Uwe Witt (politician)

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Uwe Witt, 2020

Uwe Witt (born October 1, 1959 in Witten ) is a German politician who was a member of the AfD from 2013 to 2021 and a member of the Center Party since 2022 . He has been a member of the German Bundestag since the 2017 federal election .

Training, technical center, job

From 1977 to 1980, Witt completed an apprenticeship as a fitter at Thyssen Stahl AG . He worked there first as a fitter and grinder, later as a clerk for personnel planning for workers and as deputy head of the department for personnel planning and assessment. Between 1985 and 1989 he completed part-time studies to become a state-certified technician in the field of mechanical engineering at the Westfalen Technikum in Dortmund and postgraduate studies in human resources management (IDB) as well as further training courses for behavior-oriented process optimization at the University of Dortmund and for human resources and social affairs in the Ruhr - University of Bochum. From 1994, Witt worked for the Zeschky group of companies for nine years as head of human resources and later as a member of the management board.

self-employment as an entrepreneur

Before entering politics, Witt worked as an independent entrepreneur with three companies. For one of them, Witt GmbH, he had to file for bankruptcy in 2008. Witt intended to convert a former hotel in Heiddorf (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) into a residential and therapy center for disabled people. According to his own account, he got into political intrigues because such a facility was not wanted in the place. This contradicts statements made in the local press by the mayor of Neu Kaliss , to which Heiddorf belongs. According to this, prior to the auction of the hotel property, Witt was well aware of the ban on changes that the municipality had imposed. Witt unsuccessfully appealed against the ban before the Higher Administrative Court. The insolvency itself was due to an unexplained roof truss fire while the hotel was in operation, the damage of which was not covered by the insurance company. Witt also ran the company IPD GbR with a partner, which employed up to 28 full-time employees with industrial services. He was also the owner of the management consultancy WITT, which focused on advising gGmbHs.

For many years, Witt was involved in charitable organizations to support disabled people. Between 1977 and 1992 he was a member of IG Metall .

politics

Witt joined the Alternative for Germany in 2013, initially serving as an arbitrator in the state arbitration court of the AfD Schleswig-Holstein . After moving to North Rhine-Westphalia , he was elected as an assessor to the board of the AfD district association Ennepe-Ruhr in June 2014. At the same time, he was appointed spokesman for labor and social policy in the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia . He was also head of the state and federal committees of the Party for Labor and Social Affairs and a member of the federal program commission.

On September 24, 2017, Witt moved into the 19th German Bundestag as a member of parliament for the AfD via a list place in North Rhine-Westphalia . Witt's focus is labor and social policy. He was a full member and chairman of the Labor and Social Affairs Committee and was also a full member of the Health Committee . He was also a deputy member of the Tourism Committee and the Vocational Training Enquete Commission. He saw himself as part of the "left wing" of the AfD. In June 2018, in an interview on the topic "Does the AfD attract anti-Semites?", he expressed the hope of a second, successful party expulsion procedure against the Baden-Württemberg AfD member of parliament Wolfgang Gedeon , who was controversial because of anti-Semitism allegations , although such a procedure on the part of the Baden-Württemberg Württemberg state board in January 2018 "no prospects of success" were granted. Witt himself stated that he would not appear on panel discussions with Gedeon, who left the parliamentary group after internal quarrels, and expressed the opinion "that the majority of AfD members see it similarly".

On November 8, 2018, he was rejected for the first time in the election of the members of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe with the majority of the members of the SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Die Linke and FDP in the Bundestag. He was also not elected by the other parties in a further three ballots. His candidacy for the Board of Trustees of the Federal Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation failed a total of 18 times.

He was one of the spokesmen for the alternative center within the AfD North Rhine-Westphalia and in the federal working group of the AM and, according to his own statement, stands for "conservative-free and patriotic-bourgeois politics". The AM disbanded in parallel with the wing in 2019.

On September 13, 2019, Witt said in the German Bundestag that the SPD was "banned as a governing party". Witt reacted to a speech by Johannes Kahrs (SPD) on September 11, 2019, in which he said that the AfD should be banned. As a result, there was severe criticism from several factions regarding the history of German social democracy : in 1933 the SPD was banned by the rulers of the NSDAP .

In the 19th electoral term, Witt was spokesman for labor and social policy for the AfD parliamentary group and chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs of the German Bundestag, as well as spokesman for the parliamentary group on disabled people.

In the 2021 federal election , he managed to re-enter the Bundestag as the top candidate, ranking first in Schleswig-Holstein.

In November 2021, Witt spoke out against including Matthias Helferich , who was accused of controversial statements in older chats, in the new AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag. In fact, Helferich remained non-attached.

At the end of December 2021, he resigned from the AfD and its parliamentary group in response to party members “crossing borders” and remains a member of the Bundestag as a non-attached member of parliament. In January 2022, the German Center Party announced Witt's membership and declared that he would represent the party in the Bundestag.

Alternative union of workers

Witt is the founder of the Alternative Association of Employees (AVA) , which is organized as a registered association (eV). In 2020, Witt was confirmed as federal chairman for the third consecutive term. At the time Witt left the AfD, the association had fewer than 80 members.

According to a report by Correctiv , the AVA positions itself politically, like Witt, more on the left - in contrast to the AidA (employees in the AfD) and, according to the report, to the more right-wing ALARM (Alternativer Arbeiterverband Mitteldeutschland), Witt criticized them shortly before possibility negotiated by IG Metall to temporarily reduce weekly working hours to 28 hours a week, as this is "barely feasible" for companies. Instead of increasing the minimum wage , he advocates reducing subsidies , which is also in the AfD's election program: "We want to put small and medium-sized companies back in a position to make lasting profits so that they can pay good wages".

In 2018, Witt presented its own pension concept with the AVA.

web links

Commons : Uwe Witt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

itemizations

  1. a b c AVA eV Alternative union of employees - about us. Retrieved July 4, 2020 (German).
  2. Eichenhof hotelier Uwe Witt from Heiddorf has now had to file for bankruptcy. October 24, 2008, retrieved December 30, 2021 .
  3. About Us - AVA eV - Alternative Association of Workers. Retrieved November 17, 2021 (German).
  4. German Bundestag - Uwe Witt. Retrieved November 17, 2021 .
  5. German Bundestag - Uwe Witt. Retrieved January 20, 2022 .
  6. German Bundestag - MPs. Retrieved February 16, 2021 .
  7. AfD parliamentary group: Albrecht Glaser is to become AfD Bundestag Vice President in the period from September 27, 2017, retrieved on October 19, 2017.
  8. a b Ricarda Breyton: Does the AfD attract anti-Semites? In: welt.de . Die Welt, June 21, 2018, retrieved June 22, 2018 .
  9. Willi Reiners: AfD does not rule out Wolfgang Gedeon. In: stuttgarter-nachrichten.de . January 10, 2018, retrieved June 22, 2018 .
  10. In the mentioned interview with Ricarda Breyton, Witt claimed, probably erroneously, that the Baden-Württemberg AfD parliamentary group had “excluded” Gedeon; Gedeon himself announced: "I decided to take this step [that is, to leave the parliamentary group] of my own free will." He was "not pushed or put under pressure," said Jörg Braun, Gabriele Renz: Wolfgang Gedeon: That 's why he announced his resignation from the AfD parliamentary group. In: Südkurier.de . 6 July 2016, retrieved 23 June 2018 .
  11. Board of Trustees of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation elected , German Bundestag, November 9, 2018.
  12. Dennis Klein: Hirschfeld Foundation: 14th defeat for the AfD. Retrieved November 17, 2021 (German).
  13. Alternative Mitte - Our Speakers , accessed October 24, 2017.
  14. Group AM Germany . In: Alternative Central Germany . ( mitte-der-alternative.de [accessed January 14, 2018]).
  15. Kurzbiografie, AfD Nordrhein-Westfalen , retrieved October 19, 2017.
  16. WELT: "Alternative Mitte" of the NRW-AfD dissolves . In: THE WORLD . November 5, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed November 17, 2021]).
  17. ↑ Shorthand Report of the 113th Session , p. 13830 D.
  18. ↑ Shorthand Report of the 111th Session , p. 13650 C.
  19. Scandal in the Bundestag: AfD man speaks of SPD ban - comrades appalled. In: merkur.de. Münchner Merkur , September 14, 2019, retrieved January 19, 2022 .
  20. Scandal in the Bundestag: AfD man speaks of SPD ban - comrades appalled. In: merkur.de. Münchner Merkur , September 14, 2019, retrieved January 19, 2022 .
  21. Parliament, Nos. 6-8, 05 February 2018, pp. 4 and 5; https://www.bundestag.de/abzettele/biographien/W/-/524648 .
  22. AfD top candidate from Ostholstein: Uwe Witt wants to maintain Berlin mandate. Retrieved November 17, 2021 .
  23. Dortmund/Berlin: Anonymous mail warns of Dortmund AfD politicians. In: t-online.de. t-online , October 1, 2021, retrieved January 20, 2022 .
  24. AfD politician Helferich not invited to parliamentary group meeting. In: sueddeutsche.de. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 30, 2021, retrieved January 20, 2022 .
  25. Two MPs leave AfD and parliamentary group. In: The Mirror . 30 December 2021, retrieved 30 December 2021 .
  26. Press release: Accession of Uwe Witt: German Center Party represented again in the Bundestag. German Center Party, January 18, 2022, retrieved January 18, 2022 .
  27. Center Party returns to Bundestag. In: Mirror Online . January 18, 2022, retrieved January 18, 2022 .
  28. Frank Jansen : "I find it difficult to constantly wage war". In: The daily mirror . Der Tagesspiegel, January 18, 2022, retrieved January 19, 2022 .
  29. AidA | Workers in the AfD ( Memento of December 8, 2017 at the Internet Archive ).
  30. The workers' struggle in the AfD. In: correctiv.org. May 1, 2017, retrieved July 4, 2020 (German).
  31. Klaus Brandt, Theresa Martus: Workers' Party AfD? How the party is courting ex-SPD members , Berliner Morgenpost, April 5, 2018.
  32. ↑ Thesis paper - AVA eV - Alternative union of employees. Retrieved November 17, 2021 (German).
  33. Matthias Kamann: AfD: employee wing around Uwe Witt presents pension concept . In: The World . May 28, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed November 17, 2021]).