Oliver Wittke

Oliver Wittke (2013)

Play media file

Video presentation (2014)

Oliver Wittke (* 24. September 1966 in Marl ) is a German politician of the CDU . From March 2018 to November 2019 he was Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy . The diploma - geographer reigned from 1999 to 2004 as the first directly elected mayor of the city of Gelsenkirchen and was then on 24 June 2005 to March 3, 2009 Minister of Construction and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers . He was a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1995 to 1999, from 2007 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2013 . From 2010 to 2012 he was Secretary General of the CDU regional association North Rhine-Westphalia. Wittke has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013 .

Origin and education

Oliver Wittke did his Abitur at the Leibniz-Gymnasium in his hometown Gelsenkirchen in the district of Buer . After completing his basic military service in the Bundeswehr in Essen and Barnstorf , he studied geography and economics at the Ruhr University in Bochum (degree: Diplom-Geographer). He is of the Roman Catholic denomination and lives with his wife and two sons in Gelsenkirchen.

Political and professional career

Wittke joined the CDU in 1982. From 1989 to 1995 he was a member of the Gelsenkirchen City Council. From 1990 to 1996 he was chairman of the Junge Union Ruhrgebiet. From 1992 to 2008 he was deputy chairman of the CDU Ruhr. He has been its chairman since 2008. Wittke was a project assistant at a development agency from 1994 to 1999. From 1995 to 1999 he was a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia , where he was a member of the CDU parliamentary group. Between 1999 and 2004 he was the first directly elected Lord Mayor of the city of Gelsenkirchen, and at the same time the youngest and first CDU Lord Mayor of the city. From February to May 2005 Wittke was a department head at the Montangrundstücksgesellschaft in Essen. From 2001 to 2010 he was deputy state chairman of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia . In 2005 he became Minister for Building and Transport for North Rhine-Westphalia, which he remained until March 3, 2009. In 2007 he succeeded the deceased Wolfgang Aßbrock in the state parliament, but left the state parliament again in 2010 because the state list “did not move” due to the poor CDU election result.

Oliver Wittke was flashed in November 2008 in Meschede - Olpe ( ⊙ ) in town at 109 km / h and had to surrender his driver's license for two months and pay a fine. Wittke's offense led to severe public criticism and calls for resignation, which Wittke initially rejected. After the WDR subsequently revealed that Wittke had also been withdrawn from his driver's license for a month during his time as Lord Mayor of Gelsenkirchen because of a speed violation on the A 2 near Herten , Wittke resigned from his office on February 11, 2009. In a statement he stated that he could no longer live up to his role model function.

Wittke remained a member of the state parliament and joined the management of the Hellmich group of companies in Duisburg in summer 2009 . As a result of the personnel reorganization of the NRW CDU after going into the opposition, the designated CDU state chairman and Rüttgers successor proposed Norbert Röttgen Wittke as the new general secretary. On November 6, 2010, the 32nd state party congress of the CDU-NRW elected him to this office. He thus succeeded Andreas Krautscheid and gave up his work at Hellmich.

In the early NRW state election on May 13, 2012 , Wittke moved back into the state parliament via the state list (4th place). In October 2013, he resigned his state parliament mandate after having recently entered the German Bundestag.

In the 2013 Bundestag election , Oliver Wittke stood as a candidate for the CDU in constituency 123 (Gelsenkirchen) and entered the German Bundestag with 10th place on the state list . In the 2017 federal election he ran again in this constituency, although he lost to Markus Töns , he returned to the Bundestag with fourth place on the state list.

In the German Bundestag he was a member of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure . In addition, he was a full member of the municipal subcommittee and a deputy member of the committee for the environment, nature conservation, building and reactor safety, as well as the interior committee . From March 2018 to November 2019 Wittke was also Parliamentary State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Energy in the Merkel IV cabinet .

In October 2019 it was announced that Wittke would be appointed Chief Executive of the Central Real Estate Committee . As a member of the federal government at the time, however, he still had to wait for the decision of a federal cabinet commission.

Federal politics

Oliver Wittke in the Federal Council, 2019

Transport policy

After the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan was passed on December 2, 2016, Wittke described the significant increase to almost 13 billion euros for the expansion and construction of motorways and federal highways in North Rhine-Westphalia as “a really big gulp from the bottle”. For the first time in decades, NRW would receive the highest grants of any country.

Criticism of "Ruhrplan"

Oliver Wittke called it a “joke” that Sigmar Gabriel was retrospectively selling current federal programs that apply to all of Germany as “Ruhrplan”. "We don't need a special program for the Ruhr area, we need help with the problems that predominate here." These are ailing roads and bridges, fragmented local transport, gaps in digitization and the energy transition. The Federal Ministry of Economics had previously denied that it was working on a “Ruhr Plan”, although the minister who was in charge of this had announced in March 2015 that he would have a corresponding plan drawn up.

Foreign policy

At the beginning of March 2015, Wittke flew together with the integration officer of the Union parliamentary group, Cemile Giousouf , to northern Iraq to hand over 16 tons of relief supplies from the Ruhr area. He later described this three-day trip as the most impressive thing he had experienced in his political career so far.

State politics

Transport policy

As one of his first official acts, he had Wittke stop the publication of the Integrated Total Transport Planning ( IGVP ), which was largely completed by the previous government, and subject the work to a reassessment. In doing so, he abolished priority in principle for rail and had all projects consistently assessed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. Associations and affected communities criticized the fact that there had been a one-sided shift in assessments at the expense of rail transport projects according to criteria that were in some cases incomprehensible.

Road traffic

Minister Wittke advocated a general ban on overtaking trucks. At the federal level, he planned to increase the minimum permitted speed for trucks on motorways from 60 to 80 kilometers per hour . With this initiative he wanted to prevent the so-called " elephant races ", which would often lead to accidents and traffic jams.

Wittke described a planned increase in fines for minor traffic violations as a "pure rip-off".

Rail transport

As Transport Minister, Wittke spoke out several times against rail construction projects and reactivations in North Rhine-Westphalia. He spoke out against the resumption of the 175-year-old railway connection Antwerp - Duisburg ( Iron Rhine ) for international freight traffic. Wittke explained that the historic route was no longer up to date. The protection of the residents is not taken into account, since residential houses are built too close to the route. Instead, other alternatives would be examined. The state government later proposed building a new route along the A52 .

At the beginning of 2005, Wittke expressed the intention to shut down the Oleftalbahn and Wiehl Valley Railway against applicable law. Railway enthusiasts protested against this in the Eifel and Bergisches Land . Both routes, on which steam trains and rail buses take place on summer weekends , are particularly popular with tourists, day trippers and rail enthusiasts. A ruling by the highest court finally led to the continued existence of the Wiehl Valley Railway for another 50 years.

Renewable Energies

As Lord Mayor of Gelsenkirchen, he organized a “climate tour” with a fuel cell- powered bicycle developed in Gelsenkirchen . Later, as Secretary General of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia, Wittke emphasized the importance of the energy transition for the state. “We have to implement the energy transition in North Rhine-Westphalia. We have to make it clear that we want to reorganize the budget and adhere to the debt limit. ” After taking office, Wittke commented on the subsidy policy for wind power of the red-green previous government with the words“ This is the first thing we will destroy. That was ideology and ideology, that was before ”.

Criticism of personnel plans

In September 2007 Wittke intends to fill the position of managing director of the state-owned housing development agency (WFA) with the former director of the Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen , Matthias Klein . This brought him massive criticism in the state parliament and in the media. Klein's suitability for the post has been questioned. On September 19, Wittke was questioned in the state parliament. He said: “I knew that I knew Mr. Klein.” Klein withdrew his application.

Inquiry from the Greens about Panini football pictures

In the run-up to the soccer World Cup in Germany, in May 2006, Minister Wittke noticed when he exchanged Panini soccer pictures with the Member of Parliament Holger Müller during a current hour on Hartz IV legislation in the Düsseldorf state parliament , arranged them and put them in a collection booklet glued in. This and his subsequent reaction that it had to be left to the ministers to decide on which topics they "reverently participate" prompted MP Sylvia Löhrmann ( Alliance 90 / The Greens ) to make a small question to the state parliament. Thereupon Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers replied that the request could not be answered because of “obvious lack of humor on the part of MP Sylvia Löhrmann”, especially not during the World Cup.

Bundestag resolution on the genocide of the Armenians

On June 2, 2016, the Bundestag passed with a large majority the joint motion of the CDU / CSU , SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen that the extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey in 1915 and 1916 was considered genocide classified. Oliver Wittke was the only member of parliament who abstained from voting because he considered the Armenian resolution to be "counterproductive".

Local politics

During his tenure as Lord Mayor, Wittke initiated a large number of projects: the renovation of Berge Castle , the transformation of the aging Ruhr Zoo into the ZOOM adventure world , the construction of the new synagogue , the renovation of the Gelsenkirchen main station and the Buer indoor swimming pool This also included the expansion of Uferstrasse and Vinckestrasse and the construction of the A42 connection.

The Hans Sachs House

Hans-Sachs-House Gelsenkirchen

In 2001, Wittke, as Lord Mayor of Gelsenkirchen, signed a public-private partnership contract for the renovation of the Hans-Sachs-Haus monument , which was controversially discussed in local politics. The topic also became the subject of the 2004 local election controversy, with the SPD candidate and later mayor Frank Baranowski in particular criticizing the project under the slogan “Millions of people's grave in the Hans Sachs House”. After his election, Baranowski terminated the contract at considerable expense. After his appointment as Minister for Building and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wittke made extensive commitments for funding from the state. In doing so, the state finally took part in this project, for which the previous state government did not want to give any funding commitments.

Web links

Commons : Oliver Wittke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of Oliver Wittke
• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Oliver Wittke at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia

See also

• Rüttger's cabinet

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BMWi press release. Retrieved November 8, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Minister of Transport without a license. WDR.de, February 11, 2009, archived from the original on February 19, 2009 ; Retrieved February 11, 2009 . 
3. ^ Wilfried Goebels: Minister Wittke resigned. The West, February 11, 2009, accessed July 13, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Transport Minister races through town at 109 km / h. February 5, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2009 . 
5. ↑ NRW Minister of Transport Wittke resigned twice already. wdr.de, February 11, 2009, archived from the original on February 12, 2009 ; Retrieved December 21, 2009 . 
6. ^ Transport Minister Wittke resigned. In: ruhrnachrichten.de. February 11, 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2009 . 
7. ^ Official final result for the Bundestag constituency 123 ; Retrieved December 9, 2017
8. ^ Biography of the member of the German Bundestag. March 28, 2018. Retrieved March 28, 2018 . 
9. ^ ZIA: CDU State Secretary switches to real estate business. Retrieved October 30, 2019 . 
10. ↑ OLIVER WITTKE (CDU) TO BECOME NEW MAIN MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ZIA • polis Magazin. October 28, 2019, accessed October 30, 2019 (German). 
11. ^ Redevelopment West in the billions - Armin Laschet and Oliver Wittke on the adoption of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030. In: cdu-nrw-fraktion.de. December 2, 2016, archived from the original on February 5, 2017 ; accessed on February 5, 2016 . 
12. ↑ CDU praises the traffic route plan: NRW performs “sensationally”. In: image. March 16, 2016, accessed February 5, 2016 . 
13. ↑ "Ruhr Plan" of SPD leader triggers in CDU irritation. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. July 10, 2015, accessed February 5, 2016 . 
14. ↑ Ministry of Economic Affairs waves Gabriel's "Ruhrplan" away. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. June 5, 2015, accessed February 5, 2016 . 
15. ^ CDU member of the Bundestag Wittke traveled to Northern Iraq. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved March 11, 2015 . 
16. ↑ Need and fear in Erbil. In: Buer Total. Archived from the original on February 5, 2017 ; accessed on February 5, 2016 . 
17. ↑ MBWSV NRW - Minister Wittke presents a draft for a new infrastructure requirements plan for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: One billion euros for state roads, 600 million euros for rail. In: www.mbwsv.nrw.de. Retrieved August 26, 2016 . 
18. ^ Pro Bahn: Wittke's traffic planning unusable. ( Memento of October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
19. ↑ End of the elephant races. In: Welt online. October 15, 2006, accessed March 12, 2008 . 
20. ↑ Up to 2000 Euro fine for speeders and pushers. In: FAZ.NET. November 23, 2006, accessed March 12, 2008 . 
21. ↑ Bernd Neuhaus:Iron Rhine.( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: West Pole , January 22, 2006.
22. ^ Controversy over the railway line on the Lower Rhine. WDR.de, October 12, 2012
23. ↑ Bonner Umweltzeitung 1/2006 wiehltalbahn.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.  
24. ^ Christiane Grefe : In the spa area . In: Die Zeit , No. 23/2004
25. ↑ "Developing our profile". In: Soester Anzeiger. November 11, 2011, accessed February 5, 2016 . 
26. ↑ Stefan Willeke: I can do with Doofen In: Die Zeit , September 1, 2005, issue 36
27. ↑ Christoph Meinertz: A post for the Wittke friend In: WAZ , September 14, 2007
28. ↑ NRW: Building ministers pasted soccer pictures in the state parliament. In: Spiegel Online . June 1, 2006
29. ↑ Johannes Nitschmann: Hartz IV Debate: Would you rather exchange pictures? ( Memento from February 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: WDR.de June 1, 2006
30. ^ Rüttgers approves Wittke's Panini collection campaign in the state parliament ( memento of February 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), WDR.de , June 16, 2006
31. ^ Motion for genocide against Armenians resolved . German Bundestag . 2nd June 2016
32. ↑ Turkey calls ambassador back after genocide resolution . ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Zeit Online , June 2, 2016
33. ^ CDU deputy on Armenia resolution . TRT German. 5th June 2016
34. ↑ Hans-Sachs-Haus speech by Mayor Frank Baranowski at the council meeting on September 15, 2005