Klaus Laepple

Klaus Laepple (2014)

Klaus Laepple (born December 18, 1939 in Aachen ) is a German entrepreneur and top functionary in the tourism industry . He was already known in the 1960s as a student representative from Cologne .

Life and work

After graduating from high school in 1961, Laepple first studied medicine for a few semesters at the University of Cologne and then switched to economics in 1963 . He completed this course in 1971 with a diploma. After he had already been involved as a student representative for study trips - among other things from 1966 to 1968 as deputy chairman of the foreign office of the German Federal Student Association and from 1968 to 1972 as a member of the supervisory board of the German Student Travel Service (DSR) - he founded a charter flight agency after graduating opened his travel agency Kö 27 in Düsseldorf in 1974 , of which he was the sole partner from 1977. In 2012 he sold his travel agency to TUI . Laepple is a CDU member and was a member of the CDU Cologne party executive from 2001 to 2007 .

Student Policy and the Laepple Judgment

During his studies, Laepple soon became interested in student politics at the university. He was a member of the CDU and the RCDS . In 1965 he was elected chairman of the AStA and held this office until 1968. From 1965 to 1971 he was sent to the university's senate by the student parliament . From 1966 to 1970 he was chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia regional association of the VDS . Laepple advocated a cooperative, liberal student policy and for this purpose founded the Cologne Student Union , despite his above-mentioned memberships , from which the German Student Union , of which he was first chairman, emerged in 1968 , and later the Social Liberal University Association (SLH).

Laepple went down in legal history when he was convicted as a ringleader for mental coercion for a demonstration, for which he was the AStA chairman, against the fare increases of the Cologne transport companies due to the sit-in blockades . After the first acquittal by the Cologne Regional Court , the legal dispute went as far as the Federal Court of Justice , whose 2nd Criminal Division overturned the acquittal and referred the case back to the Wuppertal Regional Court for renegotiation . The reason given at the time was: "The recognition of a right to demonstrate in the measure accepted by the criminal chamber would mean the legalization of terror practiced by militant minorities." The presiding judge of the Senate, Paulheinz Baldus , was defeated in later proceedings against euthanasia doctors because of his own Nazi past was rejected by the defense as biased and retired before the decision was made. It was only the Federal Constitutional Court that overturned corresponding judgments against the peace movement of the 1970s.

However, a second trial before the Wuppertal district court no longer took place because the Bonn grand coalition had passed amnesty laws in the course of the student protests of 1968 , which, at the instigation of the VDS, were also applied to crimes from 1966 and 1967. A settlement was reached in a civil law suit for damages, and the KVB largely waived their original claim.

His membership in the board of the Otto Benecke Foundation , which has been in existence since 1992 and of which he has been deputy chairman since 1996, can be seen as a later echo of his commitment to student politics .

Tourism official

Laepple has been a member and functionary in several tourism associations since 1987: Federal Association of Medium-Sized Travel Companies, German Travel Association (DRV), Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry ( BTW), Federal Association of German Industry (BDI). In addition, since 2002 he has been on the Advisory Board for Tourism at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and President of the Board of Directors of the DZT ( German National Tourist Board ). From 2000 to 2010 he was honorary president of the DRV and since 2002 of the BTW. In addition, he has held several supervisory board mandates, for example at Cologne / Bonn Airport and in the travel insurance industry. He is a board member of several foundations and has been chairman of the board of trustees of the Willy Scharnow Foundation for Tourism since 2007 .

After the tsunami of December 26, 2004 , as association president, he managed to ensure that all stranded holidaymakers from the region could fly back immediately, regardless of who they had booked the trip with.

Honors

Laepple has been an honorary citizen of the Turkish tourist city of Antalya since 2003 , and in the same year he received the Order of the Republic of Tunisia . In 2006 he received the Premio de Tourismo de Tenerife . In January 2007, Federal President Horst Köhler awarded him the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon. In 2013 he received the Columbus Prize from the Association of German Travel Journalists . In 2014 he received the Lifetime Award from the Travel Industry Club .

Web links

Commons : Klaus Laepple  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Vita with picture (PDF file; 31 kB)
• (Uni-Bern:) Rev judgment against Laepple acquittal
• (Uni Bern :) sit-ins and Laepple judgment
• President of the German National Tourist Board (PDF; 194 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eva Schmidt-Häuer: The "Provo" from the CDU , Die Zeit from January 6, 1967, accessed April 2012.
2. ↑ BGH, judgment of August 8, 1969 ( Memento of the original of July 18, 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. , Az. 2 StR 171/69, full text = BGHSt  23, 46 (so-called Laepple judgment). 
3. ↑ Hitler's lawyers ( Memento of the original from August 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed November 2007. 
4. ↑ on this BVerfG, judgment of November 11, 1986, Az. 1 BvR 713/83, 921, 1190/84 and 333, 248, 306, 497/85; BVerfGE 73, 206 - Sit-ins I with reference to the Laepple judgment
5. ↑ portrayal Laepples in a conversation with G-Michel-Hurth on 18 June 2008
6. ↑ Handelsblatt of March 9, 2005 (page 2) (accessed January 2016)
7. ↑ Laudation ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2016 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. 
8. ↑ Press release from February 12, 2014 ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2016 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. (Accessed January 2016)