Klaus-Eckhard Walker

Klaus-Eckhard Walker (born November 8, 1952 in Trier ) is a German lawyer . From 1991 to 2007 he was Lord Mayor of Rastatt and from 2008 to 2013 first chairman of the association For our Rastatt , which has been represented in the Rastatt municipal council and district council since the local elections in 2009. Until 2005 he was a member of the SPD , which he left in protest against the policies of the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder .

On June 7, 2009, he applied as a non-party candidate for the party Die Linke for the post of director in the Saarbrücken regional association , but failed in the first ballot with 15.29% votes as third-place and was therefore no longer allowed to run for the runoff election. Because of this application, he renounced an initially announced candidacy for the Rastatt city council. In 2013 he retired from local politics.

Life

Klaus-Eckhard Walker grew up in Saarlouis-Beaumarais . His father was director of the Saartal-Milchwerke and died early, so that Klaus-Eckhard Walker was a half-orphan at the age of ten. His mother raised him alone and worked in the United Saarland electricity works .

He did his Abitur in St. Wendel . In 1973, during his military service, he became a father for the first time.

He then studied law, political science and philosophy in Trier , Saarbrücken and Frankfurt am Main between 1974 and 1981 . In 1976 he was elected as the successor to Ottmar Schreiner as chairman of the student union AStA in Saarbrücken.

He then worked as a lawyer before becoming managing director of the Saarland district council in Saarbrücken . He held this position for six years. At that time he also worked as an honorary judge at the Saarbrücken Labor Court and as a lecturer in child and youth welfare law at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Saarbrücken.

From 1991 to 2007 he was chairman of the administrative board of the Sparkasse Rastatt-Gernsbach , from 1996 to 2007 chairman of the supervisory board of REHA-Südwest non-profit company. From 1996 to 2008 he was president of the Rastatt soccer club FC Rastatt 04 . From 2002 to 2007 he was an honorary judge at the Karlsruhe Labor Court. He was also chairman of the supervisory board of star.energiewerke Rastatt .

In his capacity as Lord Mayor, he was also chairman of the “Seniorenhilfe Rastatt” association (“Rastatt Alten- und Weihnachtsshilfe” before 2005). The organization originally founded in 1948 became a registered association under Walker.

He is married and has five daughters.

Lord Mayor

First term (1991–1999)

On October 20, 1991 he was elected Lord Mayor of Rastatt with 43.1% of the vote. It was a runoff election. H. the second ballot, which only required a simple majority. In the first ballot, no candidate had achieved an absolute majority.

The election was preceded by a scandal in which a candidate close to the CDU was pressured not to run in the runoff election. Since this became public, it became a debacle for the favored CDU candidate Helmut Eichenlaub. In the final sprint to the election, Walker, who had the support of the SPD, was able to overtake him.

Walker soon acquired the reputation of an opinionated and independent, but also contentious mayor, who represented his position, even accepting poor press coverage and disagreements with the city council and the district. He mostly had the support of the SPD on his side. There were repeated differences of opinion with the CDU, which is the largest parliamentary group in the city council.

During his first term of office, among other things, the very successful street theater festival “Tête-à-Tête” was held for the first time in 1993. He also soon brought up the establishment of a citizens 'office, which is a central point of contact for most of the authorities' visits to the city's residents the way. The office was set up in May 1992, and when it opened in February 1994 it was one of the first in all of Baden-Württemberg . Furthermore, a center for company founders was set up and the industrial area grew. His commitment to environmental protection, u. a. through the “Citizens Solar Park”, Rastatt earned prizes.

The conversion of the former Canadian military airfield into today's Baden-Airpark as well as the plans for the continuation of the S-Bahn from Karlsruhe to the city center of Rastatt were important issues during this term of office. He is hostile to both projects. He was essentially able to prevail. The S-Bahn plans were put on hold. In contrast to other municipalities in the district, Rastatt is not directly involved in the airport; Walker sees more tourist than economic benefits in it.

Furthermore, the restructuring of the finances of the city of Rastatt began.

Second term (1999–2007)

When he was re-elected on September 12, 1999, with a turnout of around 57%, he gained almost exactly 2000 votes and won against Margret Mergen , the then treasurer of the city of Karlsruhe, with 51.3% of the votes cast. There were no other opponents.

The second term of office was overshadowed by a series of events that made Rastatt local issues known nationwide and the focus of which was on Walker.

Niederbühl shelter and grill hut

A dispute over a refuge and barbecue hut in the Niederbühl district that was not built in accordance with the building permit became known nationwide. The hut was built by the local fruit and horticultural association following a building permit from December 1998 . Two years later, the license was withdrawn because the original license was incorrect. Originally only a small refuge was approved, but in the end a much larger hut was built. Walker got himself involved and requested the demolition of the cabin. This in turn met with resistance from Niederbühl's mayor Arnold Kiefer, who was also chairman of the fruit and horticultural association. The matter developed into a dispute between Walker and Kiefer and the Niederbühler clubs. Mediation attempts, u. a. by exploring alternative construction sites, failed. On June 16, 2003, the Baden-Württemberg Administrative Court ruled that the hut had to be demolished. In June 2004 the fruit and garden association turned to the petition committee of the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg. In February 2005, the city of Rastatt ordered the smelter to be demolished, thus anticipating the meeting of the committee scheduled for March 9, 2005. The latter expressed his disapproval because this measure took place without prior notice and, contrary to an agreement between the state parliament and the state government, that enforcement measures would be refrained from while a petition procedure was ongoing.

Protest against war in Afghanistan

In 2001, Walker attracted a lot of attention for his public protest against the war in Afghanistan . Furthermore, he opposed the fact that the Federal SPD supported this. This was also noticed in the national press. An application drawn up by the board of the Rastatt SPD, which had the support of Walker and was to be presented to the SPD's federal party congress, failed due to the vote at the SPD's general assembly. The debate also revealed the tense relationship between Walker and parts of the Rastatt SPD. After the failure of the application, the board of the Rastatt SPD resigned. The relationship between Walker and the Rastatt SPD cooled off.

Allegations against asylum seekers

On July 21, 2003, Walker noticed by a statement that the residents of the Rastatt asylum seekers' home should adhere to the customs of their host country, otherwise they should "go back to the Congo, where they can dance around the fire until they turn black, which they do." are already ". The reason for this statement was a “reggae party” that apparently bothered Walker, who lived in the immediate vicinity of the dormitory. Then 70 residents of the home marched to the Rastatt town hall. However, Walker did not withdraw his statements, but justified them with concern for his children. He indicated that children could come into contact with drugs in the vicinity of the asylum seekers' facility . The police contradicted his account: The home is not a special focus of activity. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, some residents were arrested for drug offenses, which, according to the police, was the result of months of investigative work.

When Walker's candidacy for director of the Saarbrücken regional association in 2009, the events became the subject of the election campaign.

Resignation

In the summer of 2005, Walker resigned from the SPD after almost 33 years of membership in protest against Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's social policy . He described this as a "personally difficult" step. However, he also learned to appreciate his political independence.

Mother tongue lessons

In November 2006, Walker suggested to the local council that the city's classrooms should no longer be used for native-language classes for children with a migrant background. He justified this, among other things, with the fact that this promotes the formation of parallel societies and hinders the acquisition of sufficient knowledge of German. The local council followed the suggestion and asked the state government to change the relevant administrative regulations. Furthermore, the decision included no longer providing rooms for mother tongue lessons.

This led to protests by the Italians and Turks in Rastatt. Both groups sued the decision.

In December, Walker recommended that Turkish parents “please move if you don't like the city council's decision”.

The Deputy Italian Foreign Minister Franco Danieli traveled to Stuttgart to speak to the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Rau about Rastatt's decision not to provide any classrooms for mother-tongue lessons. Thereupon Danieli had declared that they would support a lawsuit by Italian parents before the European Court of Justice. Walker replied: “German laws apply in Germany. If you don't like living here with us, you are welcome to return to your beloved Italy. "

It was also reported in the Turkish press. On March 15, 2007, the newspaper Hürriyet commented on its front page that Rastatt's Lord Mayor Klaus Eckhard Walker had “exceeded the limit this time”.

After the Administrative Court of Karlsruhe initially rejected the complaint by Turkish families against the municipal council decision, the Administrative Court of Mannheim (VGH) granted it on October 19, 2007. According to the judgment, the city of Rastatt may not disregard the requirements of the Ministry of Culture. The city administration replied in a statement that the mother tongue lessons were not "God given", but were subject to the free right of decision of the state of Baden-Württemberg and should now be called into question by the "highest authority".

The CDU in Rastatt said of the verdict that they had previously decided to the best of their conscience, but were also prepared to modify the decision so that the mother tongue lessons can only be carried out under strict control. The SPD was pleased with the verdict.

Almost exactly a month later, the Turkish community filed a complaint against Klaus-Eckhard Walker because the court ruling had not yet been implemented. She also accused Walker of deliberately delaying the implementation of the decision.

Shortly afterwards, the city administration presented the municipal council with new usage regulations. In this, the external use of classrooms, including clubs, was generally no longer permitted. Third-party users were referred to other urban spaces. The mother tongue lessons were no longer mentioned. Walker commented in a letter on the proposal that it was not about "substantial changes" in the usage regulations. He denied a priority connection with mother tongue lessons.

However, the local council decided against discussing the issue in the last week of Klaus-Eckhard Walker's term of office, which expired on November 30, 2007. The agenda item of the corresponding municipal council meeting was canceled at the request of the CDU and with the support of the SPD. The ALG / FDP parliamentary group abstained, Walker himself voted against.

On December 17th, the municipal council dealt with the topic and decided without dissenting votes to make rooms available to the consulates as soon as possible. He thus revised his previous decision.

Loss in the mayoral election in 2007

The events of the second term of office had a polarizing effect on the population of the city of Rastatt, which was particularly evident in the 2007 election. Long in the run-up to the election, a group of declared Walker opponents had organized themselves in the citizens' initiative "Zukunft Rastatt" and went looking for candidates. For a long time it looked like Walker would run unopposed. The candidate Toni Huber, mayor of Weisenbach , supported by the CDU and the citizens' initiative , withdrew his candidacy for health reasons. In the end, there were four opponents. These were Christof Nitz, supported by the CDU, who was supported by the citizens' initiative, but also CDU-affiliated Hans Jürgen Pütsch , the entrepreneur Wolfgang Weinbrecht and the student Klaus Josef Muth. The big parties initially kept a low profile, but ultimately supported Walker's opponents in both ballots.

Election campaign

The election campaign was very heated. The fronts were hardened in numerous letters to the editor in the local press. Walker himself spoke of malicious allegations towards people close to him. The citizens' initiative replied that this was not “their style” and that defamation and the spread of rumors had always been “left to the other side”. An election campaign event even resulted in a complaint because the head of a large company that had moved from Rastatt was accused of bribery through Walker. The public prosecutor's office in Baden-Baden dropped the proceedings because the statement did not constitute an offense, defamation or defamation.

Walker's supporters attested that he was straightforward and successful in his 16-year tenure. He is independent of otherwise politically and economically influential forces in Rastatt. They also accused the local press of putting Walker in a bad light.

Walker's opponents, on the other hand, accused him of a lack of ability to compromise and assessed his behavior in the controversies of recent years as negative.

Election result

In the first ballot on September 16, 2007, Walker left the four opposing candidates far behind, but with 46.05% of the vote, he just missed the absolute majority. The candidates Nitz and Weinbrecht did not run for the runoff election, Muth declared his resignation. In the second ballot on September 30, 2007, Walker lost (47.25%) to the remaining opposing candidate Hans Jürgen Pütsch , who received 51.07% of the vote. Walker's term of office expired on December 1, 2007.

Objections to the election

However, on October 16, 2007, it was announced that objections had been received against the election. Details of the nature of these complaints were slow to emerge. The local press initially reported on alleged electoral influence in a retirement home and the violation of the ban mile around the Rastatt town hall.

A group of four later identified as the complainant, which was the former SPD city councilor and SPD local association chairman Georg Raith, an SPD and an FDP city councilor and a Rastatt businessman. Initially, they only cited as grounds for complaint that the newsletters of the districts, which were under the responsibility of the mayor, only printed the election campaign dates of Walker's competitors. Over 200 people joined the objection. Further grounds for objection were later also known: The motion was of "inadmissible election advertising, incorrect electoral roll and violation of the principle of freedom of choice through online polls". The regional council in Karlsruhe examined the objection and, in the event of serious irregularities, could have canceled the election so that it would have been necessary to repeat the election.

Klaus-Eckhard Walker himself largely withdrew from the public eye in the two months after the election and first took a stand in mid-November to contest the election. On his homepage he wrote that it was the “legitimate right” of citizens to have an election reviewed if they had the “legitimate feeling” that it was brought about by “unfair competition”. He gave only very vague information about his future plans. In a press release after his last day at work, Walker took stock. Regarding the election campaign, he said it was a "dishonest campaign".

On November 30, 2007, Klaus-Eckhard Walker opened the Christmas market in Rastatt as the last public appearance and then handed the official business over to the First Alderman Wolfgang Hartweg, who was in charge of it.

The regional council rejected the objection to the election on December 6, 2007. It saw no evidence of influencing the election. The grounds for opposition were only confirmed in one point. It was a formal error in the sending of the election documents, which had no influence on the election result. On December 17th, Pütsch was appointed administrator. As such, he was allowed to carry the title of mayor and to carry out all official business, but had no voting rights in the municipal council.

On January 7, 2008, the deadline for objection to the decision of the regional council expired. Since no appeal had been lodged up to then, Hans Jürgen Pütsch was now the duly elected Lord Mayor.

Political engagement after the mayoral election in 2007

After the election, Klaus-Eckhard Walker announced on his homepage that he would “remain present” in Rastatt's “communal political and social life”.

He criticized the resumption of relations with the twin town of Orange , which Walker had frozen in 1996 after Jacques Bompard , a candidate for the right-wing extremist Front National party , had become mayor of Orange . Walker's successor, Pütsch, resumed relations when Bompard, who is now in the Mouvement pour la France party, which is considered more moderate , was re-elected in 2008. In an article on his homepage, Walker described his successor as a "media product" and criticized the fact that he had contacted the mayor of Orange without the consent of the local council. He also pointed out that the local newspaper Badisches Tagblatt had ignored his statement, unlike other local media.

Foundation of the association "For our Rastatt"

On April 17th, 2008 it was announced that he was involved in the preparations for the establishment of an association “ For our Rastatt ” (FuR), of which he was elected chairman at the founding meeting on April 29th. The aim of the association is to run its own electoral list in the 2009 local elections. The name of the association is identical to the slogan Walkers in his 2007 election campaign. Walker himself said he had no ambitions to stand for the local council as long as his professional future was still open. At the founding meeting, he said that the common good had to become the yardstick of Rastatt politics again, not "felt and bogus". He also spoke about several local political issues. According to the association, 70 people took part in the meeting. However, the press was expressly not invited, so that the information is largely second-hand. However, an informant for the Badische Neuesten Nachrichten took part in the meeting, apparently without permission and secretly, to which Walker stated that this had "nothing to do with serious journalism". In a video interview with the local news portal goodnews4rastatt , Walker reported on the course of the meeting and the current situation of the association. The association has grown over months and already has 50 members.

Walker announced as 1st chairman at the first public general meeting of FuR on October 16, 2008 that the association has 90 members. He criticized the planning of a S-Bahn route through the Rastatt city center, the introduction of a city manager and the kindergarten policy. He announced that FuR will run its own list in the 2009 local elections in Rastatt.

Spokesman for the Merzeau interest group

Independent of his activities in the association, Walker also appeared as a resident of the former Merzeau barracks in mid-October. The area had been leased to a company by the Federal Real Estate Agency . Assuming that this use was not subject to approval, the company temporarily parked trucks there on behalf of Daimler AG , as they could not be removed in time due to capacity bottlenecks in shipping. Walker turned to the city of Rastatt in mid-October, believing the company had acted illegally. A legal review by the city came to the same conclusion. The city decided that the 600 trucks would be tolerated there until the end of 2008. Walker then appeared at the end of October 2008 as a spokesman for a "Merzeau interest group" and severely criticized the decisions made. He demanded an injunction or disposal order and was supported by another private person. The city refrained from such a measure because of the commitments made by the federal government and the tenants, who promised a complete removal of the trucks by the end of November, and announced the complete removal on November 28th.

Resignation as president of FC Rastatt 04

On November 11, 2008, Walker announced that he was stepping down from his position as president of the local football club FC Rastatt 04 , which he had held since 1996, with immediate effect. The reason he gave was that the first chairman of the association, Peter Leist, had requested this. He explained in the local press that sponsors, councilors and club members reacted to Walker's political activities with incomprehension. This political activity could not be reconciled with the presidency. Walker himself stated that he did not want to stand in the way of the association "in the development of financial sources". Walker's achievement in promoting the association was recognized at the association's annual general meeting on November 18, 2008.

Announcement of candidacy for the city council

At the New Year's reception of the association “For our Rastatt” on January 9, 2009, Walker declared his willingness to run for the Rastatt city council in the local elections in June 2009. He criticized 2008 as a "boring local political year". As an election target for FuR he stated that the association wants to get the majority of the votes together with the other small parties.

Candidate for the director of the Saarbrücken regional association

The chairman of the party Die Linke, Oskar Lafontaine , presented Klaus-Eckhard Walker as a candidate of the left for the post of director in the Saarbrücken regional association at a press conference on March 11, 2009 . This was elected directly by the people on June 7th, which means that the date fell on the same day as the local elections in Baden-Württemberg.

In an interview with the Rastatt local press, Walker announced that he would not run for the city council in Rastatt because of his candidacy in Saarland.

On March 24, 2009, Walker was officially nominated by the Left General Assembly in the Bürgerhaus Dudweiler , with 15 of the 70 members taking part in the vote voting against him. Walker announced that he wanted to work constructively with the mayors of the Saarbrücken regional association. The general secretary of the Saarland CDU, Stephan Toscani , assessed the nomination in relation to Walker's statements to asylum seekers as an attempt by the left to win over right-wing extremist voters. The Saarland Integration Council , the umbrella organization of the eight municipal integration and foreigner advisory councils in Saarland, also spoke out against Walker.

Walker defended himself in an interview with the national daily newspaper taz . His statements in 2003 were inappropriate, but there had been drug and women trafficking in the asylum seekers' home and there had been rape. He therefore advocated the abolition of such homes, including the one in Lebach in Saarland , which he sees as the real problem. He is “definitely not a racist or xenophobia”.

In the election on June 7, 2009, Walker received 15.29% of the vote, which put him in third place behind candidates Peter Gillo from the SPD (36.24%) and Rainer Grün from the CDU (28.22%) . The runoff election on June 21, which Gillo won, took place without Walker, as he was no longer allowed to finish third.

Withdrawal from local politics

On September 11, 2013, Walker announced an immediate retirement from local politics for professional reasons. His work as a lawyer leaves him little leeway to get involved in local politics.

Since then he has occasionally appeared with political comments in the letters to the editor of the local press. He left the voter association for our Rastatt in July 2017 after internal disagreements.

Activity as a lawyer

Walker is now working as a lawyer in Rastatt. His main areas of activity are constitutional and administrative law, local law, contract law (construction law, labor law, etc.), public commercial law and internet law.

The representation of his wife in relation to the city of Rastatt brought him criticism in July 2010, because in 2003 he had forbidden his then alderman Bernd Wafzig to take on mandates against the city of Rastatt. Walker himself sees no connection with his previous office. Taking on the mandate is a basic democratic right. He submitted the question to the Freiburg Bar Association for examination.

This came to the conclusion that she was not responsible for civil service issues, and only stated that Walker was not allowed to exercise a mandate under professional law if he was dealing with the specific case as Lord Mayor. The Karlsruhe Regional Council prohibited Walker from exercising a mandate against the city of Rastatt on the grounds that this was inadmissible for up to five years after the termination of the civil service. In September 2010, Walker filed an urgent application with the Karlsruhe Administrative Court. He also filed a lawsuit against the state of Baden-Württemberg in this matter with the court. The administrative court in Karlsruhe confirmed him in 2011. As the former Lord Mayor of Rastatt, Walker can therefore act as a lawyer against the municipality without the specified deadline.

Walker also represented the FuR association, himself and two other members of the association in autumn 2010. The city of Rastatt had applied to the Baden-Baden regional court for an injunction to prohibit certain critical statements regarding the occupation of the management of a day-care center in Rastatt. The court regarded the reasons given as inadequate and judged the statements to be admissible. It therefore rejected the request.

There was a conflict with his successor in office in February 2013. Walker had been engaged by several Rastatt associations as their representative in a dispute about the costs of using a property shared by the city of Rastatt and Rastatt associations. The city administration saw this as interference in a conflict that had already largely been resolved. Walker was denied access to the town hall to a scheduled meeting, to which Mayor Pütsch had expressly not invited the representatives of the associations personally and Walker had expressly not invited. Walker then filed a regulatory complaint with the regional council. The Rastatt District Court ruled that the denial of entry violated Walker's right as a lawyer under Section 3 (2) BRAO and was therefore unlawful.

Web links

• Homepage of the law firm Klaus-Eckhard Walker

credentials

1. ↑ ^{a b c} “Local election without Walker candidate”, Badisches Tagblatt, March 12, 2009
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, “Politics, similar to Caritas”, March 13, 2009
3. ↑ CV on the homepage of Klaus-Eckhard Walker (PDF; 60 kB)
4. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, “A blessed institution has been working for 60 years”, November 18, 2008
5. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:
6. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "One of the first citizens' offices in the country", February 7, 2009
7. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "Walker could still be good for surprises", November 30, 2007
8. ^ Walker Law Firm
9. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:
10. ^ "Petitions Committee disapproves of the premature demolition of the Rastatt-Niederbühl refuge and grill hut", press release from the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, March 1, 2005
11. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2007 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. 
12. ↑ http://www.nadeshda.org/foren/cl.politik.migration/p712s717a20.html
13. ↑ http://www.rastatt.de/servlet/PB/show/1246413/061212VorbemerkungOBWalkerMuttersprachlicherUnterrichtGR27.pdf ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) PDF file; Web archive
14. ↑ http://www.rastatt.de/servlet/PB/show/1246385/061127%20TOP%204.pdf ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) PDF file; Web archive
15. ↑ Rastatt - German is spoken
16. ↑ October 2007 press monitoring of the Turkish print media
17. ↑ Rastatt condemns KA-News October 20, 2007
18. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "City must reopen schools", October 20, 2007
19. ↑ shortnews.de, "Rastatt: Turkish community files criminal complaint against Lord Mayor Walker" , November 20, 2007
20. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, “Are the classrooms taboo?”, November 22, 2007
21. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "OB appeals to city councils", 23 November 2007
22. ↑ ka-news, “City Council Against Walker”, November 27, 2007
23. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "School subject discontinued", November 27, 2007
24. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Open School Doors for Mother Tongue", December 19, 2007
25. ↑ ^{a b} Badisches Tagblatt, “Walker: Election challenge is legitimate”, November 13, 2007
26. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "BI distances itself from rumors", November 14, 2007
27. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "Public Prosecutor's Office closes proceedings against Walker", November 16, 2007
28. ↑ ka-news.de: “Who rules in Rastatt ?: Contesting the election with a tendency to farce”, November 10, 2007
29. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Wahlanfechter make further mobile", December 6, 2007
30. ↑ ka-news.de, “No clues for influencing elections”, December 6, 2007
31. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, “Objection to the OB election received”, October 16, 2007
32. ↑ ^{a b} Badisches Tagblatt, "Walker: 'We have achieved a lot'", December 1, 2007
33. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, info box on page 1 Rastatt local section, December 7th 2007
34. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Pütsch may move into the town hall", December 18, 2007
35. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "Contestants of the OB election renounce lawsuit", January 7, 2008
36. ↑ ka-news.de: Rastatter OB under criticism - Attempts to approach right-wing extremists, March 26, 2008
37. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "'For our Rastatt' wants to run in local elections", April 17, 2008
38. ↑ ka-news.de: "Ex-OB Walker with new political power", April 28, 2008
39. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Walker leads the new association", May 2, 2008
40. ↑ Interview with goodnews4rastatt.de  ( 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.  
41. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, “Concentrated load of scolding in the home beyond the parties”, October 18, 2008
42. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Alternative area for Daimler trucks", October 16, 2008
43. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, “Merzau site - trucks have to go by the end of the year”, October 28, 2008
44. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Further unrest about trucks on Merzeau", October 31, 2008
45. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "Merzeau: truck pull off earlier", 26. November 2008
46. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, "Merzeau free from truck" 29 November, 2008
47. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Walker resigns as 04-President", November 12, 2008
48. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "FC Rastatt 04: The way into the future leads through youth work", November 19, 2008
49. ↑ Announcement on the association's website , fuer-unser-rastatt.de
50. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "Ex-Mayor Walker wants to run for local council", January 10, 2009
51. ↑ Saarländischer Rundfunk, March 11, 2009 ( Memento from September 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
52. ↑ Press release from Die Linke, "Candidates for Landtag set up - Regional Association Director nominated"
53. ↑ ^{a b} taz, “Ugly saying harms the left”, April 4, 2009
54. ^ Saarbrücker Zeitung, Rolf Linsler is a candidate in a double pack, March 23, 2009
55. ↑ “House of Africa interferes! Press release on the election of regional association director ” ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
56. ↑ taz.de: "Asylum seekers can dance around the fire" Ugly saying harms the left - April 4, 2009
57. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung from April 1, 2009 Walker comes under pressure
58. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: election results on the website of the city of Saarbrücken
59. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung, "Decision about director in the regional association postponed", June 8, 2009
60. ↑ Press release on the FuR website ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
61. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, “Walker withdraws”, September 12, 2013
62. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, direction dispute at FuR, October 12, 2018
63. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, Walker: Mission Accomplished, October 13, 2018
64. ^ Klaus-Eckhard Walker, accessed on February 2, 2012
65. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, “Walker no longer completely legally secure”, July 9, 2010
66. ^ Badisches Tagblatt: “Walker: RP makes politics”, July 10, 2010
67. ↑ Badisches Tagblatt, “Walker Klagt gegen Land”, September 17, 2010
68. ↑ Rastatt against Rastatt permissible Stimme.de; August 10, 2011; Retrieved February 2, 2012
69. ↑ Judgment of the regional court, under fuer-unser-rastatt.de ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2012 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; 3.7 MB) 
70. ^ Badisches Tagblatt, "OB issued Walker house ban", February 26, 2013
71. ^ AG Rastatt, decision of September 25, 2014 - 3 C 92/14.