Paul Friedhoff

Paul Klemens Friedhoff (born February 2, 1943 in Löningen -Altenbunnen, Cloppenburg district ; † November 15, 2015 ) was a German entrepreneur and politician .

Life and work

After completing secondary school in 1961, Friedhoff trained as a physics laboratory assistant and then began studying physical technology at the state engineering school for mechanical and electrical engineering in Iserlohn in 1964 , which he completed in 1967 as an engineer (grad.). He then worked as an engineer in the steel and measuring equipment industry until 1979 .

In 1979 Paul Friedhoff founded the company SPECTRO in Kleve , now a subsidiary of the American Ametek group. To this day, the company has specialized in the manufacture of spectrometers as analysis devices. Until the sale in 1997 he was managing partner . Thereupon he initially withdrew from the industry. From 1998 he ran a farm in Löningen / Huckelrieden (Lower Saxony). In 2002 he was a co-founder and, until it was sold to the American company Bruker AXS in September 2006, a co-partner of Quantron GmbH . It was again a spectrometer manufacturer based in Kleve. Friedhoff remained managing director of the company that was subsequently renamed Bruker-Quantron GmbH and relocated to Kalkar until April 2008.

Friedhoff held several offices in various associations of medium-sized businesses. From 1987 to 2001 and from 2007 to 2014 he was a member of the plenary assembly of the Lower Rhine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Duisburg-Wesel-Kleve zu Duisburg . From 1995 and again from 2009 he became its vice-president.

Paul Friedhoff was Catholic , married and had three children.

Political career

Paul Friedhoff was a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) from 1972 . From 1982 to 1990 he was a member of the board of the FDP district association Niederrhein and from 1992 to 1996 he was state treasurer of the FDP North Rhine-Westphalia . From 1997 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2007 Friedhoff was a member of the federal executive committee of the FDP . From 2002 to 2010 he was again state treasurer of the FDP North Rhine-Westphalia.

Offices and mandates

From 1975 to 1978 he was a member of the city ​​council of Freudenberg and from 1989 to 1992 the city council of Kleve.

Friedhoff became a member of the German Bundestag after the Bundestag election in 1990 and moved back into the Bundestag after the Bundestag elections in 1994 and 1998 . The FDP was involved in the government until 1998 (Cabinets Kohl IV and Kohl V ); in the 14th German Bundestag ( 1998 to 2002 ) she was in the opposition. From 1997 to 1999 Friedhoff was chairman of the working group on economic, financial and agricultural policy of the FDP parliamentary group . From 2005 to 2012 he was again a member of the Bundestag , initially as spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group for medium-sized enterprises and coal policy, and from the end of 2009 again as an economic policy spokesman. He was a member of the economic committee of the Bundestag and chairman of the FDP. On April 30, 2012, he resigned his mandate for health reasons.

Documents about his activities as a member of the German Bundestag and for the FDP from 1990 to 2002 are in the archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .

Controversial positions

Paul Friedhoff took the view that climate change is not caused by humans. On September 15, 2010, he invited members of parliament from various political groups to an exchange of views with the US physicist Fred Singer , who was critically reported in the press.

Web links

• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Paul Friedhoff on parliamentwatch.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Remy: Paul Friedhoff has died , obituary on DerWesten.de , November 17, 2015, accessed on April 13, 2017.
2. ↑ No longer managing director: Paul K. Friedhoff , commercial register announcement of April 25, 2008. In: Northdata.de, accessed on February 18, 2018.
3. ↑ Paul K. Friedhoff †  ( 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. , (PDF; 2.3 MB), obituary. In: Thema Wirtschaft (tw) , magazine of the Lower Rhine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Duisburg-Wesel-Kleve zu Duisburg , December 2015, accessed on February 18, 2018.  
4. ↑ Personal . From: paul-friedhoff.org , accessed April 13, 2017.
5. ↑ Wolfgang Remy: Friedhoff leaves the Bundestag . In: DerWesten.de , April 25, 2012, accessed on April 13, 2017.
6. ↑ Timo Pache: The Climate Revisionists ( Memento from September 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Financial Times Deutschland , September 16, 2010, accessed on April 13, 2017.