Karl Heinz Gasser

Karl Heinz Gasser (born March 10, 1944 in Dillenburg , Hessen ) is a German lawyer and politician of the CDU .

Life and work

Between April 1964 and March 1966 Gasser served in the Bundeswehr as a temporary soldier and lieutenant in the reserve.

From 1966 to 1971 he studied political science and law in Giessen . After the first state examination in 1971 he was a trainee lawyer in the higher regional court district of Frankfurt am Main , after the second state examination in 1973 he was a research assistant at the University of Giessen. In 1977 Gasser became a probationary judge at the district court in Frankfurt / Main. In the following year he received his doctorate. jur. An appointment as judge for life at the local administrative court in 1978 was followed by work in Giessen and Kassel.

Today he runs a law firm in Giessen together with the Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier .

Gasser is married and has two children. He is a volunteer ambassador for the Children's Hospice Central Germany Nordhausen Foundation in Tambach-Dietharz.

Public offices

In 1990 Gasser became State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of Justice, in 1991 State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of Justice, Federal and European Affairs. In 1994/95 he was State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of Economics and Infrastructure.

He became known, among other things, as the head of the commission named after him that published the official final report on the rampage in Erfurt in 2004.

On July 8, 2004 he was appointed Minister of the Interior of Thuringia . He gave up this office on April 8, 2008. Reasons for the resignation were initially not given.

Controversy and resignation

The background to the resignation was a restructuring of the police apparatus called for by Prime Minister Dieter Althaus in his first government declaration after the state elections in 2004 , which he believed he could demand due to changed social framework conditions (especially the declining population of Thuringia). Based on the assumption that a smaller number of citizens also need fewer public employees to fulfill state services and tasks, the relation of police officers to the number of inhabitants should be examined. Financial savings that could and should be achieved by streamlining the police force were also a motivation that should not be underestimated.

Gasser, who was appointed Minister of the Interior in July 2004, gave the police department of the Ministry of the Interior the following test on October 15, 2004: " Review of the organizational structure of the Thuringian police and submission of proposals for substantial and feasible organizational optimization ". To edit the inspection order and to accompany the Umorganisationssprozesses the project group was OPTOPOL set (optimization of the organizational structure of the Thuringian police) in the Interior Ministry. The steering group had an advisory role for the Thuringian Minister of the Interior.

In July 2005 (the project group) OPTOPOL then submitted "structural and procedural organizational optimization proposals and suggestions for improving management and control " to the Minister of the Interior . On November 29, 2005, Gasser informed the state government of the results of the organizational review, which they then made public.

According to these (original) plans of the project group or Gassers, the police administration office was to be dissolved, the number of the seven Thuringian police departments (which existed up to then) reduced to four (north, central, east and south-west Thuringia) and around 430 police stations deleted. Gasser and the state government hoped to save 1.2 million euros per year in personnel costs and a total of approx. Achieve 30 million euros for (reduced) properties.

Despite resolute resistance from GdP , BDK and PBG as well as the two opposition parties SPD and Die Linke , who saw no actual restructuring in the planned measures, missed the integration of the reform into a general functional, administrative and territorial reform and saw it as merely a means In order to rehabilitate the Thuringian budget, with the result that important core tasks of the police could no longer be carried out and also brought in alternative proposals, these first proposals by OPTOPOL were approved by the cabinet on June 20, 2006 and the Ministry of the Interior with the implementation of the planned Measures commissioned.

The debate about the new structure of the police apparatus dragged on for several years. Gasser's proposals were also met with opposition from members of the CDU parliamentary group, who gathered around the CDU parliamentary group's internal policy spokesman, Wolfgang Fiedler, and the chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, Christine Lieberknecht . Most recently, Althaus had commissioned State Secretary Rüdiger Hütte to take over negotiations with the parliamentary group, which was already seen as the minister's disempowerment.

As part of a cabinet reshuffle, which was announced on April 23, 2008, Prime Minister Dieter Althaus named the previous President of the Thuringian Court of Auditors, Manfred Scherer , as Gasser's successor.

Just one day after his inauguration, the new Interior Minister Manfred Scherer announced that the OPTOPOL project group would be terminated at short notice and the officials involved would be sent back to their offices. The number of police departments is still being checked. Scherer could not say when the reform will be implemented.

Honors

• 2010: Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Heinz Gasser in the catalog of the German National Library
• Vita with photo of Dr. Karl Heinz Gasser
• CV at mdr.de ( Memento from April 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Der Tagesspiegel April 8, 2008: Interior Minister Gasser takes his hat
2. ↑ Projections by the State Office for Statistics showed that the population of Thuringia of approx. 2.32 million would likely drop to around 2.19 million in 2015
3. ↑ According to the Ministry of the Interior (Gassers), a total of 109 people participated in the OPTOPOL project , with the following distribution of tasks: steering group (13 members), various sub-projects (88 members), and a core team (8 employees). see: Thuringian State Parliament DrS 4/1364 (November 21, 2005): Small question from MPs Wolf (Die Linkspartei.PDS) and answer from the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior, OPTOPOL working group
4. ↑ Thuringian Parliament. Press and public relations department. Press kit for the 78th and 79th plenary sessions / April 27 and 28, 2008; here: p. 3ff.
5. ↑ s. dbb regional magazin - March 2007 (+ graphic)  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ MDR February 28, 2008: Optopol. Thuringian state parliament decides to reform the police  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Thuringian State Parliament Courier Issue 2 / March 2008: Restructuring of the police and teacher training law decided
8. ^ Union of the Thuringia Police March 23, 2007: betrayal of one's own colleague
9. ↑ For example, the SPD domestic politician Heiko Gentzel in: Freie Wort January 23, 2008: A reform pending - and all questions unanswered  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ Free Word February 21, 2008: Police reform. CDU parliamentary group gives Gasser a free hand for Optopol  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Police Union of Thuringia November 23, 2005: The police union rejects the proposals of the project management team
12. ↑ Police Union of Thuringia January 1, 2006: Police do not save money
13. ^ Union of the Police of Thuringia February 1, 2006: OPTOPOL one of the most important topics
14. ↑ Police Union of Thuringia January 12, 2006: Minimum requirements for police structure
15. ↑ FAZ.net April 8, 2008: Interior Minister Gasser resigns
16. ↑ Thuringian Ministry of Interior: OPTOPOL. Cabinet approves police reform ( memento of the original from May 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
17. ↑ Police Union of Thuringia June 20, 2006: Cabinet approves police reform
18. ↑ MDR December 28, 2007: Police reform: Lieberknecht announces proposals  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
19. ↑ Free word January 23, 2008: A reform pending - and all questions unanswered  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
20. ↑ Focus-Online April 8, 2008: Interior Minister throws down
21. ↑ Rheinische Post April 8, 2008: Thuringia's Minister of the Interior Gasser resigns  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
22. ↑ thüringen.de April 23, 2008: Althaus announces cabinet reshuffle ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2008 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. 
23. ↑ Thüringer Allgemeine May 10, 2008: GM maize ban and police reform in the state parliament  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.