Walter Hailer

Walter Hailer (born March 16, 1905 in Ravensburg , † September 22, 1989 in Konstanz ) was a German lawyer and politician of the CDU .

After Hailer had started as a journalist for lack of professional prospects in the civil service, he managed to get into administration a little later. During the Second World War he acted as the de facto press chief of the German military administration in Belgium and northern France and was then taken prisoner of war.

After the war, Hailer continued his career in the administration of Baden-Württemberg and was also politically active; he ran for the office of mayor of Ulm in the mid-1950s , but was defeated. Subsequently, Hailer was, among other things, head of the representation of the state of Baden-Württemberg at the federal level and president of the administrative court and the state court of Baden-Württemberg .

Life

After attending the Ravensburg humanistic grammar school , Hailer first studied chemistry for three semesters in Tübingen and then switched to law in 1926. There he joined the Catholic student union Alamannia and cultivated a close friendship with the later Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Gebhard Müller . In 1930 Hailer passed his first higher judicial service examination and received his doctorate the following year. Although he had passed his second state examination in law with flying colors, the prospects of entering civil service were so poor that in 1933 he accepted the position of chief editor of the Rottweiler Schwarzwälder Volksfreund . The limited development opportunities due to the severely curtailed freedom of the press prompted Hailer to enter an administrative career. From 1934 to 1945 he worked as a government assessor, first until 1937 at the Calw District Office and in the Stuttgart Ministry of Economics, then as a government advisor at the Technical State Office in Ludwigsburg .

After he was drafted in World War II, Hailer was employed in occupied Belgium in Brussels as the "Upper War Administrator of the Press Office of the Presidential Office of the Chief of Military Administration ( Eggert Reeder )". He was originally responsible for the military censorship in the press office, but expanded his position to that of a de facto press chief. In September 1941, Hailer became a permanent employee of the Brussels newspaper , for which he wrote numerous comments on domestic affairs, and received monthly remuneration for this. At the end of the war he was together with Gebhard Müller on the German-Austrian border and then spent more than a year in French captivity.

Hailer returned to his career after 1946 and went first to the Ministry of Agriculture in Württemberg-Baden and then again to the State Technical Office in Ludwigsburg. In this city he was also appointed advisor to the Upper Land Consolidation Authority in 1948.

The reorganization of the city administration in Ulm offered Hailer the opportunity to run for the position of first alderman , which was successful thanks to his election by the local council. He headed both the head office and the personnel office. In February 1954, Hailer ran for the office of Lord Mayor of Ulm and stood up against his superior and incumbent Theodor Pfizer , but was clearly defeated because Pfizer received more than 76 percent of the valid votes. He resigned from the office of First Alderman and was replaced by Hans Lorenser in 1955 .

In 1954, Hailer became Senate President at the newly formed Land Consolidation Senate at the Baden-Württemberg Administrative Court . From 1957 to 1963 he worked as a ministerial director and, in 1960, succeeded the retired State Minister Oskar Farny in the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg as State Secretary, Head of the Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg at the Federal Government and a member of the Permanent Advisory Council of the Federal Council . In 1963, Hailer became President of the Administrative Court and the Disciplinary Court of Baden-Württemberg and remained so until his retirement in 1970. From 1965 to 1970 he was also Deputy President, then until July 1976 President of the State Court of Baden-Württemberg.

In his retirement, Hailer worked as an arbitrator on issues relating to the personnel status of the Franco-German Youth Office , as head of advanced training courses for senior civil servants and administrative judges, and as a member of the German Bundestag 's study commission on constitutional reform.

Hailer was married and had several children.

Awards

• Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Web links

• Biography at the Oberschwaben portal

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rolf Falter: De Brussels newspaper (1940-1944). In: Historica Lovaniensia 137, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Faculty of History), Löwen 1982, pp. 60 and 69.