Josef Hermann Dufhues

Dufhues in Bochum 1968

Portrait of Josef Hermann Dufhues

The grave of Josef Hermann Dufhues and his wife Annette in the Querenburg cemetery in Bochum.

Monument to Dufhues in Bochum's city park

Josef Hermann Dufhues (born April 11, 1908 in today's Castrop-Rauxel , † March 26, 1971 in Rheinhausen , today a district of Duisburg ) was a German politician ( CDU ).

Life and work

After graduating from high school in Herne in 1927, Dufhues studied law and economics in Tübingen and Berlin . During his studies he became a member of the AV Guestfalia Tübingen in the CV , in 1956 honorary member of the K.St.V. Markomannia in the KV to Münster . From 1935 to 1945 Dufhues was a lawyer in Berlin and associated himself with the lawyer Fritz Ludwig and helped him in 1933 in representing the communist leader Ernst Thälmann . In the years leading up to the outbreak of war, Dufhues made a name for himself as a successful industrial lawyer. From 1941 to 1945 he did military service and was a judge at the Bochum district court until 1946 after the war . From 1946 Dufhues worked again as a lawyer and from 1951 also as a notary in Bochum.

In 1959 he was appointed Knight of the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher by Cardinal Grand Master Nicola Cardinal Canali and invested on June 6, 1959 by Lorenz Jaeger , Grand Prior of the German Lieutenancy . Most recently he was a Grand Officer of the Order. Dufhues died of a tropical virus infection in the Rheinhausen hospital after returning from a trip to South Africa .

Political party

In 1945 he joined the CDU. As a co-founder of the Junge Union Westfalen, he was its chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1946 to 1950 . In 1949/50 Dufhues also acted as federal chairman of the Junge Union.

In 1959 he took over the state chairmanship of the CDU Westphalia , which he held until 1970. After the end of his ministerial activity in 1962, Dufhues held the office of Executive Chairman of the CDU in Germany until 1966, which was created to relieve the elderly party chairman Konrad Adenauer . In this role, however, he was unable to meet the expectations placed on him, especially the hopes for a reform of the CDU. From 1966 to 1969 he was a member of the presidium of the CDU. At the end of 1968, a cancer that was recognized too late forced him to renounce the CDU's top candidacy for the 1970 state election.

MPs and public offices

Dufhues was a member of the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1946/47 and from 1950 to 1971 . He was elected from 1950 to 1966 in the Lippstadt state constituency, constituency 116 and constituency 119, and in 1970 via the CDU state list in the state parliament. From April to July 1966 he was President of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. The North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament elected him a member of the federal assemblies in 1949 and 1964.

From 1958 to 1962 he was Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Political

From 1955 to 1971 Dufhues was chairman of the board of directors of WDR . In this role he came, as a strong advocate of public broadcasting , in his party in opposition to Konrad Adenauer during the debate about the creation of the ZDF .

At the beginning of the 1960s he campaigned for the establishment of factories for the car manufacturer Opel and the establishment of the Ruhr University Bochum in the city, which was badly hit by the mining crisis. The structural change in the central Ruhr area was thus sustainably supported. The city of Bochum erected a monument to him in the city park for these services .

Dufhues also became known in 1963 because of his dispute with Group 47 triggered by the Spiegel affair . Some members of this loose association of writers - including Alfred Andersch , Hans Magnus Enzensberger , Uwe Johnson and Klaus Roehler - had protested in a resolution against the arrest of Conrad Ahlers and Rudolf Augstein at the instigation of the then Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss . Dufhues addressed the public at a press conference on January 19, 1963 and expressed concern about the "influence of 'Group 47' not only in the cultural but also in the political sphere", as stated in a report in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" was called. In public, these statements were viewed as a general attack by the ruling CDU on the writers' association. There was another verbal exchange of blows in public.

During the grand coalition he was one of the advocates of majority voting , along with Rainer Barzel , Bruno Heck , Richard Jaeger , Heinrich Krone , Paul Lücke , Gerhard Schröder , Franz Josef Strauss and Richard Stücklen . Although these found support from large parts of the SPD , they were unable to prevail in the coalition as a whole.

Private

Josef Hermann Dufhues was born with Maria Antoinette. Krauss, daughter of Hans Krauss , the last press chief of the Center Party, married.

Honor grave for Dufhues

In spring 2014, the CDU council group in Bochum applied for an honorary grave for Dufhues. Due to an objection by council member Ralf Feldmann (Die Linke), Dufhues's membership in the SS equestrian squadron was opposed. The CDU application was then initially withdrawn.

Research on a possible Nazi past of Josef Hermann Dufhues from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung on March 6, 2014 comes to the result:

“Dufhues was never a member of the NSDAP and was temporarily part of an SS sub-organization that was classified as a non-criminal organization after the end of the Second World War. There is also evidence that he represented opponents of the regime in court. "

literature

• Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , revised and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 78f.
• Becker, Hans: The time after Adenauer: Memory of Josef Hermann Dufhues  ; Broadcast: Saturday, March 28, 1981, 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., 3rd program. Cologne: WDR, 1981, 19 pages (Forum West / WDR, Politics Department, State Office).
• Guido Wärme : "No grave of honor for the SS man and Nazi helper"  : Comments on the controversy about the alleged Nazi past of CDU politician Josef Hermann Dufhues in 2015. (Life pictures). In. Historical-political announcements. Cologne u. a., 22 (2015), pp. 231-251.

Web links

Commons : Josef Hermann Dufhues  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Exhibition for the 100th birthday of Josef Hermann Dufhues
• Tabular curriculum vitae at the Federal Archives

Individual evidence

1. ^ Spiegel Archive: The Black Wehner June 6, 1962.
2. ^ Spiegel Archive: Detour to Bonn August 16, 1962.
3. ^ Spiegel Archive: DIED JOSEF HERMANN DUFHUES March 29, 1971.
4. ↑ Konrad Adenauer Foundation: Dufhue's Life Picture, accessed on July 19, 2020
5. ^ State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia: [* [1] Detailed view of the MP Josef Hermann Dufhues ]
6. ↑ Dufhues, Josef Hermann . In: Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdB - The People's Representation 1946–1972. - [Daecke bis Dziekan] (=  KGParl online publications ). Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties e. V., Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020703-7 , pp. 242–243 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2014070812574 ( kgparl.de [PDF; 212 kB ; accessed on June 19, 2017]).
7. ↑ Helmut Böttiger: Die Gruppe 47. Munich 2012, p. 312 f.
8. ^ Spiegel Archive: Detour to Bonn August 16, 1962.
9. ↑ Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, holdings SS-Führer, Josef Hermann Dufhues (entry in SS-Stammrolle No. R 4/6 146 of February 28, 1934).
10. ↑ sagel.info
11. ↑ No honorary grave for Dufhues , bo-alternativ.de, March 31, 2014 (letter from Raf Feldmann to the mayor and all council members).
12. ↑ Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Ed.): Research into a possible Nazi past of Josef Hermann Dufhues ( Memento of the original of April 13, 2014 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. . PDF file from March 6, 2014 on the pages of the Junge Union Bochum .