Kurt Birrenbach

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Kurt Birrenbach (1963)

Kurt Birrenbach (* 2. July 1907 in Arnsberg , † 26. December 1987 in Dusseldorf ) was a German politician of the CDU .

Life and work

Although born in Arnsberg, Kurt Birrenbach grew up in Münster because his father was the chief physician of a hospital there. He himself described his parents' house as Catholic and liberal-conservative. In Munster he attended the Paulinum humanistic grammar school .

After graduating from high school, he studied law and political science in Geneva , Paris , Munich , Berlin and Münster . He passed the First State Examination in 1930 and the Great State Examination in 1934. From 1935 to 1939 he worked as a foreign exchange and financial advisor in Berlin. In 1939 he emigrated to South America in order to be able to marry his wife Ida (* 1907) - who was classified by the National Socialists as " half-Jewish " - in Uruguay . He had children with her. His mother-in-law Margarethe Wangemann was a victim of the Holocaust in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943 .

Until 1954 he worked in Argentina and from 1952 again in Germany in the import and export trade of the iron and steel industry. Since 1954 he was the general representative of Anita Countess Zichy-Thyssen in Germany and chairman of the supervisory board of Thyssen -Aktiengesellschaft für Beteiligungen in Düsseldorf, for which he then also belonged to other supervisory boards.

From 1957 to 1965 Birrenbach was Vice President of the European Union . According to the list of members of the Atlantik-Brücke , he was a board member of this lobby organization , at least in December 1967 , of which he became a member in 1964. From 1973 to 1981 he was President of the German Society for Foreign Policy , of which he became Honorary President. He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission . In 1981 he received the Max Planck Society's Harnack Medal , which is awarded for services to society.

Political party

Birrenbach joined the NSDAP in 1933. After he was forbidden from marrying his fiancée by the National Socialist authorities, he therefore resigned. In 1953 he joined the CDU.

MP

Birrenbach was a member of the German Bundestag from 1957 to 1976, where he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee . There he came into conflict with Konrad Adenauer several times because, unlike the "European" Adenauer, he was an Atlanticist . In 1965, on behalf of Ludwig Erhard , he prepared the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel by flying several times to talks with the Israeli government. He was a staunch opponent of the Eastern Treaties . He advised the Federal Chancellors Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger in particular on questions of America policy.

From October 29, 1959 to November 29, 1961 he was also a member of the European Parliament .

Works

  • 25 years of the German Society for Foreign Policy in: Europa-Archiv , 1980, issue 12.
  • My special missions. Two decades of German foreign policy , Stuttgart, 1984.

literature

  • Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , reviewed and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 36f.
  • Matthias Schulz : The political friendship Jean Monnet - Kurt Birrenbach, the unity of the West and the 'preamble' to the Elysée Treaty of 1963. Online at perspectivia.net In: Andreas Wilkens (Ed.): Connecting interests. Jean Monnet and the European integration of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn 1999, pp. 299-327. Online at perspectivia.net
  • Hans-Peter Hinrichsen : The advisor. Kurt Birrenbach and the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Dissertation. Publishing house for science and research, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89700-330-9 .
  • Gisela Möllenhoff, Rita Schlautmann-Overmeyer: Jewish families in Münster 1918 to 1945 . Vol. 1: Biographical Lexicon . Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag, Münster 1995. ISBN 3-929586-48-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Henkels : 99 Bonner Köpfe , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1963. (p. 38)
  2. ^ Gisela Möllenhoff, Rita Schlautmann-Overmeyer: Jewish families in Münster 1918 to 1945. Biographical lexicon. P. 487
  3. ↑ Fifteen years of the Atlantik-Brücke e. V. Hamburg / American Council on Germany Inc., New York., Atlantik-Brücke e. V., Hamburg (December 1967)
  4. ↑ Kurt Birrenbach, Das Bundesarchiv / Nachlassdatenbank , accessed on March 7, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Birrenbach, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU), Member of the Bundestag, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnsberg
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1987
Place of death Dusseldorf