Walter Krause (politician)

Walter Richard Erwin Krause (* 21st December 1912 in Munich , † 4. December 2000 in Mannheim ) was a German politician of the SPD .

Career

Walter Richard Erwin Krause was born in Munich in 1912 to parents from Silesia , as the father had found a job as a printer there. He was baptized Protestant and had lived in Mannheim since the mid-1920s, where he graduated from high school in 1931. He then began studying natural sciences at the University of Heidelberg , where he was also politically active as a member of the socialist student group, supported by a family that was influenced by social democracy, and he became the last chairman in 1933. For his political leanings in the winter term 1933/34 forcedly expelled , to Krause approached Social Democratic resistance groups on without it the Gestapo managed to pull him to account for it.

Due to his political attitude, Krause was unable to realize his dream career as a teacher. Instead he became a meteorologist in the Reich Weather Service . After the war, which he had spent as a meteorologist at various locations, he returned to Mannheim and in 1947 became a lecturer at the municipal engineering school . In November 1945 he joined the SPD and began a successful political career when he was elected to the district executive in 1948. In 1952 he was elected to the first state parliament of the new state of Baden-Württemberg, which was also the state constituent assembly. As a member of the Constitutional Committee, Krause took part in the deliberations on the constitution. Elected mayor for culture, school and sport in Mannheim in 1955, in this function he successfully campaigned for the conversion of the business school into a university, sustained the establishment of specialist rooms at schools, promoted the second educational path and built the vocational school system and adult education institutions.

He also took on additional responsibility in the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament. From 1958 to 1961 he was deputy group chairman, from 1961 to 1964 equal group chairman and from 1964 to 1966 sole chairman. From 1966 to 1968 he was the successor to Alex Möller as state chairman of the SPD Baden-Württemberg . After the formation of the grand coalition in the federal government, the FDP left the government in Baden-Württemberg. Negotiations between the CDU , SPD and FDP about the formation of a new government followed. To prevent a conceivable coalition between the SPD and FDP, the CDU, as the strongest party, decided to join forces with the Social Democrats with concessions to the SPD. The precondition for the entry of the Social Democrats into the government was the settlement of the school question, which had been considered unsolved since 1952 and which had previously granted the southern Württemberg simultaneous school system a constitutionally secured right of reservation . The agreement on the grand coalition took place on December 12, 1966 in the so-called "Night of the Long Knives" .

Walter Krause was promoted to interior minister and deputy prime minister of the new government. He was involved in the District Reform Act of July 26, 1971 (coming into force January 1, 1973) and the Regional Association Act of July 26, 1971. The district reform divided the country into nine urban and 35 rural districts, the four administrative districts were named after their respective seat. In some places the demarcation between the administrative districts has been changed, blurring the old border between Baden and Württemberg. The Regional Association Act replaced the previous 20 regional planning associations with twelve planning associations under public law. With the subsequent laws on community reform , which came into force on January 1, 1975, the number of independent communities shrank from 3379 (1969) to 1110. With this reform work the administrative order of the hyphenated federal state , which is still valid today, was established and the long process of the "internal" state establishment was initiated.

In the state elections in 1972, the CDU won an absolute majority of the seats. After that, Krause was briefly again chairman of the parliamentary group and after Hermann Veit's death from 1973 to 1980 his successor as deputy president of the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg .

Walter Krause died in Mannheim in 2000.

Honors

• 1969: Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1973: Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg
• Honorary citizen of the city of Mannheim.
• In 2015 a street in Mannheim was named after Walter Krause.

Fonts

• Worldwide aspects of cultural policy. 1960.
• Mannheim wants to become a university city. 1961.
• The national political alternative. SPD. Speech by the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group on July 15 in the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg. House of the Landtag, press office of the SPD parliamentary group, Stuttgart 1964.
• Thought model for district reform. Ministry of the Interior, District Reform, Stuttgart 1969 (special supplement to the state gazette for Baden-Württemberg No. 101).
• Federalism - tomorrow. 1969.
• Big City Heart Attack? , Self-published, Stuttgart / Mannheim 1975.

literature

• Georg Müller: Walter Krause. A Mannheimer for Baden-Württemberg. (= Special publication of the Mannheim City Archives No. 29). Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 2003. ISBN 978-3-89735-242-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Krause in the catalog of the German National Library
• Walter Krause and Baden-Württemberg state politics (dissertation) (PDF file; 9.07 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 85, May 8, 1973.
2. ↑ MARCHIVUM: Mannheimer street names, Walter Krause Street. Retrieved September 30, 2018 .