Otto Wiesheu

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Otto Wiesheu at the CSU party conference 2015

Otto Wiesheu (* 31 October 1944 in Zolling ) is a German politician of the CSU and managers . He was a member of the Bavarian State Parliament from 1974 to 2005. In April 1983, he was general secretary of the CSU and stepped down from this position in November 1983 back after a traffic accident involving death had caused. From 1990 to 1993 he was State Secretary in the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture, Science and Art . From 1993 to the end of 2005 he was Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology and from 2006 to 2009 a member of the board of Deutsche Bahn AG .

Work and private life

After graduating from high school in 1964 at the Dom-Gymnasium in Freising , the farmer's son Wiesheu was initially a regular soldier in the armed forces and then from 1966 studied law in Munich , which he completed in 1970 with the first state examination. In 1973 the second state examination followed . In 1977 he was at the University of Wuerzburg at Dieter Blumenwitz and Hugo J. Hahn with a thesis on the "International legal importance of territorial and border regulations in the Eastern treaties " to Dr. iur. PhD . Wiesheu was admitted to the bar again until 2006 and since February 1, 2011 .

Wiesheu is married and has four children. He was divorced once.

Political career

Wiesheu occurred in 1969 in the CSU and became in 1972 the first time in the council of the district Freising selected, to which he belonged until the end of 2005. From 1979 to 2005 he was district chairman of the CSU Freising. In 1974 he moved into the Bavarian State Parliament as a member of the Freising constituency , which he also belonged to until the end of 2005.

Wiesheu was initially involved in the Junge Union . He was district chairman for Upper Bavaria from 1971 to 1975 and regional chairman of Bavaria from 1975 to 1979.

Wiesheu belonged to the party presidium of the CSU, the state executive committee and the district executive committee of the CSU Upper Bavaria from 1975 to 2006.

In April 1983 he became General Secretary of the CSU, but resigned from this post in November due to a fatal traffic accident that he was responsible for under the influence of alcohol. In the following years, from 1984 to 1990, he was managing director of the CSU-affiliated Hanns Seidel Foundation .

Conviction for negligent homicide

On October 29, 1983 Wiesheu caused a traffic accident with his car under the influence of alcohol (1.99 per thousand) on the Munich – Nuremberg autobahn, in which another road user was killed in his car and his companion was seriously injured. After the Bavarian Parliament then Wiesheus immunity was lifted, he was charged with involuntary manslaughter in coincidence with negligent injury and negligent dangerous driving accused and in the first instance by the District Court of Munich in October 1984 to a prison term of 13 months without parole convicted.

Wiesheu appealed against this judgment and reached an out-of-court settlement with the sister of the victim who had died in an out-of-court settlement on payment of DM 27,000 in  compensation and DM 5,000 in legal fees. The sister then withdrew her accessory prosecution .

In the second instance, the Munich Regional Court I sentenced him in 1985 for negligent homicide and endangering road traffic to 12 months suspended sentence and a fine of 20,000 DM. The judgment provoked violent public reactions and was criticized as too mild.

Member of the Bavarian State Government

On October 30, 1990, he was appointed State Secretary in the Bavarian State Ministry for Education, Culture, Science and Art in the Bavarian State Government led by Prime Minister Max Streibl .

After Edmund Stoiber had been elected as the new Prime Minister, Wiesheu became Bavarian State Minister for Economics, Transport and Technology on June 17, 1993, whereby his responsibility for the transport sector was criticized in view of his accident.

The beginning of his term of office coincided with the economic crisis of 1993/94 with the loss of many jobs in the commercial sector (automotive industry, suppliers, chemicals, textiles, ceramics etc.). Wiesheu countered this with a double strategy: maintenance and renewal. The maintenance of existing buildings also included the renovation of businesses that were in difficulty but could and were worth renovating. This succeeded in a large number of cases and earned him a lot of approval and encouragement from the unions as well as the award of the Hans Böckler Medal. Wiesheu is the only member of the Union parties to have been awarded this medal. The strategy of the innovation policy can be summarized in three points: New products, new companies, new markets. The aim was to network the economy, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, with research facilities in universities, technical colleges, Fraunhofer societies and other institutions. Developments there should be implemented in innovative products. New companies should arise in the traditional as well as in the high-tech area. For this it was necessary to mobilize venture capital. New markets were opened up through intensive cooperation with the People's Republic of China as well as through economic cooperation with the countries of the former Eastern Bloc after the fall of the “Iron Curtain”. In addition to South America, new target markets were the countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe as well as Moscow and the region around Moscow.

As a staunch supporter of the use of nuclear energy , he criticized the plans of the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for a final nuclear phase-out in 1999, alluding to the so-called final solution to the Jewish question, with the words: “There was someone in this century who wanted to finally solve questions. After twelve years it was finished. ”The President of the Central Council of Jews , Ignatz Bubis , recommended Wiesheu resign and examine his mental state. Wiesheu left it at an apology.

The regional transport contract signed with Deutsche Bahn in September 2003 had a volume of around 100 million train kilometers. It was stipulated that around 30 million train kilometers would be put out to tender during the term of the contract and then awarded as part of the competitive process. These 30 million train kilometers were as many or more than the total local transport services in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The private providers also made it important that packages that were too large were not put out to tender, because otherwise they would not have been able to bid because of the high investment costs for new train material. The tendering of all local transport services in one fell swoop was forbidden because the only possible provider would have been Deutsche Bahn, which could only have put its price in the tender and should have been awarded the contract.

After two years of negotiations, Wiesheu signed a ten-year regional transport contract with Deutsche Bahn in mid-September 2003. Critics criticized the fact that around 70 percent of the planned transport performance was awarded directly to Deutsche Bahn without a tender. Wiesheu justified this step by stating that no other competitor was able to take over this volume.

In autumn 2005 Wiesheu took part in the negotiations for the CSU to form the grand coalition and was regularly represented in the negotiations of the Economic Policy Working Group, which he had a major influence on. He took part in the negotiations on the subject of transport policy once. The later Minister of Transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee, headed this area.

Change to Deutsche Bahn AG

After his retirement from politics, Wiesheu was appointed to the board of Deutsche Bahn AG on November 12, 2005 . He took up this position on January 1, 2006 and took over the economics and politics department and was the successor to Klaus Daubertshäuser , who held this position until the end of 2005.

The close temporal connection between his participation in the coalition negotiations and the change to the railroad brought him criticism and is sometimes cited to justify the need for a code of honor for politicians.

Wiesheu's job at Bahn AG was to maintain the connection between DB AG and its owner, those in charge in the Bundestag and the federal government , and to ensure that the planned IPO of Deutsche Bahn AG is prepared and implemented accordingly in the legislative area. In the first half of 2008, both the federal government, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat passed the relevant resolutions to enable DB to go public . The project failed due to the financial crisis in autumn 2008. The federal states were and are the largest customers of DB AG as customers of regional transport. Wiesheu was also responsible for DB security and data protection .

At the end of May 2009, Wiesheu had to resign from the board after the data affair and when Rüdiger Grube took office . According to Grube, Wiesheu did not even know that data protection was part of his portfolio. In the course of the early termination of his employment contract, he received a severance payment of 2.39 million euros , including pecuniary benefits . Wiesheu advised the company until the end of 2010. He is (as of 2020) a member of the Supervisory Board of Schaeffler AG .

Further public activity

Since 1998 he has been involved in the Rotary Club Munich-Mitte.

On May 7, 2004, Wiesheu was elected almost unanimously to succeed Jürgen Möllemann as President of the German-Arab Society (DAG). On March 22, 2007, he resigned at the annual general meeting in Berlin after a narrow majority of the members present refused to approve an intended amendment to the statutes that would have led to a restructuring of the DAG. His interim successor was the publicist Peter Scholl-Latour .

On July 3, 2007, the DAFG - German-Arab Friendship Society e. V. founded in Berlin, whose president Wiesheu was elected.

In July 2009 Wiesheu was elected President of the Union's Economic Advisory Council in Bavaria. Otto Wiesheu has been a member of the University Council of the Technical University of Munich since October 1, 2007.

Awards

Wiesheu was u. a. Awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany (2005) and the Bavarian Order of Merit. In 1997 he received the German SME Prize .

Otto Wiesheu is a member of the University Council of the Technical University of Munich .

Office statistics

Party offices

  • Bavarian state chairman of the Junge Union (1975–1979)
  • District chairman of the CSU Freising (1979–2005).
  • Member of the party presidium of the CSU (1975-2005)
  • Member of the state executive committee of the CSU (1975-2005)
  • Member of the district executive committee of the CSU Upper Bavaria (1975-2005)
  • General Secretary of the CSU (April – November 1983)

Seats in parliament

  • Member of the Freising District Council (1972-2005)
  • Member of the Bavarian State Parliament (1974-2005)

Government offices

  • State Secretary in the Bavarian State Ministry for Education, Culture, Science and Art (1990–1993)
  • Bavarian State Minister for Economics, Transport and Technology (1993-2005)

Honorary positions

  • President of the DAFG - German-Arab Friendship Society e. V. (since 2007)
  • President of the Union's Economic Advisory Council (since 2009)

Web links

Commons : Otto Wiesheu  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of buildings and history . Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  2. ↑ “The pastor has set the course for me” . Time online. October 28, 2010. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  3. ^ Michael Then: Editorial (PDF) Richard Boorberg Verlag. May 7, 2010. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Gerhard Mauz : For me it was a stationary vehicle . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1984 ( online - 29 October 1984 ).
  5. ↑ Ex-economics minister meets works council chief . Nuremberg News. April 13, 2016. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  6. ↑ CSU General Secretaries (PDF) hss.de
  7. ↑ A shirt-sleeved problem solver . taz.de, March 1, 2006
  8. ↑ a b CSU General Secretary a. D .: A case like any other? In: Die Zeit , No. 32/1985
  9. ↑ Gerhard Mauz : "He does not think of himself, he thinks of others" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1985 ( online - 29 July 1985 ).
  10. ↑ Winfried Vennemann: Are the banks letting Grundig die? In: Abendzeitung Nürnberg, March 27, 2001
  11. ↑ Anja Kummerow: Otto Wiesheu becomes a figure of light . In: Nürnberger Zeitung , February 28, 2006
  12. ↑ Stefan Stahl: A case for Otto Wiesheu . In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung , February 28, 2006
  13. ↑ Angelika Hoch: Bavaria should become the land of top products . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 7, 1997
  14. ↑ Manfred Hummel: High-tech offensive secures jobs . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 13, 2003
  15. ↑ Economics Minister Wiesheu apologizes to Schröder . World N24. March 12, 1999. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  16. ↑ Christoph Winter: Otto Wiesheu for closing the gap in Thuringia. In Passauer Neue Presse on May 19, 2010
  17. ↑ The first election winner is the railway . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 206, 2003, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. 44.
  18. ^ Notification of regional rail transport allocation practice in Bavaria . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 12/2003, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 532.
  19. ↑ Politicians in Business - The Big Cash . Southgerman newspaper. August 5, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  20. ↑ Bavaria's transport minister changes to the DB board . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 1/2006, p. 2.
  21. ↑ Minister change to the railway angered opposition . Mirror online. November 13, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  22. ^ Otto Wiesheu (CSU) becomes a rail lobbyist . Lobby Control. November 14, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  23. ^ M. Küchen, A. Thewalt: Bahn could go public in 2008 . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 8, 2006
  24. ^ Christian Deutschländer: Bahn "Pay attention to abandoned suitcases" . In: Münchner Merkur , August 21, 2006
  25. ↑ M. Bauchmüller, M. Beise, K. Ott: Railway: Otto Wiesheu: Lobbyist without a ticket . Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010
  26. ↑ Alfred Verstl: Relaxed evening for railway boss Grube . Black Forest Messenger. January 17, 2011. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  27. ↑ Annual Report 2009. (PDF) Deutsche Bahn, March 2010, pp. 11, 31 , accessed on May 1, 2020 (German).
  28. ↑ Michael Freitag, Thomas Katzensteiner: The chairmanship of the supervisory board remains in the family . Manager Magazine, September 15, 2010
  29. ^ Club and membership directory of Rotarians in the Federal Republic of Germany 2002/2003
  30. ↑ Oriental conditions . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 2007 ( online ).
  31. ^ New German-Arab association founded. Against the clichés and prejudices . Berlin newspaper. July 9, 2007. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  32. ^ Presidium . Economic Advisory Board of the Union e. V .. Archived from the original on December 9, 2012. Retrieved on February 10, 2017.
  33. ↑ The TUM University Council . Technical University of Munich. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  34. ↑ Dr. jur. Otto Wiesheu . Technical University of Munich. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  35. ↑ LGA medal of merit "in service to the economy" in gold to Dr. Otto Wiesheu . Press box. December 19, 2006. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  36. ↑ mfa.gov.hu ( Memento from December 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ↑ A super minister goes to the railway . star. November 13, 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  38. ↑ Ring of Honor for Minister of State Dr. Otto Wiesheu . Technical University of Munich. January 12, 2004. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  39. ↑ Federal Chancellor's answer to the inquiry (PDF) Republic of Austria. April 23, 2012. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Wiesheu, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CSU), manager, MdL in Bavaria and Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Zolling