Omer Vanaudenhove
Omer Rudolphe Jean Burggraf Vanaudenhove (born December 3, 1913 in Diest , Flemish Brabant , Belgium ; † November 26, 1994 in Leuven , Flemish Brabant) was a Belgian entrepreneur and liberal politician of the Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang - Parti de la Liberté et du Progrès (PVV-PLP).
biography
Entrepreneurial activity, mayor and minister
Vanaudenhove came from a liberal entrepreneurial family and was the second of three sons. His older brother Marcel Vanaudenhove was director of the Belgian municipal credit institution, while his younger brother Albert Vanaudenhove worked with him to develop the small family business in Diest into one of the largest shoe companies in Belgium. For this reason he gave up his engineering studies in 1932. In 1939 he began his military service with the Belgian armed forces , while his brother Albert managed the company. After he was captured by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War , he spent two years in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp .
After returning to Diest, he began his political career in the 1947 municipal council elections . Between 1947 and 1972 he was an uninterrupted member of the Diest municipal council. After the victory of the Liberal Party, he became mayor in 1947 and held this office until January 1955. He was also co-opted as a member of the Senate in 1954 .
However, he also gave up this post in January 1955 after Prime Minister Achille Van Acker appointed him to succeed Adolphe Van Glabbeke as Minister for Public Works and Reconstruction in the left-liberal fourth Van Acker government. With a short interruption in 1958, he held that post in the subsequent Catholic -liberalen coalition of Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens to April 1961. In this capacity, he sat down to build the first motorways and other major public works as part of the Expo 58 a .
Party leader and withdrawal from politics
After leaving the government, he succeeded Roger Motz in 1961 as chairman of the Liberal Party.
After several previous electoral defeats, he decided to reorganize this party into a new party, and so in 1961 the Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang-Parti de la Liberté et du Progrès (PVV-PLP) was created. In the period that followed, some Catholic politicians were also placed on the list with good prospects, thereby increasing the attractiveness of the party for new groups of voters. In fact, the party achieved increasing electoral success and was able to record a gain of 21.6 percent in the 1965 election to the Chamber of Deputies . At the same time, the PVV-PLP was able to increase the proportion of its mandates from 20 to 48. As a result, the PVV-PLP entered the government of Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1966 . Since Vanaudenhove decided to remain party chairman, Willy De Clercq became deputy prime minister in Vanden Boeynant's cabinet and budget minister at the same time.
For his political services he was awarded the honorary title of Minister of State on July 12, 1966 .
In September 1968 he finally resigned as party chairman and was replaced in this office by Norbert Hougardy and Milou Jeunehomme , who served as co-chairmen of the PVV-PLP until January 1969.
After retiring from political life, he returned to the family business. He expanded the shoe wholesaler Central Shoe to include the Euro Vana production company . These two companies were later merged to form what is now Euro Shoe Unie , and the well-known Belgian shoe chain Shoe Post was formed from this. In the period that followed, other shoe retail chains such as Avance , Primo and Shoe Discount were established in Belgium and abroad.
In 1976 he was again mayor of Diest, but resigned from this office in 1978 for health reasons. In 1989 he was awarded the title of burgrave.
His wife Elizabeth Eatough was also a member of Diest's parish council between 1982 and 2006. Then in 2006 his youngest daughter, Pascale Vanaudenhove, became a member of the city council.
literature
- S. Vanaudenhove / L. Pareyn: Omer Vanaudenhove: Een bruggenbouwer , biography , 1996
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vanaudenhove, Omer |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vanaudenhove, Omer Rudolphe Jean Burggraf (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 3, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Diest , Flemish Brabant , Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 26, 1994 |
| Place of death | Leuven , Flemish Brabant |