Volkmar Gabert

Volkmar Gabert (born March 11, 1923 in Dreihunken (Drahůnky) , Czechoslovakia ; † February 19, 2003 in Unterhaching ) was a German social democratic politician .

His father was a teacher, mayor and a member of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic . After the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the entry of the German Wehrmacht into the Sudetenland , he fled with his parents from the National Socialists to Prague and emigrated to England in 1939 before the occupation of the Czech Republic, the so-called " smashing of the rest of Czechia" . There he earned his living as a farm worker, mechanic and iron turner. At the same time he was active in socialist exiled youth groups and was a member of the exile board of the Sudeten German Social Democrats.

In 1946 he came to Bavaria as a translator for the American armed forces. Since it was not possible to return home after the Second World War due to the expulsion of the Germans, he settled in Munich, where he was involved in looking after those who had been expelled from the homeland . In 1948 he joined the Bavarian SPD and participated in building the Munich Social Democrats. From 1950 to 1957 he was state chairman of the Young Socialists and from 1950 to 1978 a member of the Bavarian state parliament .

Volkmar Gabert was chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament from 1962 to 1976 and was elected chairman of the Bavarian state in 1963. He held this office until 1972 and achieved the best results for the Bavarian SPD in the state elections as the top candidate in the post-war period: 1962 : 35.3%, 1966 : 35.8% and 1970 : 33.3%. From 1964 to 1979 he was a member of the federal executive committee of the SPD. From 1976 to 1978 he was 2nd Vice President of the Bavarian State Parliament.

In 1971 he succeeded Waldemar von Knoeringen as chairman of the Georg von Vollmar Academy and from 1989 until his death he was its honorary chairman. From 1971 to 1988 Gabert acted as executive chairman of the working group of democratic socialists in the Alpine region. From 1986 he was chairman of the Seliger community for many years . From 1979 to 1984 he was a member of the European Parliament . In 1998 he became a member of the board of directors of the German-Czech future fund established as part of the German-Czech Declaration .

Gabert had been married to his wife Inge (1927–1994) since 1950, who was the state chairman of the Working Group of Social Democratic Women (AsF) in Bavaria until 1980 and who had also been awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit (July 4, 1991). From 1997 until his death, Volkmar Gabert was married to Ute, née Hageneder.

Honors

• 1962: Bavarian Order of Merit
• 1973: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1978: Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1983: Golden Citizen Medal of the City of Munich
• 1991: Waldemar von Knoeringen Prize from the Georg von Vollmar Academy
• 1997: European Charlemagne Prize of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Munich's OB as the SPD top candidate? Ude wants, but states conditions . Bavarian radio. August 12, 2011. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
2. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 31, No. 45, March 6, 1979.

Web links

• Literature by and about Volkmar Gabert in the catalog of the German National Library
• Volkmar Gabert on the Friedrich Ebert Foundation website (with photo)
• Entry on Volkmar Gabert in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Volkmar Gabert in the deputies database of the Bavarian State Parliament