Siegfried Balke

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Siegfried Balke, portrait by Günter Rittner 1969

Siegfried Balke (born June 1, 1902 in Bochum , † June 11, 1984 in Munich ) was a German politician ( CSU ). From 1953 to 1956 he was Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications and from 1956 to 1962 Federal Minister for Nuclear Issues (from 1957: Federal Minister for Nuclear Energy and Water Management) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

education and profession

Balke was the oldest of four sons of the master tailor Wilhelm Balke. Shortly after Siegfried's birth , the family first moved to Daufenbach , his mother's hometown in the Westerwald. Balke spent the rest of his childhood in Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein . On the advice of the evangelical pastor, he graduated from high school in Gummersbach as an external student .

In 1920 Balke began studying chemistry , which he completed in 1924 with a degree in chemistry and in 1925 with a doctorate in engineering. During the Nazi era, he was classified as a “half-Jew” , which prevented a university career. From 1925 to 1952 he worked for various chemical companies before becoming director of Wacker Chemie GmbH in 1952 . Up to 1945, 50% of Wacker Chemie was controlled by IG Farben , then by Farbwerke Hoechst . After 1945, Balke was one of the rare non-polluters in the executive suite of German chemistry, which earned him the chairmanship of the Association of the Bavarian Chemical Industry. From 1956 he was an honorary professor for chemical economics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

After his resignation as Minister of Atomic Energy, Balke was President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and Chairman of the Technical Monitoring Associations ( TÜV ) from 1964 to 1969 . From 1973 to 1976 he was a board member of the Association of German Engineers (VDI).

Balke was co-editor of Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Technical Chemistry and the journals Chemische Industrie and Die Atomwirtschaft .

Political party

Balke had been a member of the CSU since January 16, 1954. He only joined it as a minister, without building his own house power there.

MP

From 1957 to 1969 Balke was a member of the German Bundestag .

Siegfried Balke entered the Bundestag in 1957 and 1961 as a directly elected member of the Munich-North constituency and in 1965 via the Bavarian state list.

Public offices

After the federal elections in 1953 , he was appointed to the federal government led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on December 10, 1953 (still as a non-party member) at the suggestion of the CSU regional group in the German Bundestag . Among other things, the decisive factor for Balke's appointment was that, unlike his predecessor in office, he was Protestant and thus the denominational proportional representation in the cabinet was retained.

On October 16, 1956, he then took over the management of the Federal Ministry for Atomic Affairs . After the Bundestag election in 1957 , his department was renamed the Federal Ministry for Nuclear Energy and Water Management, after the Bundestag election in 1961 it was finally renamed the Federal Ministry for Nuclear Energy. In the cabinet reshuffle after the Spiegel affair , Balke was no longer considered. He learned the news of his release from the porter when he entered his ministry. He left the federal government on December 13, 1962.

The establishment of the German Electron Synchrotron , the largest German research center for particle physics , fell within Balke's division and tenure . While Balke's predecessor, Franz Josef Strauss , was primarily interested in military nuclear technology, Balke was primarily interested in civil research. In 1957 he publicly sided with the signatories of the Göttingen Manifesto . More than Strauss and more than his successors in office, Balke represented the interests of the nuclear industry. He represented the nuclear independence of the German nuclear industry and its independence from abroad.

Awards

Publications

  • Research, science and universities , CDU publishing company, 1961

literature

  • Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , revised and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 25f.
  • Robert Lorenz: Siegfried Balke - Border Crosser Between Business and Politics in the Adenauer Era. Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 9783838201375 .
  • Robert Lorenz: Siegfried Balke - donation porter and interest politician. In: ders./Micus, Matthias (Hrsg.): Seiteneinsteiger . Unconventional career as a politician in party democracy. Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 175-205, ISBN 9783531164830 .
  • Joachim Radkau: The rise and crisis of the German nuclear industry. Reinbek 1983, ISBN 3499177560 .
  • Handheld dictionary of postal services . 3. Edition; P. 194.

See also

Web links

Commons : Siegfried Balke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Henkels : 99 Bonner Köpfe , Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1963. (p. 29)
  2. ^ Marie-Luise Heuser , Wolfgang König : Tabular compilations on the history of the VDI . In: Karl-Heinz Ludwig (Ed.): Technology, Engineers and Society - History of the Association of German Engineers 1856–1981 . VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1981, ISBN 3-18-400510-0 , p. 599-601 .
  3. ↑ The market economy postage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1954 ( online - June 16, 1954 ).
personal data
SURNAME Balke, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CSU), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Bochum
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1984
Place of death Munich