Walter Menzel

This article deals with the SPD politician Walter Menzel. For the CDU politician see Walter Mentzel , for the philosopher and author see Walter Menzl .

Walter Menzel (born September 13, 1901 in Berlin ; † September 24, 1963 in Bad Harzburg ) was a German SPD politician . He was a member of the Parliamentary Council and is thus one of the "fathers" of the Basic Law .

Life and work

After attending secondary school , Menzel studied law and political science in Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau from 1920 to 1923 . After the legal traineeship in Berlin in 1923, he received his doctorate in law from the University of Breslau in 1925 . In 1927 he passed the Great State Examination in Law and then worked for a year as a district judge in Potsdam . After working as a finance advisor in the Prussian Ministry of Finance, he was appointed district administrator of the Oberlahnkreis in 1931 . At the age of 30, Menzel was the youngest district administrator in the Free State of Prussia.

After the National Socialists came to power , he was dismissed and, after a year of unemployment, was admitted to the bar in Berlin in 1934. As far as possible, he managed the assets of emigrated Jewish clients in trust; In 1937 he visited emigrated friends and acquaintances while on a trip to the USA. He defended persecuted people and people who were in the resistance, including Elisabeth Pungs . After 1945 he was also a notary . In 1946 he moved to the Upper Presidium of the Province of Westphalia , where he headed the General Department for Internal and General Administration. Later he was deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the Klöckner-Werke and managing director of the working committee “Fight against atomic death” .

Menzel was married to a daughter of the former Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing . He was awarded the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Cross of Merit.

Political party

Menzel joined the Socialist Workers' Youth in 1919 and the SPD two years later. He was also a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and the Socialist Lawyers' Association . In 1946 he was elected to the SPD party executive and in 1959 was a member of the program commission for the Godesberg program .

MP

Menzel was a member of the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1947 to 1954 . He was a member of the British Zone Advisory Council in 1947/48 and the Parliamentary Council in 1948/49. In the latter, he was deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group.

Menzel was a member of the German Bundestag from its first election in 1949 until his death in 1963. In 1949 he entered parliament via the SPD's state list, after which he was directly elected member of the Dortmund I constituency for two legislative periods , 1961 . Finally he was re-elected to the Bundestag via the SPD's state list. From February 15, 1951 to 1957, he was chairman of the Bundestag committee for the protection of the constitution, and from November 7, 1951 to 1953, he was also the chairman of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into document theft in the Federal Chancellery . From October 7, 1952 to 1961, he was the parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group.

Public offices

Menzel was Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia from August 29, 1946 to August 1, 1950 .

Publications

• The construction of the German republic , Phönix-Verlag, Minden 1946.
• The political and state order of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Hermann Wandersleb (Ed.), Law, State, Economy , Stuttgart, Cologne, 1950, Volume 2, Pages 122 to 130.
• Basic Law and Constitutional Reality. In: Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt, 1959, issue 10, pages 346 to 354.
• Parliamentary Politics in the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 13, Number 4, pages 509 to 519.

See also

Cabinet Amelunxen I - Cabinet Amelunxen II - Cabinet Arnold I

literature

• Ilse Fischer:  Menzel, Walter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 107 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Rudolf Vierhaus , Ludolf Herbst (eds.), Bruno Jahn (collaborators): Biographical manual of the members of the German Bundestag. 1949-2002. Vol. 1: A-M. KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-23782-0 , pp. 554-555.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Menzel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biographical note from the archive of social democracy, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
• Walter Menzel at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia
• Menzel, Walter. Hessian biography. (As of February 24, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Denazification files Walter Menzel (not NSDAP member)