented" and rejects the "climate hysteria". In his opinion, a subway should by definition run underground, which is why he would like to remember the complete tunneling of the Hanover light rail .

In the election for Mayor of Hanover on October 27, 2019, Wundrak finally achieved 4.6% of the vote and was behind Belit Onay (Greens) and Eckhard Scholz (independent, candidate of the CDU; 32.2% each) and Marc Hansmann ( SPD; 23.5%) fourth.

Honors

Wundrak has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit .

On September 25, 2018, Wundrak was bid farewell as commander of the air force base on the historic market square of the city of Kalkar with a big tattoo .

Private

Wundrak is married and has a son and daughter.

literature

  • Manfred Sadlowski (Ed.): Handbook of the Bundeswehr and the Defense Industry 2011/2012 Bernard & Graefe, 18th edition, Bonn 2011, ISBN 3-7637-6289-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/hannover_weser-leinegebiet/OB-Wahl-in-Hannover-Scholz-und-Onay-gleichauf,oberbuergermeisterwahl166.html
  2. ↑ Personnel changes in top military positions. BMVg press and information staff, March 4, 2008, archived from the original on June 15, 2008 ; Retrieved April 4, 2016 .
  3. ^ Federal Ministry of Defense, Press and Information Staff : Personnel changes in top military and civilian positions. Bundeswehr, July 10, 2013, accessed on July 11, 2013 .
  4. ↑ a b Florian Gathmann, Matthias Gebauer, Severin Weiland: The AfD and its three-star general. In: Spiegel Online , July 26, 2019, accessed on September 15, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b Reinhard Bingener: How a general turned right. In: FAZ . September 15, 2019, accessed the same day.
  6. ↑ a b c d Peter Burghardt: The ex-officer who runs for the AfD. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . July 31, 2019, accessed September 15, 2019.
  7. ↑ Ludwig Krause: Former Air Force General stands for the AfD. In: Rheinische Post . July 25, 2019, accessed September 15, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Ten applicants will run for the election. In: hannover.de , October 2, 2019.
  9. ↑ Election to the Mayor of the State of Hanover (October 27, 2019) , on wahl.hannover-stadt.de
  10. ↑ Anja Settnik: Big tattoo for the general. In: Rheinische Post , September 26, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Wundrak, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general and former commander of the air operations center
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Kerpen