Thomas Schäfer (politician)

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Thomas Schäfer (2019)

Thomas Schäfer (born February 22, 1966 in Hemer ; † March 28, 2020 near Hochheim am Main ) was a German lawyer and politician ( CDU ). From August 31, 2010 until his death he was the Hessian finance minister .

Life

Thomas Schäfer grew up in Biedenkopf and attended the Lahntal School there until his Abitur in 1985 , where he was head of the school. After training as a banker at the local savings bank , Schäfer completed a law degree at the Philipps University of Marburg . In 1997, Schäfer passed his second state examination. From 1995 to 1998 he taught as a lecturer in private and public law at the German Employee Academy in Marburg.

After admission to the legal profession and related activities as a general counsel in the Commerzbank in Frankfurt Thomas Shepherd was founded in 1999 with a local legal work at Werner Frotscher Dr. jur. PhD .

At a young age he was a handball goalkeeper at TV Biedenkopf , a broken knee prevented him from pursuing a career in sport. In Dharamsala he met the Dalai Lama on a trip to India .

Schäfer was married and had a daughter and a son. He lived in his hometown of Biedenkopf and the Wiesbaden district of Mainz-Kostheim . On March 28, 2020, Schäfer was found dead near Hochheim am Main. Police and public prosecutor classify his death as a suicide ; there was a farewell letter.

politics

First cabinet meeting of the new black-green coalition at state level in Hesse on January 18, 2014

Thomas Schäfer joined the Junge Union in 1980 at the age of 14 . From 1985 to 1999 he was a member of their state board. 1985 to 2006 he was a member of the city council in Biedenkopf; from 1997 to 2003 as chairman of the CDU parliamentary group. With the change of government in Hesse in 1999 , Schäfer took over the management of the ministerial office of the Hessian Minister of Justice Christean Wagner . From May 2002 to October 2005 he was head of the policy department of the Hessian State Chancellery and the office of Prime Minister Roland Koch . From November 2005 to February 2009, Schäfer was State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of Justice under Minister Jürgen Banzer .

After the early Hessian state elections in 2009 , he was appointed State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of Finance in February 2009 under Karlheinz Weimar . At the time of the state rescue efforts for the car manufacturer Opel, which was stricken by the financial crisis and headquartered in Rüsselsheim , Hesse , Schäfer acted as coordinator of the four federal states with Opel locations. Following the resignation of Roland Koch and the reshuffle of the cabinet by the new Prime Minister Volker Bouffier in August 2010, Thomas Schäfer was sworn in as Hessian finance minister on August 31. From January 2014 he was also a member of the Hessian state parliament .

From 1990 to 2012 Schäfer was a member of the district council in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district . From 2002 to 2013 he was deputy district chairman in a Jamaica coalition and from 2013 district chairman of the CDU Marburg-Biedenkopf. From 2008 Schäfer was a member of the state executive committee of the CDU Hessen . From April 2011 he resumed his mandate in the city council in Biedenkopf, but resigned it in February 2012. On November 16, 2012, he resigned from the district council after 22 years. The background to this was the conclusion of a consolidation agreement with the state of Hesse in accordance with the protective shield law . Since the Hessian Ministry of Finance also took on tasks of municipal supervision, he wanted to avoid conflicts of interest.

In the state elections in Hesse in 2013 , Schäfer applied for the first time for a member of the parliament in the constituency of Marburg-Biedenkopf I. He was narrowly defeated by Angelika Löber ( SPD ). However, he succeeded in entering the state parliament via a list of his party. Five years later , he triumphed in the constituency by around 4,300 votes. With seven percentage points more first than second votes, he achieved the highest surplus of personal votes in the country. He was considered the most likely successor to Volker Bouffier as CDU candidate for the office of Hessian Prime Minister . After his death, Horst Falk moved up for him in the state parliament. Michael Boddenberg's successor as Minister .

Other offices

From 2005, Schäfer was a co-founder of the “Leben mit Krebs” foundation, and from 2011 he was a member of the foundation council of the Lebendige Stadt foundation .

As a minister, Schäfer was a member of various supervisory bodies, such as the board of directors of Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen , the supervisory board of Messe Frankfurt and the supervisory boards of Lotto Hessen and the Kassel-Calden airport company as chairman.

Cabinets

  • As State Secretary: Cabinet Koch II for Justice (2005–2009) and Koch III for Finance (2009–2010).
  • As finance minister: Bouffier I , II and III cabinets (2010–2019).

Web links

Commons : Thomas Schäfer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wiesbaden - Police Headquarters West Hesse: Hesse's Finance Minister Schäfer found dead. In: press portal. March 28, 2020, accessed March 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ Schäfer: A goalkeeper with an affinity for finance , Oberhessische Presse , October 10, 2018
  3. ↑ "He's already missing" , welt.de, March 29, 2020.
  4. ^ Hessian finance minister Thomas Schäfer dead. In: hessenschau.de. March 28, 2020, accessed March 28, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Jasper von Altenbockum : Crushed by worries? , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ,
  6. ↑ LTW 2018 constituency votes WK12 - Marburg-Biedenkopf I - final result.
  7. ↑ Tobias Rösmann: Finance Minister Thomas Schaefer. Roaring and sensitive . In: FAZ.NET March 28, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (CDU), MdL, Hessian finance minister
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Hemer
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 2020
Place of death near Hochheim am Main